How Important Is Individuality When It Comes To Losing Weight?
It might be stating the obvious - but we are all different.
We all look different, we have different attitudes to different things and our internal body chemistry is as varied as what MP's claim expenses on - including adult films.
I have been emailed quite a bit recently on this subject, so i thought i'd post the introduction to my book "From Flab to Fab," which gives you my opinion on how different we all are and how we should all bear this in mind when we are trying to lose weight or get fit.
........Despite claims that the state of the nation's health is in steep decline, the image and diet conscious among us are swimming against the tide and engrossing ourselves in a range of self-help books, with titles such as ‘Eat Right for your Blood Type' or ‘Cut the Carbs for the Body of Your Dreams'. As a personal trainer for over 10 years, I have had the onerous pleasure of offering a wide range of advice to a variety of people on all aspects of healthy living, in both a professional and social capacity. It's at the social events, however - most notably dinner parties and weddings - that being a personal trainer appears to attract the attention of anyone who is remotely health-conscious. Once a few glasses of wine have been polished off, inhibitions are lost and the floodgates open with an array of questions on how to get rid of bingo wings, which supplements are best for weight loss and what diet is the best to help fight those infamous muffin tops.
Without fail, at some stage during this inescapable interrogation that is really a plea for an easy solution to a number of health issues, the omniscient known only as ‘they' creeps into the conversation. Statements such as ‘Don't they say 200 sit-ups a day will give you a flat stomach?' and ‘They say you shouldn't eat carbohydrates after 6pm' are often put to me. In order to avoid confrontation and getting embroiled in an in-depth discussion on nutritional or exercise science, I feel compelled to just smile sweetly and nod respectfully at the apparent ‘superior knowledge of ‘they'. The question is - who the hell are ‘they'?
‘They' are the bane of a personal trainer's life because ‘they' think they know absolutely everything there is to know about nutrition and exercise. But the trouble with ‘they' is that often their claims originate not from an isolated source of infinite wisdom, but from a range of places, from the local pub to the latest edition of a glossy magazine, leaving the validity of their infallible facts and conclusions in some considerable doubt. Revelations like, ‘They say that 200 sit-ups a day will help to shift my muffin tops' are perhaps something some people may believe, but ask any health expert and they are likely to give you a very different answer. Occasionally ‘they' are right, but often they're wrong so take any advice you hear from a friend or colleague who begins a sentence with ‘They say that...' with a pinch of salt and resist the temptation to believe everything you're told.
At work or out socially, the questions I'm most frequently asked often come from people who have read a column in a magazine or newspaper and take it as unquestionable fact, without sparing a thought as to the reasoning behind it. Whether it's the ‘carbohydrates are the main reason we are all so fat' argument, or the ‘weight training gives women big muscles' dispute, everyone is guilty of giving their opinion on a health issue without considering on what authority these opinions were formed.
Living in a world with information at our fingertips, anyone can ‘Google' a health topic and come up with an answer, but due to the complexity and individual nature of every human being, there is invariably more than one answer. Take the big carbohydrate debate, for example. Since the Atkins' phenomenon at the turn of the millennium, an anti-carb sect seems to have risen from Dr Atkins' ashes, embarking on a crusade to vilify all forms of carb without really understanding the complex nature of carbohydrate metabolism. For some people, certain types of carbohydrate are incredibly fattening and need to be restricted, yet others can eat them like they're going out of fashion and not put on a pound. We are all different and one rule cannot be applied to everyone, especially when it comes to nutrition. The old adage, ‘one man's meat is another man's poison' could not be more true.