Wonder why nobody has come up with "The Magic Pill" yet?  Because there's NO such thing silly!!  Today is the fanatical craze of women using HCG (female hormone a body produces when they're pregnant), Vitamin B12 shots, and the 20,000 other fad diets out there to drop weight fast, and for most, unhealthy fast.

I had a client who lost over 30 pounds in 8 weeks with HCG, then she stopped working out for awhile because why should she?  She was already losing weight eating whatever she wanted.

Hormones are powerful, they can increase muscle mass (anabolic steroids), they can dull excruciating pain (cortisone), they can even hollow out your bones so they look grey on X-rays causing you to lead a life of bone density loss and fragility...true story. 

I had an ex-teammate pump an injured throwing shoulder full of cortisone for almost a full 60 game Division I collegiate baseball season, and in the end faced total reconstructive surgery and will never be able to throw anything ever with the same arm.  You see, cortisone masks what's really injured numbing the area, so you don't feel the extreme damage being done.

The same goes for the 20,000 fad diets including HCG and vitamin B12 shots, they're masking the real elementary break down in leading an active lifestyle...

Yes, these quick-fix solutions do work...for awhile, then you'll notice a frustrating stagnation that inevitably leads to falling off the wagon, and the Yo-Yo dieting continues...10 pounds lost here, 15 gained there, 5 more pounds lost, another 10 gained...and on and on the weight gaining Merry-Go-Round goes.  If you've watch the documentary Food Inc., or read the books Protein Power, by Dr. Eades, and/or Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan, then you know eating high glycemic carbohydrates and highly processed foods are the reason why America has gotten so fat over the last 30 years.

It makes my heart hurt and arteries shudder to think about the food we put in our bodies, and then combat our slow methodical weight gain over the years with loony-bin fad diets like the ones mentioned above.  I apologize if you're hooked into one of these by popular media, but in a moment, I'm going to show you how to lose weight the right way...the healthy active lifestyle way.  And I guarantee you'll be happier for it.

Check out this article of what one of my favorite bloggers did with a 12-Day Challenge: Whip Cream v. Cool Whip...it's very disturbing and horrifying to see the difference between real and "fake" food.

I'm so tired of hearing about the frustration with these fad diets...in the end, they DON'T work!!  All are like putting a band-aid on a severe laceration, and I mean severe because we're killing ourselves with food these days PEOPLE...if we don't treat the extreme cut with antibiotics, then we'll die of infection, and best case scenario, have to live with a grotesque scar to remind us the rest of our life.

What is the right way to weight loss or gain?  There are 7 key critical areas for one to reach their goals, get off their meds, and lead an overall true active lifestyle.  We can't leave one out or the system won't work, and the following points aren't arranged by most-least important, they're all insanely important. 

1. Weight Loss/Gain Goals:  We have to know where we are today, where we want to go, and how to get there?  The burning "why" is the key to staying motivated, why do we want to lose weight?  A strategic combination of short/long term goals are great..short include: losing 10 pounds or 2% body-fat before a family cruise, training for a marathon, being able to finish a run without walking.  Long include: losing 100 pounds in a year, being able to complete 100 miles on a bike without stopping, eating super good over a year.
2. Resistance Training: Plain and simple, we have to build muscle to be able to burn fat.  NO muscle, no fat burning capabilities, period.  We should be doing at least 3 times a week of resistance/circuit training.  You see, fad diets aren't good because they cause our bodies to eat away at our own muscle tissue, and that's why we gain back more than we lose in the first place.  Muscle also weighs more than fat, so it isn't uncommon for a female to gain weight in the early stages of weight training.  For every 1 pound of lean muscle gained, we burn an extra 50 calories at rest, that's literally burning calories while we sleep!  And, it takes 5 pounds of muscle to fill the same volume as 1 pound of fat, which burns an extra 250 calories at rest.  Muscle is leaner and meaner! :P  Here's another article from one of my fav. online elite athletic trainers: Why Women Should Not Be Afraid to Gain Muscle
3. Cardio-Respiratory Training: We should be doing this at least 2-3 times per week on non-resistance training days.  Cardio in our target heart zone (65-75% of max heart rate) for 30-45 minutes is crucial in recovery from weight workouts (moving soreness out of our muscles), and immobilizing fat.  We can't shrink our fat cells unless oxygen is present (or with surgery), aerobic activity is "with oxygen," so where '0'2 is able to bind to fat and take it out of our body through feces, urine, and/or sweat.
4. Flexibility: This is the most under-rated piece to the active lifestyle puzzle, and is one of the most essential.  We all finish our workouts and just want to get the heck out of the gym as fast as we can, most times forgetting or skimping on the stretch (me included sometimes :).  Stretching can actually increase strength levels by 10% because we increase our range of motion, increase range of motion and we allow the muscle to take on heavier loads.  Doing Yoga not only helps with flexibility, but breathing and moving soreness out of muscle (and sometimes into) as well, so increasing oxygen to the body, and again, what does an boost in oxygen do?  Immobilize fat.  I have a client who is 80 years young, and because of a past left hip surgery, had to tie her left shoe with pliers because the surgery left her with terrible range of motion...after 8 weeks of Yoga, she was able to tie her left shoe with both hands!  Nice job Joyce!
5. Nutrition: Eating low glycemic carbohydrates, getting enough protein, and good fats are vital to a healthy lifestyle.  We need all these macro-nutrients, we shouldn't go NO Carbs because with the eradication of Carbs goes water and important vitamins and minerals.  Contrary to popular media, we also need saturated fats, check this article out on another one of my favs titled, 7 Reasons to Eat More Saturated Fat.  We're finding nutrition is about 60% of this whole equation...I've had clients working out to the burger, but not getting the results they wanted until they changed what they ate.  One case study of a male late 20's lost 8.5 pounds in 4 weeks just by changing his eating habits.  He didn't eat less, he actually ate more hearty meals to lose that weight.  We have to eat 5-6 times per day to keep our metabolism burning...eating 2-3 times per day is teaching your body to run in starve mode, so when you do eat, your body stores the food as fat.
6. Hydration:  Remember when I said fat immobilizes in the presence of oxygen?  What does water have in it?  H2-'O'.  We have to drink a lot of it...and yes, one of the fad diets is saturating your body in drinking water all day to curb hunger...not good.  Let's dispel the myth...you shouldn't drink water to curb hunger, you should drink it to help burn fat, keep hydrated because your body is about 75% water, and to help with cellular function.  Almost every chemical reaction in your body requires either oxygen or hydrogen, which water has both.  A quick equation for how much water we should be drinking on a daily basis:  your body weight divided by 2, times 30%, then you add that to the halved body weight...so I'm 180 pounds divided by two = 90 X 30% = 27 + the original 90 = 117 ounces of water/day I should be drinking...that's almost ten 12 oz bottles of water.
7. Supplementation: If nutrition is the wood plank that make up the body of a boat, then supplements make up the nails securing the planks to each other.  Supplements should not make up for meals, they should fill in the nutrient gaps of what our meals aren't getting to our bodies.  My favorite supplements are protein powder, Omega-3 krill oil (48X more potent than regular fish oil), and a multi-vitamin.  However, we can have the most expensive quality nails in the business, but if the wood planks of our boat are warped (terrible nutrition), then those nails aren't going to do a damn bit of good for holding water.

I tell all my clients, this is the secret to losing or gaining weight the healthy way.  You'll see an increase in energy levels, self-confidence, strength, endurance, flexibility, blah blah blah.  If weight, inches, or body fat aren't budging, then there's a break down in the system somewhere.  If all pistons are firing, then we may have to check with a Doctor and draw blood because it could be a hormone issue.

I hope this will help change your view on leading an active lifestyle, don't believe all the crap in popular media or on the internet, above is the secret to longevity and weight loss/gain...don't let anyone tell you definitely.  As you can see, there's NO secret potion up there, just things our early ancestors did to survive.  Funny how we've returned full circle ;)