Diet Trick: Lose Weight and Exercise – But Not at the Same Time

Let’s say you’ve finally decided that you want to mend your ways and give up a sedentary life of wanton Scooter Pies and MaryJane abuse. You want to get healthy and take off all those extra pounds.

Great – glad you’re here.

Please note that the following is NOT for folks who’ve put on 5-10 extra pounds and want to peel that off. This is for the folks who, due to years and years of bad eating and bad living (that might have been quite fun along the way), have porked up way above what any person should be carrying around – 40, 50, maybe 100 pounds or more.

I’m talking to you.

Now, you’re reading this because you are looking for a way to start. Some trick to get you going and start that weight loss going.

I won’t disappoint you. Here’s a trick.

Don’t exercise.

There – I said it. I have now turned off legions of joggers, spinners, lifters and fitness junkies that will probably call me lazy AND stupid – among a lot of other things.

Hear me out.

I’m imagining this post for the folks who’ve spent 20 years being fat and not exercising. Jeez – you have problems getting out of a chair…and the exercise junkies want you to exercise?

Please.

Go on a diet first. I’m a low-carb person myself, but I understand people are different and there are a lot of ways to lose weight.

The one common thread of low carb and low-calorie that I think neither camp would disagree with is: cut the crap.

Ditch the cookies, ditch the fries, the chips, the ice cream – and anything that comes in a box with a list of chemicals a mile long. Don’t be tricked by calorie counts on the packages or the word  ‘healthy’ on the label. Avoid them like the plague.

Cut down on the processed foods as much as possible. Eat fresh vegetables – or frozen. Look for ingredient labels that only have ingredients you can pronounce drunk. Don’t be afraid of meat – buy the freshest and best quality you can find and afford. Steer clear of processed meats as much as possible.

Learn to eat simpler. Don’t live on anything that gets cooked in a plastic tray in a microwave. Learn to cook a little bit. You’re not trying to be a chef, just experiment with simple stuff – there’s plenty of recipes on the Internet.

I don’t want to trivialize this step – it is going to be AWFUL at first. A decades’ long diet of crap food is as addictive as crack cocaine. All this healthy stuff is not going to make your crack cocaine-level addiction to food happy at all.

You are going to be cranky and miserable for at least a few weeks – and that’s why I think you shouldn’t even TRY to exercise.

If you don’t exercise and don’t like it, don’t think it is a necessity at first. In fact, given the misery you are going to go through going cold turkey on the Snickers bars and Big Macs, why add injury to insult by stretching you ability to cope by exercising?

Focus on the diet first. Give it time to become ingrained. Get over the cold turkey. You’ll begin to feel better when you eat better and take better care of yourself. Try different diet approaches and find out what works for you. Lose some weight.

I guarantee: when you’ve got yourself feeling better and lighter, you are going to WANT to exercise. It will come naturally, when you are ready for it.