"How the fat get fat!" and how not to be like them

… and how not to be like them
By: Josh Kent

In this article, your eyes are going to be opened as to why it is that some people get fat, stay fat and can't shift the fat no matter what they do. You will also learn how to lose the fat and look like the slim people who seem to be able to eat anything and never get fat.

I recently stayed for a week with a good friend of mine. He is 50 years old and retired as he made a great deal of money when he was younger. My friend Ron, is quite fat, especially around the mid section. He is a short man and looks like an up-market American trucker with that big belly and the side handles which can be seen from all angles.

Ron has been going to a fat-loss clinic for over 6 months and has lost all of 3 pounds - water I suspect! It was evident to me that the fat loss clinic was more interested in the size of Ron's wallet than his belly… but I wasn't going to tell him that.

How did Ron get fat? From all accounts, it was a natural progression from being thin! As a young man he was neither fat nor lazy. Ron got fat bit by bit. The more he earned and the busier he got, the more he ate out. The nicer cars he bought, the more he drove rather than walk. The more work he did, the more stressed he got and the more cortisol his body produced (storing fat and destroying muscle).

If you want to get fat, that's easy. Losing it is the hard part as it requires the un-doing of many years of bad habits.

I never have sympathy for people who are fat and moan about being fat. A lot more respect goes out to people who are fat, know how they got fat and are happy being fat (though I personally don't believe many people can be happy being fat). There are of course a "tiny" percentage of people that have a medical condition – and I mean tiny.

Ron asked me to give him an eating and exercise plan. I didn't want to as I know him and knew that he was not going to stick to it. I gave him the plan. He didn't stick to it.

Spend a week with someone like Ron and you will soon see exactly why he is fat. Ron will take the car out for everything. He will take the car to the local newspaper shop even though it will take longer to get the car out of his garage than to walk to the shop!

Ron drives around for 20 minutes at a time just to find the closest parking spot to the entrance of shopping centres. He WILL NOT park even a 1 minute walk away and would rather drive for 20 minutes for the off chance of getting a closer spot.

Ron lives in a block of flats. He will wait for the lift whereas his flat is a mere 10 steps up from the ground floor.

Ron is on autopilot for all these and more. This is part of how he got fat in the first place. Ron's lifestyle is centred around minimum physical effort. The sad part was that he was not even aware of this. The sadder part is that even when made aware, he only changed his habits when I was around.

If you want to be slim, eat, sleep, drink, exercise and LIVE like slim people. As simple as that.

How are some people so slim? Apart from genes and metabolism, it is what they eat and how they live their life. The easiest way for you to get slimmer is to look very closely at the lifestyle of several slim people.

How can you get slimmer faster? Here are some ways, taken from the lifestyles of the slim and famous:

• Don't take your car if you can walk. If you have to take your car, park it as far as possible from where you need to go and walk there and back.
• Don't take lifts if you can walk up and down stairs.
• Eat smaller meals more often.
• Don't starve yourself, eat healthy meals regularly.
• Try and have no more than 20% carbohydrates per day and preferably most of it earlier in the day.
• Don't snack on junk food. If you are hungry and it's not meal-time, have some nuts such as almonds or pistachios; they are very good at satisfying hunger.
• Never, ever go shopping on an empty stomach. You will end up buying lots of sweet and sugary items.
• Don't fill your house with junk food – you will end up eating them at some stage!
• Try and relax and reduce stress. A stressful lifestyle will mean constant release of Cortisol which will break muscle down and store body fat. By the way, stressing about your "weight" is completely counter-productive. Throw your scales out and just follow the guidelines here. You will soon see a difference.
• Stay active. If you are bored and want something to do, don't lay on the couch watching TV. Go out maybe for a walk, see friends, go to the gym or do housework.
• Live the "lifestyle" of a slim person. Don't use words like "diet", "slimming" etc. They all convey a temporary state of being. If you want to look like a slim person, you need to LIVE like them, PERMANENTLY. See it more as a lifestyle change.
• Drink lots of water during the day. Water means water. Liquids like fruit juices are usually full of sugar and if anything, they add weight.
• Look inside your fridge. Then go and have a look inside the fridge of people you want to look like. You will see a vast difference. Slim people usually have lots of water, vegetables, lean meats or vegetarian sources of protein in their fridge. Fat people have fizzy drinks, cakes, pork and sausage, ice cream, butter etc
• Don't do what you have always done. You may have always used butter or margarine for your sandwich. Stop it. THINK. It all adds up. Butter, margarine, mayonnaise and oils all end up in your body as fat! Remember you can't live like a fat person and look slim.
• Go to the Gym regularly

My friend Ron has no real desire to lose the weight. People like him never take it seriously until they have a heart attack or some major health problem, which is a shame.

It is very easy to start shedding the fat and looking like a "slim you". You just have to get on the right track from TODAY and stick to the LIFESTYLE. If you say you are going to start from tomorrow or in a week, then you are not going to do it. As they say "winning starts with beginning". BEGIN TODAY.