You At Your Best

Resolve to lose weight, and succeed shift your mentality from being focused on a number, to being focused on a lifestyle change. By Karen riCe you at your Best Losing weight usually tops many lists of New Year's resolutions. Unfortunately, studies have found that up to 80 percent of those resolutions fall by the wayside long before people achieve their goals. Roughly 50 percent of people age 20 and older acknowledge they tried to lose weight over the past 12 months, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But why is it so hard to lose weight? When it comes to weight loss, the quick fixes are few and the pitfalls are plentiful. The secret could be a change in our mindset. Marla Richards, Registered Dietitian, started her career in a medical weight loss clinic where the goal was changing lifestyles for the better. She points out that when starting a weight loss regime, the biggest hurdle is mental—"we have to change our brains before we change our bodies." Marla encourages people to forget about the numbers, at least in the beginning. She believes that people get too focused on "I have to get down to 120 pounds," or "I have to eat 1000 calories"— instead of thinking about what they put into their bodies. "It's not about a number on a scale as much as it is about learning to meet our nutritional needs," she says. "You may have been eating a certain way for a long time. It's not going to change overnight." Marla's advice? "You need to build a different relationship with food. You want to enjoy your food, but not to the level where it's all you think about." "Good numbers will come if you put the right things into your body," she adds. "This isn't a quick fix." Beware the quick fix Unfortunately, some people are so focused on the number goal, they look for a quick fix. Shift your mentality from being focused on a number, to being focused on a lifestyle change. Various studies confirm that extreme diets typically only produce short-term results, if any. Dramatically cutting calories can lead to nutritional deficiencies and have an adverse effect on weight loss. The weight may fall off quickly at first, but then the body may slow its rate of metabolism to conserve calories. "You're losing weight, but you're not necessarily losing the right weight," as Marla puts it. "Your body goes into starvation mode Marla richards, Ms, rD, lD 10 | YOU AT YOUR BEST | nwAdg.cOm/YOUATYOURBEST JAnUARY - RESOlUTiOnS | SATURdAY, dEcEmBER 28, 2019

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