Renew Your Resolutions!

Happy New Year again, everyone!  For those of us who go work out at the gym on a regular basis, how many of you have noticed that on January 1, there are a lot of new faces at the gym?  Many people either received gym memberships as a gift, or decided to finally get in shape for the New Year, and went out and purchased a membership for themselves.  Have you noticed, as I have, that many of these new faces are gone by Valentine’s Day?  Unfortunately, many people find that working out on a regular basis is difficult, and for whatever reason, decide that they are no longer interested in using their new gym memberships.  It may be a lack of will power, a lack of time, a lack of knowledge as to how to properly use the machines, intimidation at seeing how much weight other people are lifting, or just embarrassment as to their own inexperience in this area.  I mention these things not in judgment, but in acknowledgement of how hard change can be.  I know myself that when I was younger, I wanted to be like and look like Arnold Schwarzenegger, mainly to look good for the girls, as I was a tall skinny kid growing up.  Except for the fact that my English is better, and I didn’t use “performance enhancers”, I lacked the discipline to do what was necessary, and injured myself several times in the process.  I vividly remember one over-indulgence in the gym that resulted in me not being able to bend my right arm for two days without feeling the burn of the lactic acid buildup.  Not an experience I want to repeat.  

Have you also noticed that watching your weight and diet is also not easily accomplished?  Again, change is difficult, and bad eating habits are not learned overnight.  In many cases these bad habits have been going on for many years, leading us all not to feel happy when we look in the mirror.  It is not possible to change them overnight, not should we expect to be able to do this.  Add to this, there are a lot of fad diets and misinformation out there, which I have discussed in previous postings.  It’s no wonder that people are confused.  As I have previously posted, diets don’t work, and of those who do try diets, 95% gain the weight back in 1 year, 97% gain the weight back in 2 years.  In order for a person to be successful with weight management, a lifestyle change is needed to learn new healthy habits, and unlearn bad habits.  Massive weight loss in a short period of time with no effort is not possible.  The only way I know to do this is through the Food Poisoning Diet, where I lost 10 pounds in one day (I will spare you the gory details of this), and I don’t recommend that diet to anyone.  Add to this is the fact that much of what we eat doesn’t even qualify as food.  It’s no wonder that people looking to make a change in this area have a hard time doing so. 

This obviously leads to a number of questions, such as:

• What is the best way for me to lose weight?
• What exercises should I be doing? 
• Is there a way to make exercise fun? 

I will talk about many of these things in future posts.  However, I bring this up to talk about my upcoming Renew Your Resolutions seminar series.  I will be posting more details in the news area, but this is 3 week series, where I will be discussing proper nutrition and how to read food labels, a proper method of weight management, and proper exercise.  I am pleased to be working with two personal trainers, who will be discussion proper workout methods.  Please contact me for more details about this upcoming seminar series. 

To Your Good Health!  

Dr. Harvey