At Ashewell we know the fountain of youth is diet and exercise. I can prescribe all the pills in the world, but only you can peel ten years off your age with healthy lifestyle changes.
I meet patients all the time who have successfully lost significant amounts of weight (50-80 lbs) only to put some or all back on again. Sustained weight loss takes permanent changes including continuing the exercise regimen you established to lose the weight in the first place. This is an interesting article which is based on a study which showed how stopping an exercise regimen following weight loss made people less likely to move overall throughout their day. They found that a continued exercise regime made people less sedentary overall helping to keep the weight off.
Recommendations change so we focus on advice which is sound and unlikely to hurt you. I advise my patients to make sure they’re getting 2 to 3 days of cardio a week, and at least two days of strength training. This can all be done from home. If you have injuries or joint issues, the pool is extremely forgiving. A YMCA membership ranges from $59/month for individuals and $89/month for a whole family. They have need based programs as well which you can apply for at any YMCA location. In addition, they have several programs geared towards healthy aging, pre-diabetics and diabetes management. If this sounds expensive let me remind you that dinner and a movie for 4 these days is about $100. You can’t put a price on happiness as my father would say, and most people recognize health and happiness as one in the same.
We can’t talk about weight loss and health without the mention of diet. I know too many of you a plant-based diet sounds simply un-American. I think if you take a look at the diseases that are plaguing Americans though, diabetes, heart disease, and cancer and our growing waistlines, it isn’t a stretch to blame our health issues on our meat heavy, processed diets. Fast food is your enemy – yeah, I said it, and you shouldn’t be eating it, even on road trips. Consuming a single sweetened beverage a day is equal to 12 lbs of weight gained a year. At Ashewell we encourage our patients to adopt simple, natural and unprocessed food cooked at home. You can eat all the veggies and fruit you want. We encourage the addition of whole grains. Dairy and eggs are debatable and I have written at length about these in the past. I personally consume both but only if they are hormone and antibiotic free and only in limited amounts. You will get plenty of protein through this diet, trust me, never seen a protein deficient American, vegetarian or not.
Listen to me, sounding all radical. I think though there is something to be said about adopting a health conscious way of life. Which takes me to my point: sustained weight loss is about lifestyle changes which truly need to last a lifetime.
Have a great weekend. It’s super hot midday so get out for your 30 minutes of sweating early when these mountains are still beautifully cool! We are so lucky!!!