Losing Weight is Difficult. Lots of people who want to surf are hampered by being overweight. Many don’t consider themselves overweight or don’t look in the mirror and see a heavy person. I once had a student who after losing 120 said when he looked in the mirror at his 380 pound body, he didn’t see a fat person.
Knowing what our body type is might be important. The medical field classifies us as underweight, normal, overweight, obese, and extremely obese. We can plug our height and weight into a calculator and find out right away. We have to have a real motivation to begin the weight loss process because our body is trained to hang onto weight.
The Weight Loss Process
Our body’s DNA says hang onto weight so we won’t starve. More fundamental than that, our metabolism adjusts what it works on in our bodies to compensate for what is happening. When we exercise more, it takes the energy away from other processes to give energy to exercise. This is one reason exercise reduces stress and inflammation. Our body reduces its emphasis on them if we are focusing on exercise.
Early man had few of our metabolic disorders or heart attacks because his body focused using energy for all the walking and running he did to stay alive. They did not use more energy or burn more calories than modern man. Yes our sedentary behavior uses energy for stress and building inflammation since we often don’t engage in exercise.
In his book, Burn New Research Blows the Doors off How We Burn Calories, Herman Pontzer describes that all the diets can be good if we stick to them but one fad diet doesn’t have an advantage over the other. The only common ingredient that would work is if we consume fewer calories than we burn. Whether its high fat, high carbs, low carbs doesn’t have much effect.
A second problem is our metabolism slows down to adjust to changes we are making like burning more energy exercising or eating less food to lose weight. It tries to hold our body in homeostasis. Heavier people have higher metabolism than lighter people because the number one resting energy burner is digestion. Unconscious efforts of the body like our heart, brain, and organs consume 60% of our energy.
Whereas exercise doesn’t do a lot to take off weight, it will keep the weight off once it is lost. Exercise is healthy for humans more than our compatriots in the ape world who have slower metabolism than we do and don’t exercise as much in a day as the common man. Exercise keeps our body focused on using energy and helps all our systems. Exercise can burn fat for fuel and recovery.
The final conclusion is that only reducing calorie intake below what we burn will cause weight loss. The body adjusts to more exercise. Reducing calories and exercising is a good combination. In one test, a man ate only fast food for 30 days and lost weight. He did consume fewer calories than he burned.
Make weight loss a long term health goal. Create an exercise program and an eating program. Begin to eat better foods. Exercise daily. You will start to feel better. Drink lots of water. I drink almost a gallon a day. Our bodies have about 17 gallons of water, so one is not a lot. Water helps the body digest and leaves energy for digestion instead of seeking water in our food.
In my new book Get Fit to Surf, I introduce a good program for beginning the long term process of getting healthy and fit by losing weight as we get stronger. Both are great for surfing.
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See the book on Getting Fit to Surf and Losing Weight at the same time. A great combination for changing your lifestyle and improving your health. Everything becomes possible when you are fit.
Buy the E-Book on Kindle $5.99
Buy the Paperback on Amazon $7.99
Get the book Everybody Can Surf. It is a great guide for those who have been inactive or are overweight. Learn how to get the body in motion, start exercises to improve surf specific muscles, develop the flexibility for the pop up, and how to begin a weight loss program. Also learn all the fundamentals learned in a surf lesson for catching and riding waves.
Buy the E-Book on Kindle for $5.99 (the E-book cover is different for the moment)
Buy the Paperback on Amazon $7.99
