This is part two of Healthy Way to Lose Weight. To read part one click here.
Since the advent of wearable trackers looking under the autopilot’s hood got easier. Without any judgment wrist gadgets can spit out details about your sleep pattern, stress pattern, as well as track your whereabouts. Easily and without any prejudice they also can pinpoint why you got stuck with extra pounds.
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- DrD tips on how to lose stomach fat
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- Ending cholesterol battle
There is a wide variety of trackers on the market. If you decide to get one chose the one that is cost effective for the features you need. The best trackers in this category according to my clinical experience are: FitBit Charge HR and Garmin Vivosmart HR.
These gadgets offer many advanced features, but to reset your malfunctioning autopilot you won’t use too many of them. You won`t need any elaborate set ups, ambitious goal setting, or keeping logs of food eaten. All you would need to do is to wear it all the time and audit just one area: steps, because precisely this is where many people find errors in their autopilot.
My effortless way to lose weight – a surprise discovery
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One day I had a conversation with a lady that unsuccessfully tried diets, supplements, aerobic classes, and others. She could not understand why despite her honest efforts she seems to be permanently “blessed” with excess pounds.
She tried different weight loss techniques over many years and even intensified her efforts in recent months, but nothing ever budged. In desperation she resorted to believing that weight has nothing to do with diet or exercise, but the cause is somewhere is outside her lifestyle habits. Maybe in malfunctioning hormones, wrong gut bacteria, or insulin resistance.
I told her to get a FitBit. She did. After about a week or so we sat down and compared the numbers. It was 1pm. She showed me her steps for the day. Her watch read: 3145. My FitBit was already at 6578. She was shocked. How come I have double her numbers? She already walked up and down the stairs, left the car in the far corner of the parking lot, walked to get coffee, and even made an extra effort to climb a flight of stairs just for the sake of it. What is it that I do differently? Run marathons before breakfast?
I looked at her dumbfounded. My FitBit clearly was not broken, but my brain did not register any physical effort for the day. I did not register doing anything extraordinary, going anywhere on purpose, or putting an effort into climbing stairs. I just lived. It was my normal day and I did not even stick my head outside the house yet. No thought about a gym or any weight loss effort crossed my mind. I do not use FitBit as a way to lose weight. I use it for self-discovery.
Obviously the steps taken did not correspond to our perceived effort. Our daily scores over the week were different too. Mine were around 10,000, hers around 4,500. What`s more surprising is that needed to put special effort to reach 5,000 steps a day. For me daily 10,000 steps did not even register as anything. My steps were effortless and they were part of my normal day.
What is really interesting is the fact that FitBit numbers inversely correlated with our weight. My weight has been steady at 128lb. I never struggled with it. She is twice my size and despite her struggles never managed to go below 200lb.
How to effortlessly lose 26 pounds in a year? To get the answer click to part 3 of healthy ways to lose weight.
