Eating and Exercising Forever

When I developed our clinic, after looking at many other sites both in both Canada and the US, and after numerous conversations with physicians who had worked with weight clients for over 30 years, I knew the challenge would never be in helping people lose weight. It would be in trying to help people develop healthy eating and exercising habits that they could continue for a lifetime. Losing weight is one part of the process. The second and most difficult part is keeping the weight off.
Too often everyone is looking for the ‘quick fix'. Sometimes I'm baffled when I realize someone actually thinks they will lose weight and ‘automatically' be able to keep it off. It takes work, but the results of good health, increased energy, and better mobility are worth it.
We are in a society where we move very little compared to even 30 years ago. Certainly we might be going to the gym 3 to 4 times per week, but this is not enough. We need to turn off our T.V.'s , turn off our computers and also walk, and bike or simply move more, in addition to those gym workouts.
The days are long now, and the weather is fine. We have ample opportunity to take an extra walk in the evening. Similarly, we cannot continue to give into those mindless snacks which sabotage any effort we have made at exercise. Throw out those snacks, we don't need them. They ruin our physical and emotional health.
Minimize TV viewing to 1 hour per night. As you've heard me write before, in the US they are trying to reduce the screen time of adolescents to 2 hours per day, down from the average of 4. Independent of weight gain, there is ample evidence that the more we sit the greater the health risk.
Is it easy? Not at all. Unfortunately our society has made life pretty simple and out of habit we are allowing TV, computers, Kindles and tablets to create an incredibly sedentary lifestyle.
So many people I talk to have a treadmill available in front of a TV, yet they don't use it. They prefer to sit to watch a program, when they could easily walk on the treadmill or use the stationary bike.
With food, it's very difficult. We are confronted daily with anything we want. Yet we do have the right to refuse. It's BBQ season and we can be very much in control of our portions. We can refuse to have desert. We need to keep our focus on the weight we want to be, the health we want to have, and the clothes we want to fit into. We need to learn to simply say "no thank you”.
Once smaller portions and regular activity become a habit in our daily lives, then we will find it much easier to keep our weight off. But all of us have to remain vigilant. Any change in our daily routine, any stress can throw us off.
Develop life skills, skills that will stick. Eating smaller portions and taking regular exercise are not just for a short time, they are forever.
You can do it!
Just keep trying, and don't ever give up.
Dr Doug