Getting Past What Holds You Back with Baby Boomer Weight Loss Expert Scott 'Q' Marcus
One reason so many people lose weight — and then unhappily put it back on again — is because they ask of themselves the wrong question.
Based on that question, they will seek out the answers that focus on speed and never learn how to maintain their weight since that wasn’t in the question.
As a matter of fact, they are the most expensive treats you will ever buy. Watch the video and see why.
By that I mean, if you are overweight and you’re not doing something to lose weight, you’re going to gain it; there’s no middle ground. People who battle obesity consistently fool themselves into thinking they can “take a break” and “maintain for awhile.” They can’t. After all, if they could, why would they not have “maintained” ten or twenty pounds lower? That’s not meant to be snarky; it’s just truth.
Eventually the reality, “I’ve let it get out of control” sets in, closely tailed by panic. When that occurs, logic beats a hasty exit and all sorts of strange get-thin-quick behaviors show up on the front porch.
One of which is “The Cleanse.”To lay all my cards on the table, I’m not a fan. One reason is that so many “cleanses” are bizarre at best, even downright unhealthy — not to mention unsustainable.
To that point, I relay a recent conversation with a friend. “I’m on day four of a seven-day cleanse,” he said. “I need advice. I’m starving. I can’t think. I’m ready to bite someone’s head off and all I can think of is eating. What do I do?”
Curious, I asked, “Why are you doing this? Why not a more balanced approach like cutting back a little here and there and adding in some exercise? That would work much better — without the side effects.”
“My girlfriend and I wanted to kick start the weight loss. We found this on line.”
My inclination is that he doesn’t, but what do I know? Maybe he gets as tired of peeing on the same bushes as I do as walking the same sidewalks. Anyway, bottom line is I take him out on a long walk every morning and, to be honest, can sometimes find it dulling. The solution? I plug in my always-falling-out-of-my-ear-buds and listen to radio.
I’ve been writing this column for more than a decade and if you’ve followed it more than, oh, about three weeks, you know that “miracle weight loss products” are one of my prime bugaboos, causing me to become very curmudgeonly and my head to explode. This was no exception; especially because the first words in the advert — even before I knew what was being promoted — were,
“A healthy diet and exercise plan should be part of any weight reduction routine.”
One lad is a confirmed pessimist, his sibling the decisive optimist. Wanting to advance the cynical child’s outlook and guard the other from disappointment by teaching him that things don’t always go as expected, the parents come up with a scheme.
On Christmas morning, each youngster awakens to find his own sizeable, wrapped present. The dour child opens his and discovers in it the ultimate building set. As if on que, his demeanor sours and he whines, “There are too many pieces, I’m know I’ll lose a whole bunch of them and then I’ll be sad. Why would you do that to me?”
The upbeat sibling, on the other hand, unwraps his only to find a dirty, rusty horseshoe atop wads of paper. Undeterred by what appears to be a mean, lousy gift, he eagerly starts digging through the papers excitedly proclaiming, “Wow! There’s got to a pony in here somewhere!”
I normally don’t write “how-to” columns but a coaching client recently asked how she could become more upbeat, so I thought, “What the heck, might as well share it more widely.” Making our planet a bit more cheery, one reader at a time, here are four of the more common reasons one’s attitude can take a trip to the dumpster.