By Gail Wood
It’s become part of a post-Christmas tradition – the New Year’s resolution to lose weight.
With eater’s regret, Christmas cookie enthusiasts flock to local gyms determined to shed pounds and get back to their pre-holliday weight. Call it scale shock. Or Christmas cookie remorse. Unfortunately, most of these well-intended resolutions end unfulfilled. By early February, the spike in gym turnout is over and ambition turns to concession, an acceptance of the inevitable weight gain.
Change that course. Here are some tips from local personal trainers on how to fulfill your weight loss resolution.
“Setting goals is important,” said Loren Eich, a personal trainer at Thrive Community Fitness. “So is having a game plan.”
Don’t show up to the gym without a workout in mind. Have something planned – a 20 minute chug on the elliptical or stationary bike. Or a 30-minute walk on the treadmill. Eich said goal setting is key in achieving weight loss goals.
Another key in avoiding the one-month burnout is not to do too much, too soon. Pace yourself. You didn’t put the weight on in one day and you’re not going to take it off in one day. Be patient, but be consistent.
Eich’s tip for maintaining consistency is finding a workout buddy, someone to keep you accountable.
“Have someone you can call up and say, ‘Are you ready?’” Eich said. “Lets do this. Sometimes you’ll say ‘I’ve had a long day. What do you think?’ Hopefully, that person is going to say, ‘Lets do it.’”
Setting specific, achievable goals is key. Merely saying, “I want to lose weight,” isn’t specific enough. From a trainer’s perspective, that’s not a goal for success. Rodney Soto, a trainer for South Sound Champions Center, asks the people he works with to be more specific, getting them to say how much weight do they want to lose, what kind of weight and within what time line.
“I try to get a body composition,” Soto said. “Do you want to lose 30 pounds of fat? 20 pounds? 10 pounds? Let’s have a plan.”
Someone wanting to lose 30 pounds usually isn’t in good cardiac shape. The question Soto faces is where to start them.
“It’s slow and easy,” Soto said. “They manage themselves. The important thing is to be slow and consistent.”
Work too hard and there’s a risk of injury and burnout. If you’re going from the couch to laps on the treadmill, go easy.
“Most people quit after those first 30 days,” Soto said.
Another tip is to watch what you eat. Diet, Eich and Soto agree, is really about 70 percent of the battle.
“People come to you for the exercise,” Eich said. “But if you come and work hard, and you turn around and go home and eat too much, you’re treading water.
Another ingredient to success is making sure what you’re doing is entertaining and challenging. Boredom can lead to quitting.
To lose weight, you don’t have to sweat it off. You don’t have to run a marathon to see success. Walking at a brisk pace on the treadmill can help. Eich said this is a common stumbling stone for the want-to-be weight shedders.
“This is where a lot of people get confused,” Eich said. “If you’re working at a lower heart rate and you’re not huffing and puffing and sweating bullets, you can still do good things, targeting fat levels.”
But losing weight takes effort. Getting a gym pass isn’t enough. Setting the stationary bike resistance low and keeping 35 RPMs isn’t going to cut it.
Soto’s hint is don’t give up. Stick with it and pledge to a slow but steady progress. One of his favorite testimonials is about a woman who was in her early 40s. She wasn’t overweight, but she couldn’t last 90 seconds on the elliptical without wheezing and panting.
“I pulled her off,” Soto said. “I asked if she smoked. She said she didn’t work out. Now, she can complete an hour five times a week. She’s worked her way up.”
To help in curbing calories, Soto asks the people he works with what their “three biggest liabilities are from a nutritional standpoint” that hold them back from obtaining their fitness goals. Whether that’s chocolate, ice cream or fried food, Soto recommends they abstain from it for a month. The other commitment he asks is to come to the gym two, three or four times a week.
“Whatever you can consistently do,” Soto said. “After 30 days, nine times out of 10, people start feeling better. They have more energy.”
But sometimes the scale doesn’t reinforce their accomplishments. That’s because they lost 10 pounds of fat and gained nine pounds of muscle.
That still adds up to a win for Soto and Eich and the fulfillment of a New Year’s resolution.
