Some of you were participants in the recent weight loss contest I ran along with Yang’s Fitness Center here in Andover.
If you were not part of the fun – and even if you were, I wanted to pass along some of the things we all learned of the course of just over five weeks.
First the stats:
- As a group, we lost over 250 pounds! Yes, that’s a lot of weight.
- The three winning teams lost over 7% body fat. Again, extremely impressive numbers. The winners were just about 8%!
- The top performing individual lost just under 20 pounds…that’s over 3.5 pounds per week. Awesome stuff.
I’m hoping many of you can apply some of these as we move towards spring…
- Nutrition is king. I am a fitness guy. I would love to claim the you need to bustin’ your butt in the gym 3-4 days per week in order see results. That would be called job security. 🙂
However, it’s just not true. Now before you abandon your exercise routine, let’s be clear. Weight loss is 70% (or thereabouts) nutrition. This means you accelerate your results by 30% if you DO workout!
Also, when you lift weights or do challenging interval training, you just look better, feel better, live longer, protect your brain health, fight disease, have more energy, etc. etc. Just do it.
That being said, one of our top results in the contest came from someone who did not go near the gym due to injury, but did follow a strict nutrition plan. It can be done, if done correctly.
- Losing weight can be done at any age. TRUE! You do NOT have to be a twenty or thirty something in order to make serious gains. The winners in the contest were not the youngest (he said respectfully!). However, they trained hard, ate right and kicked everyone’s butt!
You can make changes – major changes – at any age. No excuses there.
- A significant percentage of people will NOT make time for their own health and FUTURE quality of life.
It is tough for me to say this without making those who were “non-compliant” during this contest feel badly. I’m not trying to…but it may be unavoidable.
About 20-25% of people who signed up for the contest did not see any changes because they didn’t make any changes. That’s the reality.
The point is, we are all making decisions now which will determine our quality of life in 10, 20 and 30 years from now. That can be a bit scary to think about… This is a direct appeal to those people who have not made any real progress. Make the time for yourself NOW.
“If you do what you have always done, you’ll get what you have always got.”
Finally, need I point out…it is NOT going to be easier to make those changes in 10 years.
Just sayin’…Now is the time…
Hey, this blog is not always saying what everyone wants to hear. 🙂
Keep up the fight everyone!