By Catherine Bongiorno
Special to The Herald
I’ll never forget the first networking luncheon I attended to promote the opening of Lift To Lose Fitness, years back. I was excited to share my passion for exercise and healthy eating with a group of about 40 women.
Eager to give away a few group fitness classes and personal training sessions so people could experience exercise as fun and empowering, I orated my one minute spiel and handed out a few gift cards.
The other attendees promoted their businesses, one of which stood out: A very thin woman was marketing a diet supplement, promising five to six pounds of weight loss per week, with no exercise needed.
At the end of the meeting, I had just two people approach me with interest in my offer. The woman promoting the diet supplement was swarmed with over a dozen interested potential clients.
I left feeling dejected and discouraged.
Six pounds of weight loss per week, no exercise necessary. How could I compete with such an enormous claim?
I certainly could not promise six pounds of weight loss a week by working with me, nor would I want to.
But that is what we are so often drawn to — the seductive promise of a quick fix with minimal effort. Who cares that the weight loss is mostly water? Or that it does not change the root of our problem: a sedentary lifestyle and poor eating habits. We want that number on the scale to go down as fast as possible, period.
God knows I tried my share of weight-loss gimmicks in my younger years — diet pills, low-cal meal replacement diets, even herbal laxatives.
And all I did was get fatter.
The meeting was demoralizing, but I got over it knowing this: Sooner or later, we all must face that there are no magic pills, drinks or powders that will melt the fat off our bodies.
Yes, there are supplements out there that can support a healthy lifestyle (which includes clean eating and regular exercise). But on their own, they fail to create lasting results.
The two ladies who connected with me at the luncheon became long-term clients and are fit and active to this day. I sometimes wonder how things turned out for those who went the route of the exercise-free diet supplement. Did they achieve the results they hoped for?
You’ve heard it from me numerous times, and it is worth repeating: Accept that there are no shortcuts to losing weight. The sooner you get on track with a program that really works — one that requires change, effort and moving out of your comfort zone — the closer you are to achieving your weight loss goals.
And what a wonderful sense of joy, self love and accomplishment you will feel when you see a slimmer, stronger, healthier you in the mirror, thanks to feeding your body well and pushing hard with your workouts.
No supplement will ever give you that.
Catherine Bongiorno, info@lifttolose.com is a Mukilteo personal trainer and nutritional therapist who owns Lift To Lose Fitness & Nutrition, www.lifttolose.com.
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