The fitness industry continually LIES to people about all the amazing, incredible (impossible) results they can get if they just do this one exercise, use this one protein powder, or buy this one piece of equipment.
But here is the truth about “spot reducing”.

Everyone is born with a shape. It might be a typical female pear – lean upper body and curvy hips and thighs. It might be a bit more square or apple-shaped with fat distributed more equally around the body and perhaps a bit of belly. Whatever that unique body shape may be, try to embrace it, because … with effort … it can be improved, but NEVER changed. The skinny areas can be toned, and eating less can keep body fat in a healthy range, but THAT’S IT.
No trainer can do anything about your body type or shape.

You are who you are. When you lose fat, you lose it from every part of your body almost equally. In the areas that you have little fat - like your shoulders or your face - you'll notice that fat loss more quickly because there is less to lose and the underlying muscle will show through more quickly. In the areas where you are genetically predisposed to store fat - like your bottom and thighs - you will notice the loss more slowly because an ounce of fat lost here or there will be just a drop in the bucket. So you will have to lose a substantial amount of weight in order to really slim down your natural fat deposits.

Repeat after me:  “I am grateful to have a human body that works.”

While we’re on this subject, here’s an excellent article:


The Best Way To Minimize Trouble Spots
      by Julia Gumm - April 6, 2013 -180degreehealth.com

What’s that one part of your body you hate? Oh come on, I know you have one. For me, it’s always been my arms. Sure, I have issues with my tummy, my chin, my eyelashes…but really, the problem is my arms.

Not willowy nor cut, these babies are chubby. They were chubby when I lifted weights. They were chubby when I did a ton of cardio. They were chubby when I did a ton of drugs. Chub-E (cottage) Cheeses. It seemed that no matter how many tricep kick backs Denise Austin chirped me through, I always had that unsightly jiggle when I waved goodbye. That’s what she always pointed to as an incentive to stick with her program- not having that kind of epic disaster wreck your day anymore. Jiggling arms? G.R.O.S.S!

So what happens when you do your sensible 20 minute workout three or four times per week, eat a reasonably healthy diet, lead a fairly active life and yet, you’re still hauling around a couple of ham hocks? Hocks that do indeed jiggle when you wave goodbye, (if you dare)? I guess a couple of things could happen. One, you just might realize that we are all different, you are simply not cut out to have trim arms and that’s ok. No need to go crazy trying to maintain a body type that doesn’t come naturally to you, for heavens sake. Alternately, you could allow yourself to be bothered enough to wear long sleeves on warm days, sometimes make disparaging remarks about your appearance, but leave it at that.

Or, if you’re the kind of person who obsessively reads health blogs, you could decide that you are ugly and misshapen and if you dare let such an unsightly abhorrence languish on your frame you’re doing nothing less than alert the world to your slovenly laziness, which, on top of your cosmetic imperfections, will no doubt condemn you to a miserable life absent of true self-confidence and the best of romantic success. Or something like that.

I, of course, went with the latter approach.

You know what follows. First you eat a little less and work out a little more. Still no change. Alright, maybe the workout needs to be more intense. Hmm, maybe some improvement, but not enough. Ok, maybe I need to eat even less? No, huh? Ok, how about not at all. How about if I don’t hardly eat at all and still get my workouts in? On top of my actual workout, what if I do isometric squeezes whenever I find myself sitting still and unable to access a dumbbell? Here we go, now I’m looking smaller…but the shape is still the same, that is to say, lacking a shape. Just a disgusting slab-o-fat.

Damn that Denise Austin, I am doing EXACTLY what she told me to do, my arms are twice the size of hers and she is twice (thrice?) my age. What. The. Hell.

And then the magic cures! South Beach! Atkins! Cardio! No Cardio! Light weights, high repetitions! Heavy weights, low repetitions! Not weights, resistance bands! Not resistance bands, your own body weight! Yoga! Pilates! Carefully controlled portion sizes! High protein! High fiber! Low fat! High fat? Screw it all, bulimia!

So here’s a novel question: Why? When taken to extremes, it’s clear to any rational person that the goal is no longer health and a reasonable personal best. Rather, the hope is to transform yourself into something totally different, something culturally approved, something ideal.

When did we accept this kind of insidious self-hatred as normal? Beyond normal, enviable even? When did we decide that someone who may think a person is taking their obsession with perfection too far is in fact, a “hater?” And haters gon’ hate! Dinner tonight is kale, 4 oz of protein and a jog!

What happens then, when you reach that perfection, if you ever do? Are you really healthier? Happier? More whole? Did the anger of a rotten childhood dissolve? Did your relationships improve? Was the pain of not being the prettiest, the best, the most admired, finally banished from your heavy heart? Did taming your thighs make you feel accomplished? Powerful? At long last, in control? Will tending to a high-maintenance figure for the rest of your life give you purpose? Order in the chaos? An assured cache of compliments at holiday dinners, friends who wish they too, could be as disciplined and fit as you?

At what point did we find it applaudable to look at pictures of other people and say “instead of looking like me, I want to look like her.” Why don’t we balk at the suggestion in the magazines to cut out those pictures and paste them to our refrigerators? Pictures to remind us that instead of feeding ourselves, we should be punishing ourselves. Instead of eating what we want when we’re hungry, we should instead be perpetuating a cycle of shame, guilt and jealousy. You are not enough as you are, is the message. Or rather, you are too much as you are. Don’t eat again. Have a glass of water. Take a diet pill. Maybe have some carrot sticks. Work out instead. You don’t want to be stuck in that body of yours forever, do you? Who will love you? Certainly not yourself, that’s for sure.

So yeah, I have fat arms. On occasion, they make fitting into cute blouses a problem. Under the garish light of the dressing room, it’s a sorry sight to behold. Arms packed like sausages into sleeves too small, every imperfection highlighted for me, god and thankfully no one else to see. And hey, is that a zit on my chin?

It’s enough to make a girl go home and dine on a salad for dinner and nothin’ but shame for dessert.

And yet, I still have these arms.

Maybe instead of trying to physically minimize them, there is a way to minimize the space they take up in my head.

One day, when going through old pictures I happened across a photo of my mother, who passed when I was young. I always felt my mother was very beautiful despite perhaps not being ideally lovely. I guess most children feel that way about their moms. Maybe that’s what happens when we love, we see beauty where unforgiving eyes see flaws. Well, when I studied the picture carefully, I realized I have my mother’s arms, exactly. Right down to the nubby little elbow peaking out from underneath a rather substantial tricep, leading down the forearms to squarish, fleshy hands. Her arms, warm, powerful things that held me as a baby and hugged me as a child. Here I am, carrying around these living monuments to the woman who made me, and all I want to do is whip them into something they are not. What if I had a daughter and she too, had these arms? How would I feel if I noticed her glaring at herself in the mirror, woefully gripping the weight with tense fingers, a wish to be something other than herself etched in the grooves of her frown?

Of course I would feel awful. I would question myself for ever giving her the idea that she is not wonderful the way she is, I would admonish myself for not building her up enough to be immune to the influence of an unfeeling culture that stands to profit off of low self-esteem. When I’d watch her struggle to make herself more beautiful, my heart would ache for the uselessness of it. Because already she would be beautiful! How could I make her see?

There is a striking dissonance between how we treat the people we care about and how we treat ourselves. If you aren’t filing yourself under the “People I Love” category in your brain, you can be led to do lots of silly, painful things that deep down, aren’t going to make you feel any better. So the next time you stand in front of a mirror and sneer at your less than flat abs or get angry with yourself for having enjoyed a dessert, ask yourself why. Why is perfection so important? What does it matter and who does it matter to? Remember that exactly who you are has been crafted by eons of evolution and the passion of your descendants. You are an incredible thing.
 Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Behold. You are beautiful. Go forth from that place. Afford yourself the love and acceptance you grant those dear to you, dear. No one deserves it more than you. No really. You and those big honkin’ thighs of yours.

We need to maintain Focus
on our Behavior 
 - - - - - - - (eating)

rather than on Results 
 - - - - - - - (weight-loss)

Our weight is not the problem.
It’s our eating that’s the problem

My weight is not my problem.
It’s one of the EFFECTS of my problem.

My problem is I eat more food than my body needs.

Not more than somebody else’s body needs.

More than MY body needs.

Not more than my body used to need when I was younger or more
active.

More than my body needs NOW.

Not more than my body WOULD NEED IF I had different genes and metabolism.

More than my body needs with the genes and metabolism that I have.

 That’s why there’s extra weight on it.        

My above post reflects thoughts and attitudes that I've shared here at DietHobby over and over, and my words here  contain a paraphrase of an online post I recently ran across by someone who quoted a UK addiction counselor, Gillian Riley.  As a result of discovering that she appears to have an attitude quite similar to mine, I have purchased a Kindle edition of her latest book "Ditching Diets", and am checking out her website. Most of you know that ... as a part of my dieting hobby .... I read many, many diet books, and it is possible that after reading it, I might review it or share more of my thoughts about it.

Exercise will make us FIT, and
If It causes us to eat more,
it will ... indirectly ... cause us to be FAT

The 3 Most Dangerous Words in Weight Management
                               By Yoni Freedhoff

"Because I exercised."

For folks trying to lose or maintain their weight, those three words are dangerous. Our perception of the virtues of exercise often makes us feel as if we deserve or have earned more—an extra helping, an indulgent sweet, or, in my case, a beer or two.

But at what cost?

The calories burned through exercise are anything but fair. To be blunt, you simply can't outrun your fork. What you can consume in minutes might easily take you hours to burn off, yet many people consider exercise to be the bigger player in weight management.

Perhaps the belief comes from television shows like The Biggest Loser. Each episode ends with a "last chance" workout—as if a few hours of overly aggressive gym work will immediately translate into weight loss.

Perhaps it stems from the food industry, which goes out of its way to explain obesity as a consequence of a lack of exercise.

Wherever it comes from, the belief that weight is something you can simply burn off if you hit the gym hard enough is firmly entrenched in the gospel of public perception.

Truth be told, unless you make a living through exercise, for the average Joe or Jane, exercise is likely responsible for—at most—20 to 25 percent of their weight, leaving diet responsible for the lion's share.

While there is no behavior more conducive to good health than regular exercise, if weight's your concern, food is where it's at, and there are two incredibly straightforward things you can do to help.

1. Keep a food diary. I do. In fact, I'm on my longest streak ever, at 550 days without missing an entry. It takes a few months to get good at, but once you're there, it'll take you fewer than five minutes of work a day; five minutes of work that clinical studies have proven will double your weight loss. You can keep food diaries old school with a pad and paper, or download one of the dozens of apps that'll do the math for you.

2. Cook from fresh, whole ingredients. Don't worry about low this or low that, just focus on transforming raw ingredients into homemade meals and you'll be playing it far safer than you would be by dining out or eating a highly processed, but healthy sounding meal.

At the end of the day, if weight's your concern, you're far better off spending time in your kitchen with a pen, than time in your gym with a barbell. And if "because I exercised" really translated well, the gyms that fill up in January wouldn't be empty by March.

 I don't try to follow Rule No 2. Although  I cook a lot, I often eat processed foods. Sometimes I choose to cook with "fresh" "whole" ingredients, and sometimes I choose not to do so.
However, I totally agree with Rule No 1.  I've been keeping a food diary now since September 2004.  I use a computer software program called DietPower,  This morning it tells me that during that 3044 days, I have no missing data.  This means that for the past consecutive 3044 days, I have logged all of my food intake into that computer food diary.  THIS is what helped me lose weight, and I know that it is the primary reason that I'm now beginning my 8th year of maintaining my  weight-loss.

Pain is an unpleasant sensation occurring in varying degrees of severity as a consequence of injury, disease, or emotional disorder.

No Pain, No Gain is merely a false, catchy statement.
It isn’t true.
If you are working out, and you feel pain… then Stop doing it.

A great many “exerts” don’t understand that concept. I like to think of myself as a person with common sense, and I see a big difference between not enjoying an activity, and feeling pain during an activity.

Pain is to be avoided.
Pain is bad.
Pain is the body saying “something’s wrong here”.

Personally, I’ve never been interested in becoming an athletic person, and I totally missed out on the “herd instinct”. I have no desire to ever participate in a marathon of any sort, and if an activity, exercise, or workout isn’t enjoyable to me, then I’m not doing it.

Although a body is meant to move, many types of activities…which are not at all painful… can provide benefit to it. I believe that the modern philosophy that everyone should exercise or work-out ... even if it hurts ... is as ridiculous as the video below.

I often hear people who want to lose weight say,
"I need to start going to the gym."

It’s true that most people need to be more active and less sedentary.
I’m not against exercise or the health benefits it can give one.
However, the idea that a bit more physical activity will reduce one’s body weight or prevent weight gain is a modern myth. It takes a lot more than regular trips to the gym to combat obesity.

In more ways than one, people just have “too much on their plate”.
Too much food, and too many activities.

Food intake determines body size as related to weight-loss and maintenance of that weight-loss.  Exercise determines  how physically "fit" one's body is ... at whatever size it happens to be. One cannot outexercise a bad diet.  To see an example of diet vs. exercise, watch the video at the bottom of this article. Most people with limited time who are struggling with obesity would be better served to focus on their food issues.

For the majority of people, … especially parents with young children, … it isn’t the expense of the gym fee that keeps them away. It’s the lack of time, low self-esteem, poor body image, depression, and sheer exhaustion from their stressful days. The last thing needed is yet one more obligation (meaning: visit to a gym or fitness center) in their already busy and overscheduled days.

If there was an extra hour or so to actually dedicate to going to a gym it might be a more "healthful" choice for them to get an extra hour of sleep or do something more enjoyable and relaxing.

The problem is not that people are too lazy or too cheap to pay for gym membership. The problem is that they are too busy, too stressed, too short of time, too exhausted, spend too much time in their cars, and are too caught up in everything else that makes a “healthy lifestyle” virtually impossible.

Changing one’s lifestyle is more about changing one’s ‘life’ than one’s ’style’.

Perhaps a life in which there is actually time to stop and smell the flowers would do more for busy people to better manage their weight than a workout.

See below for a video on Diet vs. Exercise.