This is where you don’t want to end up.

With the new year starting tomorrow, the annual resolutions kick in and people try to lose weight and get healthy.

A better strategy is to avoid that entirely by living a healthy lifestyle for the long term.

Read this article from the NY Times on the Biggest Loser Fat Camp and maybe that will motivate you. You can also check out The Biggest Loser Blog.

Any type of exercise is good exercise, but some forms of exercise are better for greater weight loss than others. Group sports, and other types of exercise that work the body from head to toe, burn hundreds of calories per hour and they also challenge all muscle groups. Not only can this help you lose more weight, it can also help you keep it off. Just a few uber effective forms of exercise are swimming, cardio boot camp, running, basketball, and racquetball.

Racquetball is similar to handball. The game is played on a four walled court with a short-handled racket and a larger ball. The game is usually played by two players, but four players is also common. The amount of calories burned during an hour long game varies by weight and whether or not the game is casual or competitive. To give you an idea of just how many calories you can burn, a person that weighs 125 pounds can burn around 400 calories during a casual game or 568 calories during a competitive game. A 170-pound person can burn 541 calories during a casual game or 773 during a competitive game.

Racquetball can help you lose weight if you make smart food choices and commit to playing at least three times a week. Once you lose the weight, if you want to keep it off, stick to a sensible diet and try play on most days of the week.

So where are the Racquetball Courts?

If you’re looking for a place to play racquetball, look no further than your local health club, tennis club, community center or park district. If you’re looking for the cheapest place to play, try a community center or park district where public courts are typically no more than $10 an hour.

Most quick weight loss programs last a few days up to a maximum of two weeks. In either case, the duration of most quick weight loss diets is not long enough to do any permanent damage. If you remain on the diet longer than two weeks, however, you may develop nutritional deficiencies. Most quick weight loss programs are not balanced, so they can never satisfy all of your nutritional needs.

Quick weight loss programs focus on one or two types of foods and eliminate the rest. According to the American Heart Association, no one type of food has all the nutrients you need for good health. Take the cabbage soup diet for instance. Although the diet also includes fruit and other vegetables, it eliminates protein on most days. One day even calls for eating only bananas and skimmed milk.

Cabbage is packed with vitamin K and C, as well as dietary fiber, vitamin B6, calcium, and omega 3 fatty acids. You can get plenty of nutrients from cabbage but it lacks vitamin E, protein, carbs, and calories—all things the body needs for optimal functioning. You will lose large amounts of weight on the cabbage soup diet if you can last 2 weeks, but continue beyond the 2-week period and you will also lose energy and muscle, and your body will be missing out on the other vital vitamins and nutrients it needs to survive.

Quick weight loss diets like the cabbage soup diet are not designed to be a permanent weight loss solution. The cabbage soup diet is used to prepare overweight heart patients for surgery. During the seven days before surgery, patients typically lose 10-17 pounds. Keep in mind that most of the weight loss during the initial stages of any diet is usually only water weight.

Other quick weight loss diets or extreme low-calorie diets are used to help ease symptoms from certain conditions or jump start weight loss for overweight or obese patients. These programs are carefully monitored by physicians. This means patients are usually given prescription grade supplements to make up for vitamin and nutrient loss.

Scarsdale Diet fans might point to this diet and say that it’s balanced because it includes foods from all major food groups, but there’s only one problem–weight loss occurs at a average of 1-1.25 pounds per day, so this is also a quick weight loss diet. The rapid weight loss occurs as a result of severe calorie restriction. The diet averages around 800-1,000 calories per day. Because each individual’s calorie needs are different (even a 2-3 year old child requires 1,000+ calories per day for good health), 800-1,000 calories per day isn’t sufficient for the average adult. Remember, healthy weight loss occurs at a rate of 1-2 pounds per week, and calorie needs are based on age, height, weight, build, activity level, and any medical conditions.

The good news about quick weight loss programs is, they definitely work short-term. So if you plan to take a trip to a tropical island and you want to be bikini ready, or you want to slim down for a college reunion, or you’re getting married and want to look slim and trim in your wedding gown, a quick weight loss program might a temporary solution. If you need or want to lose weight, but you also want to keep it off permanently, a quick weight loss program just won’t work. Unfortunately, as soon as the diet ends, the weight will return.

For a weight loss program to be successful long term, it must be customized to fit the individual. According to renowned personal trainer Angelo Sorrenti, who charges around $10,000 for a personalized diet, supplemental recommendations, and 30 training sessions, “There’s no such thing as a diet for everyone.” This may be the reason why 90 percent of the people that go on diets regain the weight, plus a few pounds, shortly after the program is over.

Sorrenti’s success is based on simple science. He states, “Your metabolism is different than mine; your needs are different. There are diets that can be good for 10 people but can harm 10 million people.” And it makes sense. Not just the metabolism part, but also because people have allergies, ailments, and other issues that dictate what they can and cannot eat. So a diet that calls for a boiled egg, grapefruit, and coffee for breakfast could be harmful for an individual with egg allergy and/or interstitial cystitis.

For this reason, Sorrenti, and other successful weight-loss experts, will not recommend a diet and exercise program until they have thoroughly analyzed your blood work, medical history, and current physical condition. Sorrenti states that once a client has been analyzed, he can then create an all-encompassing diet and exercise plan calibrated for the individual’s needs.

So when searching for a weight loss program, consider taking a personal, not a packaged, approach. Contact several trainers, weight-loss experts, and weight loss centers and interview them. The goal is to find a program that is made just for you in order to avoid a devastating failure shortly after the program is over.

To recap, make sure the weight loss center or expert:

·Requires a physical exam
·Evaluates your blood work and physical condition
·Asks about ailments or allergies
·Evaluates your metabolism
·Will work with you one on one to create a safe and effective weight loss program

Successful weight loss programs always include exercise. You may start out with light exercise while your body adjusts, then the exercise regimen will gradually increase as your weight and energy levels increase. A weight loss program that claims to help you lose weight without exercise is a program that should be avoided if you are interested in permanent weight loss.

If you want to seek out Mr. Sorrenti, we wish you all the luck, but if you have trouble signing with the most sought after trainer in New York City, don’t worry. There are literally thousands of trainers and weight loss centers and experts around the world. It really doesn’t matter how popular they are. If they take a custom approach to individual weight-loss and former clients have walked away (and stayed away) with good results, it’s worth giving it a try.