Mistake 3

Mistake 3

Larry "thinforlife" Jacobs is a top food and weight loss coach and he has worked with several prominent golfers including Fred Funk and Allen Doyle. A few weeks back, he contacted oobgolf because he wanted to share his tips with us on how to get the most of the 2012 golf season. So I thought, what the heck, let's hear him out. Over the next seven weeks, he'll share his seven tips to help you lose weight and get in shape. You can find more from Larry on his website thingolfer.com. Enjoy!

You can reach your Weight, Health and Fitness goals in the New Year, whether you want to lose weight, get fit, eat healthy or simply just feel better by avoiding the 7 biggest mistakes most golfers make when trying to lose weight and get into shape (read the first two mistakes here and here).

Mistake #3 is using Meal Replacement Bars and Shakes to Lose Weight.

Here's why.

The simple answer is this. To succeed for the long term with your weight and your size and your health, you’ve got learn to be able to learn to coexist with real food.

I’ve often said that over the last 28 years, food is by far the most abused substance in our culture. It certainly appears more socially acceptable than drugs or alcohol. Yet food has a very powerful effect on people’s choices, habits, actions and health.

Remember we now know the foods you eat have a lasting impact on virtually every aspect of your health, and that the majority of illness and chronic diseases currently so prevalent in America today, are largely preventable and in some cases fully reversible, simply by eating certain foods and avoiding others.

Meal Replacement Bars and Shakes are definitely on my avoid list.

Show me someone whose lost a lot of “weight” by going on a fasting program using shakes and bars instead of real food and exercise, and I’ll show you someone who’s most likely bigger now than they’ve ever been.

Look at Oprah way back in 1989 and 1990. Remember she came out on stage as skinny as a twig pulling a wagon load of simulated body fat? If you remember she put all of it back on and a lot more. That’s when she got sensible and started eating the right foods. Real food and she started to exercise too.

Back then she got down to a size 2 starving off the weight on one of those doctor supervised meal replacement shake programs. Unfortunately a lot of people followed her down the “primrose path” and got the same nasty result. This is just another form of dieting and we already discussed why that will never work in article #1.

Sad, but those fasting programs are still around and in my opinion are to be avoided.

After completing one of these meal replacement shake program, most people just go back to their old eating habits and gain some, all or more of the weight back. They haven’t learned any new skills and often end up worse than they were to begin with.

In order to be nutritionally sound we’ve got to learn to consume a wide variety of real foods on a daily basis.

In fact I offered that promise to two-time U.S. Senior Open winner and Champions Tour player Allen Doyle. He told me he was bigger than he’d ever been and his feet were killing him out on tour due to carrying the extra weight. We quickly turned that around and took 25 pounds off Allen in eight weeks. His feet stopped hurting and he looked and felt better. He even recorded a message on my website summarizing his results!

Which one of these folks would you rather be?

Most of my participants (before they start my program) lead very sedentary lives as well as make very poor food choices. They eat high fat, high salt, high sugar, low fiber, highly refined carbohydrate foods, and they often consume junk foods, fast foods and highly sweetened beverages as well as alcoholic beverages. These foods easily convert to extra body fat and often are at the basic cause of overweight and over fat individuals. In fact the above is a good formula for becoming a Fat Storer.

In the first two weeks, my participants are encouraged to start moving and become physically active on a daily basis. They consume the right beverages. They are encouraged to get plenty to eat and learn to eat clean. They are encouraged to eat any time based on their hunger without dieting or counting calories. They never go hungry or starve because when you make good choices and eat the right proteins, the right oils and fats along with the right carbohydrates, your hunger calms down and is easily satisfied.

When one combines this method of eating clean with regular physical activity they start to lose weight, get smaller and burn fat within that first two-week period. This is a common occurrence when someone starts the program. It's not hard to see why, when you compare behavior A to behavior B above.

Remember Unlike Golf

This is a game you can WIN, by shooting even par, under par, or a little over par just about every day of your life.

Stay tuned for Mistake #4.

This was written by Larry Jacobs, a reader/follower/fellow oober and the opinions are 100% his and do not reflect those of oobgolf in anyway. You can find more from Larry on his website thingolfer.com. Enjoy! I'm sure he's ready for your feedback.

photo by OctopusHat

[ comments ]

birdieXris says:
excellent column and it's only getting better. I think one thing to point out in conjunction is that is generally OK to bring a protein bar for energy or a quick fix. When i'm on the course, i have soemthing like that as a snack because it's easily concealable (for the courses that have issues with the cooler on the course), it is non perishable for those hot days, and it's a heck of a lot better than the garbage that you get at the snack hut. It's not something you want to do often if you can help it and it's DEFINITELY not a replacement for a meal but it helps curb some hunger, keep you out of starvation mode, and give you a little boost of energy.

1/18/12

cvargo says:
I am liking the column but I am getting the impression that I am being sold something.

1/18/12

Mr_X says:
All good advice Larry. Chris, my favorite energy food on the course is toasted plain almonds. They have tons of energy in them. A zip lock bag of them are very concealable. And I never worry about them going bad.

1/18/12