Kevin Ok, ok. I know the title’s a bit click-baity, but just run with me here. I’ve known about the existence of Quora for several years, when I found it for story research. I recently bit the bullet and decided to join Quora, and one of the patterns I’ve noticed during my short sojourn on the site is the slew of questions from people looking to lose some weight.
I’m gonna make it clear right now that I’m not in the business of being the weight loss police about who needs to lose weight and who doesn’t. I’m not the one who gets to make that choice for someone else, because that’s between you and your doctor or care team.
I’m of the opinion that other people’s weight is a whole lotta not my circus, not my monkeys. I don’t know their story. I don’t live at their house. I’m not their mom or dad. I’m not their doctor, and I’ve got bigger fish to fry than obsess over someone else’s weight, whether they’re someone I don’t know from Adam or Eve, or someone in my life.
We’ve all seen those magazines in the checkout lines at the store. You know, the ones by the lame tabloids chock full of lies and damn lies. The magazines I’m talking about are the ones that claim to have the ultimate solution to all our problems, the latest cure-all, and the list of secrets “they” don’t want us to know about.
On a similar note, I’m guessing we’ve all seen those commercials and infomercials with gadgets, pills, cleanses, and other quick fixes promising us the moon and ultimately delivering nothing in return. Those kinds of commercials and infomercials usually air late at night, and on network TV, but they’ll also show up on cable channels too.
When I was going down the Quora rabbit hole the other day, I noticed a common theme among people looking to lose some weight for whatever reason: most of them had goals like to lose 30 pounds in a month, lose 50 in two months, what have you.
Before I ever lost the weight, I wanted to lose 30 pounds in a month, so I get where these question askers are coming from. I speak from experience, more than I care to remember. Based on where I started, at a BMI in the upper 40s, I felt like I’d have been happy even losing 30 pounds, haha.
When I was losing the weight, and as I reached the point where I could no longer lie and pull the wool over people’s eyes about it to get them off my case, they would ask me how I did it.
Most of them would look disappointed when I told them how I did it: learning an appropriate calorie budget based on my goals and circumstances, and sticking with it. I was already active even before I lost the weight, so that was in my favor.
Others would look interested, like they wanted to learn how to do that themselves, so I told them: with the TDEE calculator.
Looking back, the ones who fell within the former camp were the ones likely looking for the quick fix I used to want myself before I lost the weight, and when I gained back whatever I managed to lose the first time around.
I’m here to tell you readers and anyone who finds this: if you’re looking to lose 30 pounds in a month, or 50 pounds in two months, or some other unrealistic goal, it won’t happen. If it does, it’s either due to an illness or an unsustainable crash diet.
The only way it’s possible to lose that amount of weight that quickly is if you’re at a very high BMI, like the people on My 600lb Life were when they started out. Otherwise, that kind of weight loss won’t happen, nor should it happen.
Instead, you’re better off losing the weight in a sustainable way. I get that you’re desperate to lose this weight. I was too. I’ve been down that road before, and it was a terrible place to be with myself. We didn’t get to the point we started at overnight, and we won’t get out of it overnight.
I came to the realization that quick fixes and instant gratification were essentially part of what kept me in the mess I was in, and what got me into this mess in the first place. Instant gratification won’t get me out of it, and besides, why even bother considering what got me into this mess as a means to clean it up?
Readers, and anyone finding this, if there’s one takeaway you get out of this, it’s that there’s no such thing as a quick fix. Slow and steady wins the race. It won’t happen in the 30 days or whatever other short time frame you picked, and it won’t be the drastic results you were hoping for, but there will be results if you go the sustainable route.
Over to you, readers. Have you ever considered those weight loss quick fixes, or tried them? Sound off below, and let’s talk.
