If I have to sum up which are the most common questions people ask me, I’d go ahead like this: Ï am doing everything properly, but I am not losing weight. I eat the right things, but there are no results. Why?”
When fooling yourself, that you are actually doing something to change in a better direction, is equal to ignoring reality and remodeling it in order to fit your own notion and your own illusion of how things should happen, the dreamed results are usually cursed to failure. Ignoring reality and the facts is the most secure way to never achieve your goals.
As I love saying, with the exception of some pathological cases, which in contrast with what most people seem to believe, are actually rare, there isn’t such a thing as Ï do everything right, but I do not have any results.” I could agree that if you’ve been ruining your body for a long period of time, and throughout your whole life you’ve been “working hard” to go against your biology and your health, once you change your lifestyle for the better, the results will be slower to take place, but there will always be such- i.e. your progress might be slow and reaching the end goal might take more time, but this will not make you feel as if nothing is happening.
I insist on saying that I am often astonished by people’s incline to identify with different diseases, resistances and syndromes and then blame them for their own lack of consistency and adequate actions. Because even though it might be painful, the truth is just one- all these diseases are actually symptoms. They are the symptoms, through which your body is screaming that what we are doing to The moment, you take actions to sustain your health and change your lifestyle, these symptoms will slowly but surely disappear. I insist on emphasizing- SLOWLY!
It’s just how things happen. You’ve been “taking good care”for your diseases with your unhealthy habits and now you can’t expect it to just be gone in two months. Sometimes you might need YEARS, in order to turn the destructive course of your health and make it slowly crawl towards improvement. You need to take the time- it might seem like eternity, but it is surely worth the efforts and the patience. After all it is far better to live the rest of your life, feeling better every day, than building your life on the unstable base of excuses and putting up with the nonsense that if it takes so long, you better not make the effort.
But still, as always I got a little bit off topic, but I love writing and reading and sometimes I want to share with you some thoughts and passions- even if some of you consider me to be arrogant and direct. As I love saying, I think that true friends tell you the truth even when they know that it will hurt you, instead of feeding the lie and watching you slowly but surely destroying yourself. Well, even though it is a virtual world, I consider you to be my friends!
And now, what are the reasons your diet is having the opposite effect, and instead of making you lose weight, it is making you gain weight.
1.You really choose quality food, but you think that this choice is a green light to eat in unlimited quantities.
It is time to understand that food is fuel. And as such, it doesn’t matter if it is good quality food or bad quality- if you overeat and overdo the quantities, the results will be far from what you wish. The excess fuel, will always be transformed and stored for later use.
The difference between unhealthy and healthy food is the ability of your body to distinguish it and then use it according to its purpose, so it can fuel the biological processes that are taking place.
The risk of eating unhealthy food in smaller quantities, so you do not exaggerate your daily energy expenditure, is not limited to your weight. Do not forget that your diet is not with the mere goal- appearance. There is a deeper more meaningful goal- HEALTH. By eating junk, we are constantly giving our body material, which it can’t distinguish. Material, which it doesn’t know how to partion. Material which bugs the proper functioning and then leads to a bunch of messes. Take a machine and pour inside a liquid or hard particles, which it doesn’t distinguish and which it doesn’t know how to use. The machine will break down. Exactly the same happens with your body.
Here, I wrote a post, where I shared about an experiment I made and the shocking results I got. This post will explain you why even though you are eating healthy, you lack results.
2. You eat too many “healthy desserts”
I love cooking and I love experimenting with different recipes for healthy desserts, as you’ve probably noticed from the Recipe index on my website. Still, do not get fooled that I eat mainly these foods. This kind of desserts, are usually calorie dense and you can easily go overboard with the quantities. After all, as you already know, healthy food in unlimited quantities might interfere with your progress. In the Universe nothing evaporates and nothing loses existence. Everything is being transformed with one or another form of energy. And if you eat a bunch of Paleo Banana Tartalets , or if you are constantly eating Chocolate Avocado Mousse, no wonder that you are in a plateau.
The word “healthy” is more the excuse you are using in front of yourself. An excuse, that if it has the label “healthy”, then it is allowed. Actually everything is allowed, the thing is that if you have a goal, you should know which actions will lead to it.
My advice is to stick to eggs, steaks, fish, veggies and avocado, and as far as healthy desserts are concerned, leave them for some sporadic occasions. Healthy desserts are what you better choose when you have the desire to eat some junk. In this case, you better eat healthy chocolates, even though they are calorie dense, instead of buying some processed crap.
3.You have the wrong definition for “diet”
A lot of people don’t seem to achieve their goals, even though they are following a diet. The reason is in their wrong definition for diet. Most people underestimate this fact, but the way you approach nutrition has a key role, when it comes to if you are gonna achieve your goals or not. Definitions are what dictates your following actions and when your definition for healthy is wrong, no wonder that you don’t see the results you want.
Many people approach diets as starvation and torture. A Torture which is worth the tolls, keeping in mind the desired end goal. This approach will always take you to the wrong nutrition plans. The most common diets, miss the most important premise, which guarantees a fit and athletic body – HEALTH!
When your body is healthy and when it functions properly, then you won’t need to fight with it and deprive it from something in order to get what you aim for.
If for you a nutrition plan is just the way you provide your body with quality food; the way you give your body the material it needs in order to function properly, then you automatically exclude the ridiculous diets, which spin you in an enchanted circle of starvation and the binge eating that follows; the guilt that settles and the strong feeling of dissatisfaction and lack of results.
The first and most important condition in order to sustain normal bodyweight is to be healthy. As weird as it may sound, the excess weight is just a symptom for some kind of dysfunction- even if this dysfunction means damaged metabolism.
Ridiculous diets, which have the mere goal to get you to the superficial- the appearance, without taking in concern the meaningful- the function, are just sharpening the symptoms and depriving you from the ability to finally achieve your goals.
4.You are following the wrong “rules”
No matter what we do, we usually start our journey towards our goal, by following not the rules, which are in synchrony with our own convictions, but by following the rules of those, who in one way or another, have already got the results we strive for. And there is nothing wrong with this, but only if you accept it as a temporary plan.
I firmly believe that success leaves footprints and that we should learn from those who have already achieved what we want. Still, everybody should adapt the common valid rules of success, to his own personality, convictions and lifestyle.
Every one of us starts his journey towards a particular goal, by using the ready template, created by somebody who has walked before us, but it is our duty, in the process of traveling, to change and adapt everything to our own self.
Just because I am eating eggs and pork steaks and I have achieved something when it comes to being fit and healthy, this doesn’t mean that if you are disgusted by eggs, you should force yourself eating them.
You can achieve the same results with your own body, by using the basics- real food! But the macronutrient proportions and the variety of foods, should fit your own taste.
I will tell you a secret. In the past I used to believe that strict schemes and rules are the key. Back then I didn’t achieve anything. Today, I really don’t care. I can eat two times today. Tomorrow I can eat four. Today I could eat steaks all day long, but tomorrow I might not eat them at all. And I won’t feel as if I’ve got off the diet. My diet is being exhausted with this- real food in quantities which satisfy my body’s needs.
From then on, everything is minor. When food is not the center of your life, you will achieve everything with ease. The more you chase something, the more it will run away from you.
Release the armful and stop going into extremes. Your athletic version exists and it is just a matter of time to let it happen- give yourself some time and freedom and you will achieve it!
5. You live against the laws of nature
If there is one thing, which is the foundation of my philosophy about life and every area we choose as our endeavor, this is that everything happens in synchrony with nature’s laws. The once which run the world; the laws which are valid in nature. I think that we have distant ourselves from nature and the essence of everything and that is why our life is a constant fight. By ignoring the laws, we are failing to understand where we make a mistake and what is it that makes us stumble over and interferes with our goals.
Here, I can write a short book, but I will give you just some food for thought.
We think that diet is the only reason for excess weight. This for the most part is true. It is true that the quality and the type of food we eat, has a tremendous effect on the way our body functions and the way this is being expressed on our appearance.
Still, there is something else. Often times, especially in our contemporary society, food is something like an outlet. Food is the salvation, where most people try to drown their emotions; food is the shelter; the tool we use to get away from reality and the way we take our attention off of what we should do, but what we desperately want to avoid.
We’ve made food to be our escape. An escape from the present moment and an escape from conscious living. The lack of consciousness and presence, is what day after day is slowly killing us, sucking life away from our existence and leaving us to become minor people, walking on the surface of Earth, surrounded by abundance but ignoring it and suffering from a deficit of meaning.
I think that for everything in life, for every problem and everything that happens, the answer is hidden in nature. If we observe it enough, we will always find an analog in nature, for our present situation and we will always have the opportunity to observe what happens in nature and how we can act in our own life.
What is the analog, in nature, of an overweight person?
I am gonna surprise you! The answer is STARS! Have you ever thought about the similarities between people and stars? And I am not talking about the superficial answer about the glitter and success. Stars use fuel in order to emit light. The most quality fuel for stars is hydrogen. When stars run out of hydrogen, they start using another type of fuel, but they can’t function optimally. The new fuel is not the same and stars change their light. With this change stars start slowly dying. Do you know what happens with dying stars? They expand!
Does this make you think about something? People and the fuel they use. If we eat quality food, then our body receives the best fuel and then it functions optimally and we “glitter”- with appearance, athletics and functionality. Change the fuel and start eating crappy food- your appearance changes and your body, similarly to stars starts expanding and you start getting fatter.
Do you understand how important is food? Do you understand why a diet which does not fit the most important condition- health, but a diet which is just limiting calories, allowing for low quality fuel, makes your body expand and die?
I can’t wait to share with you a project I’ve been working on. It’s called IFS Journal- my FREE online magazine. Go ahead and subscribe for it HERE.
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A couple pictures of me and some of my clients:)
