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Take A Different Approach to Weight Loss

Rachel Cosgrove, BS, CSCS, the co-founder and co-owner of Results Fitness, in Southern California, is a fitness expert for Women’s Health and was named 2012 IDEA Personal Trainer of the Year. Her new book, Drop Two Sizes: A Proven Plan to Ditch the Scale, Get the Body You Want & Wear the Clothes You Love, empowers readers to throw out their scale, take a new approach and see real results.

Hers is a proven plan that will help women shrink their thighs, tone their abs and arms and tighten every inch of their bodies in 12 weeks or less, guaranteed. With an easy-to-follow workbook, Cosgrove guides readers through invaluable goal setting skills, helpful strategies and behavioral techniques that they can use daily to achieve success. More importantly, readers will learn to let go of the number on the scale and focus on losing inches and fitting into their favorite “skinny” clothes.

This fitness and diet manual includes a customizable, illustrated 12-week eating and exercise plan; at-home strength and cardio routines; and menus, recipes, and suggestions for planning and cooking healthy meals, created with the help of Registered Dietitian Chris Mohr.

Cosgrove writes, in an excerpt from her book:

If you are, like the average woman, size 10 or above, you have probably been disappointed when shopping because most boutique and high-end fashion clothing stores don’t cater to you. In fashion, size 14 is where plus-size starts, despite it being the size of the “average” woman. A Los Angeles Times article from 2009 titled “Fashion’s Invisible Woman” said it perfectly:

“When it comes to shopping, the average American man has it made. At 189.8 pounds and a size 44 regular jacket, he can wear Abercrombie & Fitch, American Apparel or Armani. Department stores, mall retailers and designer boutiques all cater to his physique--even when it’s saddled with love handles, a sagging chest or a moderate paunch. In menswear, schlubby is accommodated. But the average U.S. woman, who is 162.9 pounds and wears a size 14, is treated like an anomaly by apparel brands and retailers--who seem to assume that no one over size 10 follows fashion’s capricious trends.”

In a quest to fit into your skinny jeans and the fashionable apparel at most clothing stores, you may have considered going on a diet or doing whatever will work to look and feel the way you want to. But this “ideal” often leads to disaster. Three out of every four American women between the ages of 25 and 45 report having disordered eating behaviors, according to a survey from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Dieting this way leads to temporary weight loss and a focus on hitting the magic number on the scale. You may have hit this magic number in the past and bought yourself a pair of fashionable jeans in your new size--your “skinny” jeans. The problem is that the majority of the weight loss you achieved was likely from reduced lean muscle mass, the loss of which slows down your metabolism--and keeping your metabolism humming is one of the keys to lasting weight loss.

You may have been on this roller-coaster ride, even recently, and already gained pounds back at this point, returning to the weight you were originally or even getting heavier. Your size 12 or 14 jeans (now known as your “fat” jeans) may fit even worse because your body is now made up of more fat and less muscle.

First, know this: You’re not alone. This yo-yo phenomenon is very common among women, and many times the process is repeated over and over for a lifetime. A study conducted in Australia in 2009 suggested that women ages 25 to 45 are at the highest risk of gaining weight, and those with children are at increased risk because of weight gain associated with pregnancy and subsequent lifestyle changes. The study noted that average self-reported weight gain is almost 1½ pounds per year. From 25 to 45, that adds up! The goal of this challenge is to reverse that.

You may have a number on the scale associated with those skinny clothes, which you have reached before--it’s where you think you have to be in order to look and feel the way you want to. Throughout your lifetime, you may have reached this magic number on the scale more than once by following various crash diets and plans, but each time the results were fleeting, as the pounds slowly crept back on.

A restrictive diet sets you up to fail. A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2011 looked at the long-term hormonal effects of weight loss from a low-calorie diet. The results showed the damage was still evident a year later, with a number of hormones still affected, including appetite control hormones. You’ll still feel hungrier and more likely to binge a whole year after you’ve finished your low-calorie diet. It is impossible to maintain your weight loss when your body is fighting you to gain the weight back even a whole year later. A different approach--this one--that includes exercise, fueling your body with the right foods, and not focusing on weight loss will set you up to succeed.

Cosgrove’s newly released book is available at local booksellers and online outlets.


Published with permission. For more information, visit RachelCosgrove.com. To learn more about RealFit Gym, 1480 Old Deerfield Rd. Unit 8, Highland Park, call 847-780-4932 or visit RealFit-Gym.com.

RealFit Gym, in Highland Park
(RealFit-Gym.com), a member of an affiliation of gyms that implement Cosgrove’s fitness philosophy, is a local place to realize these individual health and fitness goals. Co-owners Cecily and Lucy Casey take a very active approach with their clients by developing a personalized plan together to achieve real-world results. “Working out for the sake of working out isn’t going to get you to your goals,” notes Cecily. “Our philosophy is to develop a plan to reach a goal. There has to be a road map to get us to the finish line. Individual workouts won’t get us there, but a comprehensive plan will.”