Welcome to 2020!

Welcome to 2020! It's a brand new year with brand new opportunities, experiences, and goals to be met! Yep, that’s right- those pesky New Year’s resolutions. The two biggest categories of resolutions are money and health.

Making resolutions to change your health status is probably the biggest resolution made from year to year. And individuals and corporations alike are ready to capitalize on your goals.

The winter months bring the highest sales of diet books, nutrition supplements, exercise equipment, diet plans, and meal replacements. Surprise, surprise. A major problem with these diets is that most of them promise quick fixes and claim “instant weight loss” and “fast results.” However, if you want weight loss and healthy habits to last, you can’t have quick fixes and fast results.

Also worth mentioning, God's answer to 2020 might not be more resolutions, but more rest. We live in a culture that wants to do everything, see everything, travel everywhere, read every book, see every movie, take in every TV show, meet every person, say Yes to every request, go to every party, kill it at every aspect of our job, work out every day, etc. It wants to transgress the limitations of our humanity. It wants to be God. It wants to be immortal. It's Genesis 3 all over again. You step out of the limitations of the beautiful garden that God has put us in.

The most important thing to remember when making new habits is that you did not create your old ones overnight. The same thing goes with weight loss. If you want to lose weight, remember that you didn’t gain it quickly and you won’t lose it quickly. A synonym for fast dieting is fad dieting. Fad diets are nothing new, and fad diets don’t work.

With all the focus on weight in our society, it isn't surprising that millions of people fall prey to fad diets and bogus weight-loss products. Conflicting claims, testimonials and hype by so-called "experts" can confuse even the most informed consumers. The bottom line is simple: If a diet or product sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

There are no foods or pills that magically burn fat. No super foods will alter your genetic code. No products will miraculously melt fat while you watch TV or sleep. Some ingredients in supplements and herbal products can be dangerous and even deadly for some people.

Steer clear of any diet plans, pills and products that make the following claims:

Rapid Weight Loss

Slow, steady weight loss is more likely to last than dramatic weight changes. Healthy plans aim for a loss of no more than ½ pound to 1 pound per week. If you lose weight quickly, you'll lose muscle, bone and water. You also will be more likely to regain the pounds quickly afterwards.

Quantities and Limitations

Ditch diets that allow unlimited quantities of any food, such as grapefruit and cabbage soup. It's boring to eat the same thing over and over and hard to stick with monotonous plans. Avoid any diet that eliminates or severely restricts entire food groups, such as carbohydrates. Even if you take a multivitamin, you'll still miss some critical nutrients.

Specific Food Combinations

There is no evidence that combining certain foods or eating foods at specific times of day will help with weight loss. Eating the "wrong" combinations of food doesn't cause them to turn to fat immediately or to produce toxins in your intestines, as some plans claim.

Rigid Menus

Life is already complicated enough. Limiting food choices or following rigid meal plans can be an overwhelming, distasteful task. With any new diet, always ask yourself: "Can I eat this way for the rest of my life?" If the answer is no, the plan is not for you.

No Need to Exercise

Regular physical activity is essential for good health and healthy weight management. The key to success is to find physical activities that you enjoy and then to aim for 30 to 60 minutes of activity on most days of the week.

If you're struggling to stay connected to God and live a healthy lifestyle, come see me and start this year off right!