Your Waist Can Weight
Now is the time to resist the urge to be seduced by the hype of 6 pack abs, firmer thighs and the like. You can't make-up for all that excess food consumption. It is going to take some time to slow down your eating and get into a regular activity pattern. Instead take a deep breath and think about what you really want to accomplish for your health and fitness for 2009.

Take Your Time and Plan
Instead of a "feel good" desperation purchase of some gadget or gizmo that will tone your abs or your butt, take a few minutes and write down your goals. Once you have a goal or two on paper, decide how you are going to best accomplish these goals. What have you done in the past? Did you join the gym only to stop after 90 days? Why did you stop? Boring? No fun? No one to play with? It makes little sense to keep going through the same old song and dance and never really accomplishing your dreams.

Get Some Help
A good support team is the make or break part of the deal. If you have support of friends, loved ones and maybe even work mates, you WILL accomplish your goals. The failure rate is very high for people who try to go it alone. If you decide to join the gym, take some extra money and hire a trainer. Even just for a couple of sessions, they can help create a well balanced program that will be effective and fun. Consider returning for a refresher course once every three months. That way you'll  have some fresh material to work with keeping you interested longer.

Don't Do The Same Old Thing
This year, try avoiding the same old thing which is to join a gym, go for 90 days and then quit. All you will do is make yourself feel bad. To feel like a success rather than a failure,  follow the suggestions above and do some planning before you go. You will make much better use of your time and money for 2009.   
 

For over 25 years I have been helping clients lose weight. Based on my experience, stress induced overeating is the real culprit to weight gain. In the typical diet and exercise programs, little time is spent on reducing stress. That is why these programs are rarely successful at permanently reversing weight gain. Overeating is simply an unhealthy reaction to stress and contributes to most overweight conditions. In an attempt to feel better, you use food to change mood. The worse you feel the more you eat. That is the cycle we are currently stuck in with our obesity epidemic. The more successful strategy is to reduce your stress which in turn will eliminate the overeating and overweight.

For a long time, fitness and diets have been incorrectly used for weight loss. Fitness is important for health but it is a poor tool for weight loss. If you rely upon fitness for weight loss then once you stop exercising, up goes the weight. It is better to use exercise to improve health and reduce stress but not directly to "burn calories" or anything tied to weight loss itself. Diets are restrictive and most people can only limit themselves for so long. This advice obviously goes against everything you read and hear especially this time of year. Once you get a handle on the stressors that make you overeat, the weight will just come right off. If your weight is out of control, it's a good indicator that your stress is too high and you are using food for more than just nutrition.

Your brain relies on a hormone called serotonin to feel good. High stress living creates hormonal changes in your body depleting serotonin and raising cortisol levels. Cortisol promotes fat storage and weight gain, not weight loss. Food (especially carbohydrates) temporarily increase serotonin levels in your brain. Overeating is an unhealthy attempt to restore serotonin. But food only restores a small amount and you continue to eat because it feels good. You need more food each time to produce the same feeling and get the same amount of serotonin.  Sound familiar?
 

Reducing stress then is the key to stopping overeating and promoting weight loss. Look for ways other than food to reduce stress and raise serotonin and of course the weight comes off because you are eating less. You are eating less NOT because you are on a diet but because you don't have the same level of hunger. If the stress is not there, the hunger drive is dramatically reduced. The key then is to reduce stress and learn to place food in a more appropriate place in your life.

Joining a health club is only good if you use it. The latest stats show that a majority of people who join only use their membership for 90 days. I had a feeling this was true every April 1st having worked for a large health club in Herndon, VA. Now the experts have confirmed what I had suspected. The other rub is instead of paying $30 a month like you thought, now you actually pay closer to $90 because your paying for 12 and only using 3. 

I place 50% of the blame for this phenomenon on the health clubs. The other 50% of course is placed on you. Health clubs in their current configuration do little to foster community. You generally go alone, workout alone and leave alone. Studies on people and exercise show that two things make the biggest difference in exercise participation frequency. The first is working with an instructor or trainer and the second is having a partner. Having a partner is important for two reasons, it DOUBLES the amount of time you'll spend exercising and it doesn't cost you anymore in the process.

So until health clubs change for the better, find a partner and do something to improve your exercise participation. You will get more regular exercise, feel and look better and improve your health and quality of life so you can have more fun for 2009. 

Sitting in a restaurant the other night I saw a couple both staring at their Blackberry's instead of each other. The man appeared close to normal weight, the woman was very overweight. Ordering the meal, they continued to talk, eat and use their Blackberry's. At one point during the meal the lady asked the waiter for a package of Splenda to sweeten her tea.

So what is the point to this story you ask? There is an irony in watching someone who is very overweight mindlessly consume 100's of calories only to ask for Splenda to save a few. Mindless and distracted overeating is to blame for much of today's obesity epidemic. The keys to successful weight loss are paying attention to what you eat, staying away from diet foods (they only make you fatter) and enjoying and savoring your food. That poor woman will always battle her weight if she continually pinches pennies and wastes dollars.  

Being overweight is not as big a deal as you probably think. The latest research has shown fitness and conditioning to be more important than what you weigh. Sure, it's not good to carry around lots of extra pounds but compared to your fitness and health levels, it is not really that important either. For 2009 forget about how much you weigh and instead concentrate on what matters most, your conditioning levels and your health. With this whole new focus you'll be surprised how fast the weight will come off. You'll feel better and enjoy your life more. It is a mindset shift that will yield great results.