Ask FGG: “Where can I find a weight rehab?”
Forget short-term fixes and go for sustainable daily changes
Thank you for your site – I’m really struggling to accept myself, and my family is all thin which makes me feel judged all the time. Do you perhaps know of a weight rehab place I could go to to help me lose the unwanted pounds? I just know I cannot do it alone”
Going it alone when you’re trying to lose weight is tough (we know, we’ve tried). But I actually don’t recommend weight camps or rehabs because most of those give you situations and tools that aren’t available in everyday life — like being secluded to focus only on weight loss, planning your diet for you, giving you access to 24/7 exercising. Those things will help anyone shed pounds in the short term, but because it doesn’t fit into our real everyday lives, that won’t last and you may (like most do) end up gaining it all back quickly and then some once you’ve graduated.
Instead, I’d recommend hooking up with some local people who also want to lose some weight and forming a small group. Both Toni and I have had GREAT success with this approach recently! I highlighted it in a recent post here.
You might even be able to get a personal trainer to sponsor you and/or your group with free nutritional and fitness lessons. Just be sure that anything you do to lose it is something that’s also available to you to KEEP doing/using/relying on after you’re done with the initial loss.
Your turn, readers. What tips do you have on ways to stick with healthy lifestyle changes long term?
This is great advice. Find some friends and pick a goal (like a 10k or sprint distance triathlon), then work toward it together and with the help of professionals. Hire a nutritionist. Hire a trainer or swim coach or running coach. The lessons you learn will be ones you can use for life, and doing it this way will mean that the plan fits into YOUR existing lifestyle.
Some friends and I did the Danskin triathlon a few years back this way, and it’s one of the best things I’ve ever done in my life. The focus was on fitness and health and endurance rather than a number on the scale. Yes, we all lost weight, but more importantly, we got comfortable in our bodies and amazed ourselves by doing things we didn’t think we were capable of. I could swim two miles and finally learned to run without hurting my knees!
Did you know that in my feed reader I see an ad for Jillian Michaels to lose weight? And at the top of your page it says “Secret to losing 40lbs in 6 weeks!”
What’s up with that?
Peeps: “Yes, we all lost weight, but more importantly, we got comfortable in our bodies and amazed ourselves by doing things we didn’t think we were capable of.” — that’s exactly the idea! I love that.
Michelle: Yep, I did know — those are auto-rotating Google ads and, try as we might, we have no control over their content.