Ask A Bay Area Expert: How To Keep Your New Year's Weight Loss Resolution
A "new year, a new you," or so the saying goes, but just how do you maintain the positive changes you brought into 2016? For many people, those changes include fitness programs, along with promises to exercise more, sleep better and eat healthier too, and often with a goal to lose weight. While all that is great, you may be worried. The question asked by the time March rolls around — how do you maintain that precious weight loss — may be scaring you even as you stick to your new lifestyle. Read on for five tips from a Bay Area pro on how to keep your weight loss New Year's resolution.
Heather Thompson
The Bar Method Downtown
3 Embarcadero Center.
San Francisco, CA 94111
(415) 956-0446
www.downtownsf.barmethod.com
Heather Thompson is a 13-year veteran Bar Method master instructor and co-owner of The Bar Method, Downtown San Francisco. She is also a wife and mother of two with a lifelong obsession with optimal health, body mechanics and nutrition. Heather, as a Bar Method instructor, has touched literally thousands of bodies and notices (as her students say) "everything." Heather is proud to be "as close to being a health expert without having initials after her name."
What is the Bar Method?
According to Heather, the Bar Method is "a one-hour, non-impact total body workout. It starts with a warm-up, free-weight exercises and push-ups, and then moves on to intense, isometric legwork at the bar, followed by abdominal work at the bar and on mats. Every exercise includes active stretching to elongate the targeted muscles."
Developed under the guidance of physical therapists to reshape muscles, burn body fat and improve posture, The Bar Method is a safe, fun hour-long workout made up of isometric exercises that strengthen and tone all major muscle groups, followed by intervals of stretching to elongate, lengthen and align the body. Heather explains that "Bar Method teachers train extensively in exercise technique, anatomy and physiology to enable students of all ages and fitness levels to make changes in their body that they didn't know were possible."
To get your questions answered before you start, check here.
If cardio alone did work, then why didn't the efforts from you/your friend's annual January through March frenzy of daily runs, spinning classes, endless elliptical and stair master sessions last? It's a short-term solution that will drop pounds, but likely at the expense of losing muscle.
"Weight loss" is not the same as fat loss. What matters is the percentage of fat on your body and the percentage of muscle on your body. To achieve fat loss, it's all about nutrition and exercise (and that doesn't mean cardio). The belief that cardio is required to slim down is outdated. Less muscle means less calories you can eat per day, which means loss of gorgeous body shape. If you love "cardio," then, of course do it because you are doing it to make yourself happy. But if you're doing it because you think you will lose weight and it feels like a chore, this is a good reason to consider replacing it with another form of exercise. Interval training with a strong focus on form for safety and effectiveness is Thompson's favorite.
Important: Bones do not give the body a beautiful shape: muscle does. Cardio tends to work the lower part of the body and women and men need muscle on their entire body for functional strength and aesthetic benefit. Women, this means upper body. Men, this means legs and glutes.
Tap into why and when you overeat and/or make frequent poor choices vs. beating yourself up without a helpful examination. Talking about it out loud (to a pro or trusted confidant) to unravel the "why" is the first step, and that deserves commendable pause. Well done.
In parallel, also help reverse the destructive behavior by finding positive substitutions for your desire to overeat such as: going for a 20-minute walk, organizing your junk drawers, handwriting a thank-you note to someone who made a positive impact in your life (and walk to the mailbox to mail it), testing out different flavors of gum, an old fashioned jigsaw puzzle, knitting, needlepoint, assembling Ikea furniture (well, maybe not always the most positive of experiences).
A lot of people take an "all or nothing" approach to dietary changes, which sets them up for failure because it's very difficult to stick to any dietary plan 100 percent of the time, and once they stray — and most people inevitably will — they end up giving up entirely. Dr. Rich Stagliano of Live Fit Medicine recommends "shoot for sticking to your dietary plan 80 percent of the time, and the remaining 20 percent of the time splurge a little. When it comes to healthy eating you want to focus on consistency, not perfection. If you cheat or splurge a little a few times a week, don't beat yourself up about it. Simply wipe the slate clean and get back on your plan at your next meal."
Working out seven days a week means burnout of body and mind. Some people can do it, and it works for them, but not for most. The goal is to change your routine into a new and sustainable routine so you will stick with it. At The Bar Method, three to five days of Bar Method per week is optimal, but if that's not possible in your life right now, don't beat yourself up about it. What is possible is something. Something is always better than nothing. Exercising two to three days a week is leaps and bounds better than zero times per week. And 20 minutes a day counts. If you stick with the two to three times a week and this becomes your new normal, celebrate! And once your new normal is engrained, you are that much closer to upping your exercise frequency when the timing is right.
Seriously. It breeds happiness to oneself and those around you. (Those who appear confident usually have great posture, while sitting, standing, walking...). Good posture is also good manners. If you don't know how to stand up straight, or your body doesn't remember how to anymore, come to a Bar Method class.
