The Secret to Losing Fat Fast

Here is a refreshing change – how many articles have you read on losing weight where the author beats around the bush for half of the piece before getting to the supposed “secret” of losing weight? I am going to cut right to the chase -- the secret to losing fat fast lies in basic human behavior. Quite simply, we humans tend to engage in activities that we perceive as pleasurable, such as eating and relaxing, and we tend to avoid activities that we perceive as painful or uncomfortable, such as dieting and exercising. In a word, we tend to move toward pleasure and away from pain, and realizing this about yourself can lead to a dramatic improvement in your life.

Now, before you go saying, “Uh… DUH!” let us elevate this discussion to a higher level with some pertinent details. We must start with you accepting your share of the responsibility for your physiological state, and no, that does not necessarily mean all of the responsibility for it. There are three major factors that complicate weight gain. They are genetic factors, environmental factors, and psychological factors. For the time being, we’re all stuck with our genetics; you’ll just have to “work with what you got.” And if you ever want that to change then become an advocate of genetics research, stem-cell research, and the like. Environmental factors are something we all must cope with and effect change on where we can. However, the psychological factors are all up to you, and believe me, they are the most powerful of the three factors. Get your head on right, and you will start losing fat fast.

The key word that we want to focus on in regards to human behavior is ‘perceive;’ what we perceive as pleasurable or painful. Your perceptions are your own, so if you’ve ever wondered about what the difference is between someone that is overweight versus someone that is skinny, the core difference would lie in their respective associations to particular activities such as eating and exercise and being overweight. Essentially, the overweight person probably associates great pleasure to eating compared to the skinny person. The overweight person more than likely associates great pain with the idea of exercise, while the skinny may associate pleasure with it. And of course, the skinny person may associate tremendous pain to the idea of being overweight, while the overweight person, certainly in pain if they’re not in denial, simply does not associate enough pain to their condition to take consistent action to correct it. The secret to losing fat fast is in changing your associations to certain activities.

For most people gaining weight is something that starts as a gradual thing and eventually spirals out of control. Cooking frogs, strangely enough, can illustrate the point. If you’ve ever eaten frog in any form, you probably know that frogs are most palatable when they are cooked fresh. You literally have to cook them alive! How do you do this? If you toss them into a pot of boiling water they’ll just jump right out. Wouldn’t you? But if you put them into a pot of tepid water they won’t jump out. They like it in there. Then, if you gradually raise the water temperature to the boiling point the frogs will not jump out. They stay in the comfort of the heating water until they are dead, and cooked. Do you see the similarities in behavior?

So, your average yo-yo dieter is someone that picked up a little weight, probably due to genetic or environmental factors. Maybe they are a woman post pregnancy, or a man who is hitting that age when his metabolism is slowing just a little. They notice the weight and its not bad, so they resolve to actually do something if it gets any worse. The water is getting warmer. They get a little heavier, they begin to feel the pain of not looking the way they want to look, so they decide to take action, perhaps some fad diet, or an exercise program, and maybe they have a little success. Their behavior slides back to normal and before they know it, the weight is back on. Only now they are slightly more accustomed to the weight, so they don’t associate as much pain to being heavy as before. The water is getting warmer still; the weight increases. At some point they hit ‘critical mass’ (pun intended) and they take dramatic measures; a seriously dangerous crash diet, or some expensive and potentially dangerous diet pill in conjunction with a hatefully masochistic exercise program. Usually at this point they find that the weight is even harder to get off and they can stick with the pain of the program for only so long before they give up. They have probably lost some of the weight anyway, and are riding high on the marginal success. Behaviors slide once again, the weight comes back, again with the increased tolerance for the pain of not looking like they want to look, and our yo-yo dieter has entered a downward spiral that cycles around and around, each time increasing the amount that they are overweight. The water is boiling!! How many times will the yo-yo dieter hit ‘critical mass’ before they are cooked? Will they ever be able to jump out of the pot?

Maybe this is the point where you are at, or maybe you can feel the water getting warmer and can see the writing on the wall. The secret to losing fat fast lies in changing your association to being overweight. It will hurt, but you need to do it. Being overweight hurts you, and again, before you say, “Uh… DUH!” try to get clear on all of the ways that it does hurt you. Maybe the water is hotter than you realize! Being overweight costs you socially in your relationships, both love and platonic, and in your career or job advancement. It costs you radically in your health and longevity. Worst of all it can cost you dearly in your self-image, self-esteem, and self-value, ruining your quality of life on a fundamental level. If you take some time to think about it, you can come up with many more ways that being overweight is costing you. You will be served to take full measure of that cost and to feel the pain of it. Do it enough and suddenly the pain of eating more sensibly and following through with a consistent exercise program doesn’t seem so bad. And if changing your associations to being overweight is too painful or uncomfortable for you then STOP READING right now. It is not the purpose of this article to contribute negatively to the weight bias. Rather, the goal of this article is to help you discover the secret of losing fat fast.

It is important to point out that when I say you could be losing fat fast, the term ‘fast’ is used relative to the time that you have been gaining and have been overweight. Somewhere between 25% to 50% of the time is a fairly safe bet. So, for instance, if you have gained 50 pounds over the course of one year, you can be reasonably assured that you could be back to normal in a few months, IF you are successful in changing your associations to certain activities, and install certain consistent behaviors as habits.

It will be as easy as you make it. Normal dieting and exercise takes effort and stamina. It can be uncomfortable and even painful if engaged in overzealously. But changing your associations to diet and exercise is easy by comparison, and that is the secret to losing weight. Get it in your head that you can lose weight; you can break out of the cycle of yo-yo dieting. Know that it is possible for you right now to start losing fat fast.