Did you ever have the experience of knowing something, without reading the answer or having it told to you? One of these strong intuitive experiences came to me while I was interviewing a woman named Tori who had taken off 115 pounds over 18 months. As the host of the MyThinLifestyle radio show, I regularly invited guests who had lost 100 pounds or more to tell all about getting skinny. Tori was a smart, articulate, upbeat woman in her late 30s who was inspired to take off another 40 pounds before her wedding later in the year.
Tori explained that her eating regime was the basic low-fat, low-calorie, semi-starvation diet that almost everyone buys into. As for physical activity, “I walk an hour a day,” she said, “and during the week I go to the gym and either take a class or work out on the machines for another hour.” This was the moment in our conversation that I started thinking Tori wouldn’t be able to keep up with such high intensity effort. Of course, I kept my opinion to myself. After all, who am I to rain on Tori’s parade or to offer help that isn’t asked for?
Predictably, the minute Tori got the guy to marry her, her weight started creeping back up and the last I heard, it’s been on an upward spiral ever since with no signs of stopping. So many of us can relate to Tori’s story because her experience with weight loss is so common. It’s exasperating to finally get the weight off and then not be able to keep it off. Why does this happen? The secret no one else will tell you is that high intensity weight loss practices have a boomerang effect, meaning that the weight you take off always comes back to you, and then some. High intensity, which is forcing yourself to push too hard for too long, is an unnatural condition that cannot be sustained.
Intensity works for humans the same way that fertilizer works for plants. You need intensity to get a result, and you need fertilizer to make a plant grow. But intensity and fertilizer are both tricky because too little and too much produce a contrary result, the result you don’t want. So, for example, if you don’t give your plants any fertilizer, they won’t grow. The plants get spindly, they don’t bloom, and they die. Likewise, if you don’t put enough intensity into your weight loss effort, nothing much is going to happen and your interest dies out.
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Article comments
1 - Baseter
I tried to lose weight many times, and while I lose weight I made a lot of effort, playing sports, lifting weights, but after I went to a low effort period, my weight goes back.
Now, I am also trying to take it slow, to set up a eating and sport lifestyle that I can work it continuously, I manage to lose some pounds but with the first opportunity i get them back.
What I think it may work is to try a little bit harder, for 1 week to say, and then go back to a slight and easy diet to learn my body with the new weight and try to maintain.
2 - Lynda Lippin
Karen, such fabulous advice! I work with so many high profile people who all feel like they must do hours of high intensity exercise and strict cleansing and diet programs (like the infamous baby food plan). Inevitably they hurt themselves and are forced to take a step back.
I tell my clients that if they can do 20-40 minutes of focused exercise 3-4 days per week with a healthy eating plan they will stay fit, healthy, and slim. But nobody wants to hear that even though it works!