Don't Ask Me About Supplements

Not yet, anyway.  I am always very dismayed when I get this question by people new to a healthy lifestyle, because what I'm really being asked is, "I really don't want to do the work, SURELY you know of a magic pill?"

No, I don't, because there isn't one.  If you're watching those hydroxycut commercials and feeling that desperate, please-let-it-be-true hope, you need to turn off the TV and get more sleep.  As a matter of fact, if you have enough time to watch that garbage, you should have been working out, instead.

I have never supplemented, other than taking extra protein in the form of powdered casein and whey, because it gets into the body quicker than having to digest animal or vegetable proteins and is handy for an after-workout snack.  There is a time and a place for supplementing-it's called The Last Ten Pounds.  Supplements can give you an edge, they can push you through plateaus, they can help you knock down that last .5% of body fat, in combination with an intense exercise regimen and excellent nutrition.  They cannot melt 100 pounds of fat off of your body while you sit around munching doritos and wishing for the Magic Pill.

If you're asking about supplements before you've even lost your first five pounds, you have not made the mental switch yet, and as long as you're looking for shortcuts, you're holding yourself back from making that switch.  You need this challenge-these challenges, when overcome, are what will strengthen your resolve.  Trying to take the easy way out is a False Choice, and makes you feel desperate and guilty and erodes your will.  Step away from the pseudephedrine and give yourself a chance-stop getting in your own way.

Commit yourself to the change.  Commit yourself to healthy eating and working out.  Accept these inevitabilities as facts; that what all slender, healthy people do to stay that way is eat right and exercise.  You are no exception and never will be.  You don't have a slow metabolism, you aren't fat because generations of your relatives before you were, you don't get any shortcuts in life.  Anything worth having is worth fighting for.  Put on your gloves and put up your guard, because the battle is on. You'll only be open to the possibilities of your new life when you have put away your illusions and accepted the fact that you are going to have to work off every last pound that you put on.  You put them on all by yourself, and you're going to have to take them off all by yourself.  Quit trying to think of ways around it.  Accept it. Then get on with it.

This is YOUR journey.  Make today count.  Don't think.  Just GO.