Look around and you will see that you are surrounded by weight loss "secrets", diet pills that imply they can do it all for you, drinks that will "help" you lose weight, doctors with "secret weight loss formulas", fad diets that promise all kinds of wonderful weight loss effects...you can't help but wonder who's telling you the truth. Then there's the biggest question of all. Is there such a thing as a weight loss secret?
Something is only a "secret" as long as no one knows about it. The "truth" about weight loss has been known for a long time, so it's not really a secret.
If you take a look at the label of most diet pills, drinks, meal substitutes, diet books, and other weight loss problem, you will begin to notice that they often have one thing in common. Again and again, they have statements that say something to the effect of "...when used with exercise and proper nutrition."
The secret is, that most, if not all of these diet products at best only ASSIST in what nature can do almost perfectly well without their help!
The basic biology and physics of weight gain and weight loss has been known for years! Even if your math wasn't too good in school, this equation is easy. Take in more calories than you burn...you gain weight. Burn more calories than you take in...you lose weight. The problem, and it's not a secret, is that we are human!
SO WHAT'S WRONG WITH BEING HUMAN, BUD!
There is nothing wrong with BEING human. In fact, sometimes I even talk to one. I have a couple of human friends, one lives next door (I think), and I would even let my daughter marry one. The problem is that each human is, as Sister Mary Fides used to drum into our teenage human skulls, unique. This means that if I show you the perfect weight loss program and it works like a charm for you, your next door neighbor might have a problem making that exact program work for her or him.
WHY WOULD A WEIGHT LOSS PROGRAM WORK FOR ONE PERSON AND NOT ANOTHER?
As Shakespeare has Cassius say in Julius Caesar, "The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves...!"
Now, I am NOT saying that it is YOUR FAULT, per se, but the difficulty of making one magic thing, even the perfect weight loss program, lies in the very uniqueness that makes us so human.
One person inherits some genes that tend to make them fatter than others. Another person would have been a lot smaller, but they were raised in a home where a type of cooking or lifestyle was common that encouraged them to grow fatter. Someone else experiences some severe emotional ups and downs that contribute to bad eating habits that cause them to gain weight. Nature designed some chemical changes in our bodies to meet certain needs, and we changed OUR natural surroundings so that these changes now work against us rather than serving us. And if any one of those isn't enough, most people who are overweight actually have more than one of these things going on, and some of them actually increase the affect of other contributing factors!
We have other differences that make it difficult to create a one-size-fits-all weight loss program. Your brother-in-law loves to work out with weights, but that bores you to tears. Your neighbor has a Bowflex and you think it is great, but you travel a lot and can't figure out how to take a Bowflex with you! Your cousin lost a lot of weight on a certain diet, but your metabolism is different, and you didn't really lose any weight when you tried it. In fact, you tried diet after diet and actually GAINED weight! By the way, it is fairly common to gain weight when you try a lot of different diets. It's slightly complicated to go into here, but often when you go on a diet and then come back off of it, your body has learned to get by on fewer calories. Once you go back to eating like you used to, it now has extra calories to store as fat. Remember our equations up above?
There are also many people who want the "lose 30 pounds in 30 days" promise to be true. They have been so upset over their weight for so long that they want to believe that almost any claim is true, no matter how silly it seems, or how dangerous to their health it actually is!
CAN'T I JUST CUT WAY BACK ON CALORIES?
Probably, you (and I) could stand to cut some of the calories out of our daily diet. However, there is a point at which the body resets some internal bells and whistles, and we may actually begin to gain weight. Also, cutting out food means cutting out the nutritional elements our body needs to be healthy.
WELL, I CAN'T JUST SPEND MY DAY EXERCISING FROM DAWN TO DUSK!
That was the other side of the equation, wasn't it? Well, you're absolutely correct, and I would begin to worry about you if you did. You don't have to go to that extreme. There is a solution.
WHAT? YOU'LL SIGN ON AS MY PERSONAL TRAINER?
Nope! I'm too lazy for that, but YOU can sign on as your personal trainer. That is, you can do a little experimentation, find some activities you like and begin doing one or more of them on a regular basis...three or four times a week, let's say. You could garden, ride a bike, play with the kids or grandkids, take a walk, do some yoga, lift weights...the list goes on. You don't have to do all of them every day, and if you find one you really like, you can do it several times a week if you want. One thing to remember, of course, is that you should ease into any program and only increase it once you are sure that you are fine at the level you are at...and then, increase it gradually. I've seen some champion bodybuilders who started out lifting just the barbell with no weights on it at all, and I know of runners who started out by walking to the mailbox and back. In the army, I used to run six miles or more, but when I started running, I barely got a block down the road before I had to drop back to walking.
Start making some small changes to your diet as well. I am using the word "diet" in this case to mean the things you eat, not some particular diet. Start popping a multivitamin every day. You may find that helps make you feel a tiny bit more energetic. Cut out sugar. As much as I don't like artificial sweeteners, they are probably going to be better for you than sugar. If, like me, you worry about the effects of artificial sweeteners, try stevia. My wife and I have been using it for some time. It took a little getting used to, but I have noticed a definite decrease in heartburn and carb cravings.
Educate yourself about nutrition and exercise. You don't have to take a college course. If you are reading this online, you can go to webmd.com or mayoclinic.com/ and get a lot of great health, fitness, and weight loss information.
Read food labels, and start thinking about what you are putting in your mouth. Most of us can look at some foods and realize that they might not be good for us, at least not in large quantities, so cut you portion sizes. Don't know what a portion size is? Look on the label!
Stay away from prepackaged foods, junk food, fast food, or learn enough about them to make intelligent choices.
SET SOME GOALS
This is where I'm supposed to tell you to decide to lose X number of pounds in Y number of days, right? Wrong. This is where I tell you to start setting some performance goals about how you are going to try to live. I say "try" because you WILL slip from time to time, and there will be times you will just have to make do in a situation and eat that Big Mac, darn it! Go ahead, make the sacrifice and eat it, but then get back on the wagon. Don't worry about a Big Mac or a single bowl of ice cream or even a binge after you catch him/her cheating on you. The occasional dietary sin will not send you plunging back into fat hell...unless you let it.
ON THAT NOTE....
The point is that losing weight is going to happen today and tomorrow, and it is going to depend on the future choices you make, not on what the past has done to you.
It's the same as weight loss, everyone talks about it, many try it, but few succeed. There are thousands of get rich quick and get slim quick gimmicks. No wonder both the real estate investing information and weight loss products industries make billions!
Weight loss isn't easy, ask anyone who has tried it. However, the concept of weight loss is very basic, burn more calories than you ingest and your body will react accordingly.
Unless you have a medical disorder, this formula works for just about anyone. Simple as it may be, the formula is hard, meaning it takes a lot of discipline and hard work. So, the weight loss industry has offered us thousands of ways to make it easier. Many of these solutions do work, but they only work if you put forth effort.
Now, let's start with the premise you don't need any of these solutions to make real estate or weight loss work for you. You can eat less calories, go walking or jogging every day and you will lose weight.
But, having knowledge of the caloric content of different foods is relevant. Also, for many people, knowing the carbohydrate content is relevant. Having the advice of a physician, dietician and personal trainer will help you prevent injuries and maximum your effort.
Same principle applies to real estate, you can go out and make hundreds of offers to motivated sellers and find a good deal. However, having information about how to solve the seller's needs and construct an offer will help.
Having an attorney, real estate agent or guru to assist you with constructing the offer and the paperwork will make it easier. Having advice from other people who have already done hundreds of deals will also make it easier for you to learn from other people's success (and failures).
However, whether it's weight loss or real estate, the bottom line is not just knowing, but doing. You can't blame the diet if you don't stick to it. Many people have successfully lost weight using the Zone, Weight Watchers, Atkins and other similar plans.
Many people have succeeded with the famous guru plans, but many have failed, likely because they didn't give the required effort, not because the plan isn't effective.
Both real estate investing business and weight loss are simple, but neither is easy. It takes a lot of work. Having a proven system or plan helps, but only if you stick to it.
If the diet plan says, exercise 3x times per week, you can't be sloppy about it and expect results. It's like the people reading a book on the treadmill at the gym, if you can read a book, you're not working hard enough.
Likewise, people call newspaper ads and say hey, you wouldn't want to sell me your house cheap, would you?This is not doing it is trying. You have to give 100% to a particular plan or formula before you say, this stuff doesn't work.
Many people who are interested in weight loss join a gym or hire a personal trainer. From personal experience, I can say that both are great for weight loss. But, the weeks I didn't show up, it was a big waste of money!
The same thing goes for a real estate training system or mentor program - if you don't put forth any effort, it won't work! And, of course, you'll likely get bitter about all the money you spent and blame the guru. After all, it can't be your fault!
That brings us to another topic, the scam side of the real estate and weight loss business. Sure, the magic pills that melt off fat are probably a scam.
These snake oil salesman are offering the lazy and desperate people a solution, no work and results. Hah! If you bought into this scam you deserve to be parted from your money.
Likewise, any real estate guru who promises riches with no work is also a scam. My favorite promise is no selling involved, that's the biggest lie ever told.
No business can be successful without a certain amount of selling of their product or service to customers - period! So, while there is a dark side to the weight loss and real estate investing information businesses,
I assert that most people fail at both because of their own lack of action, not the fault of the systems.
If you aren't willing to work, another weight loss program or real estate seminar won't get you any more results than you are currently getting, save your money and take more consistent action with what you are currently doing.
However, if you are willing to work hard and take a lot of consistent action, a guru or program will likely give you more results. If you bought a book, course or program and already have results, another program, course or book will likely give you tools to get more results.
I often hear about successes people have with my real estate programs, but a lot of them are not first time successes. They are most often people who have already been successful, and, using my tools, became more successful.
If someone asks me whether my program will make them successful, I ask, what other programs have you bought? If they have already spend thousands on other programs and have done nothing, I discourage them from buying mine.
These people are looking for the elusive holy grail that all the other programs left out. More than likely, the missing element is lack of action on their part.
If you aren't willing to take action on a massive scale, you won't get more results by buying more products. If you have the discipline to work hard and take consistent action, then products and services will help you get there faster.
Whether you are looking to get rich or lose weight, the bottom line is you!
Both Donovan Baldwin & Richard Reichmann are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
Donovan Baldwin has sinced written about articles on various topics from Women, Health and Bodybuilding Supplements. The author is a graduate of the University of West Florida (1973) with a BA in Accounting. He is retired from the U. S. Army where he served for 21 years. He writes frequently on health, diet, fitness, and weight loss and has a blog at. Donovan Baldwin's top article generates over 1220000 views. to your Favourites.
Richard Reichmann has sinced written about articles on various topics from Real Estate, Property Investment and Health Insurance. Richard Reichmann is internationally known as a millionaire maker. He's a leading consultant in real estate and internet marketing strategies that are profit proven.Subscribe to our FREE newsletter Value $147.00. Richard Reichmann's top article generates over 8100 views. to your Favourites.