Weight Loss Guru

Our goals, dreams and ambitions are very important when it comes to weight loss, fitness and health but what are the ideals we have and are we just setting ourselves up for failure.

Have a look at my latest video about this and let us know what you think.  

A problem human beings share is a tendency to fall for the ‘see food’ diet.  Our primitive genetic coding sometimes tells us when food’s available, just incase there’s a shortage tomorrow – and if crispy, golden, succulent goodies confront us at every street corner, we don’t always stop to ask our stomach if we are genuinely hungry.

Of course this weakness has been fully exploited by the big diet companies and the supermarkets too.  The shops are full of products claiming to be low fat or low calorie, but they aren’t really the slimming solutions that they appear to be.

How do you define slimming food? An orange? An avocado? A chicken salad? Or is it a pre-packaged ready meal with low-fat written all over it that looks very much like high-fat, deep fried product we’d actually prefer to eat? Are we really going to change our eating habits permanently by drinking three imitation chocolate milkshakes everyday for a month? Or are our bodies going to be even more confused when we finally give up the pretend party food and start introducing weird stuff like fish and tomatoes and brown rice?

Another problem with special diet foods is that, in order to make them taste as good as real food, a lot of sugar or chemicals have to be added.  So a low-fat label often means high sugar.  A Sunday Times article in February 1999 by Steve Farrar and Tom Robbins revealed that many leading slimming products (including diet drinks) are simply loaded with sugar which can be addictive as well as harmful; according to the same article, refined sugar consumption could be responsible for the deaths of 3000 British women a year with heart disease.

And for chemicals, well, that’s a controversial subject and the jury is still out on a lot of them.  But in the meantime it’s safer to stick with the simplest and most natural basic ingredients instead of putting stuff in our bodies that we haven’t  learned to deal with.

So, weighing up the evidence, it seems that the best thing about diet meals is that they are much more expensive than real food so you probably can’t afford to buy as many of them.

So Why Do We Keep Doing It

The great thing about banging your head on a brick wall is that it’s so wonderful when you stop.  Of course, you may already have caused yourself a permanent injury…

People with problems are anxious and afraid that things will get worse – so the one thing they are reluctant to do is change, which, of course, is exactly what they most need to do.

In spite of the fact that dieting makes them miserable and doesn’t provide a permanent solution, it’s familiar territory.  It can also be expensive and difficult, and that gives them confidence.  Desperate people will believe anything – and if nothing’s worked in the past it’s reasonable to assume that they have to try harder and spend more money next time round.  Of course, this opens the door to a lot of bizarre and even fake diet plans, as well as the usual calorie cutters.

What do you think?

Hi everyone 

It seem people and especailly woman are constantly reminded that being beautiful is more important than anything else in the world. We are told that in order to be happy, successful respected and to have good relationships, we have to look good. And, sadly, the desire to be beautiful undermines our self-esteem because it values us by standards we can't control. Age catches up with everybody in the end – although if you're wealthy you can hold it at bay for a bit longer than everybody else.


Here are some alarming facts;


Pressures To Be Perfectly Slim

Over a twenty year period, the Playboy centrefold lost 25 pounds until she weighed 18 per cent less that the medical ideal for her age and height. The weight of fashion models plummeted even further to 23 per cent below that of ordinary women. In the Miss World contest a few years ago, the average contestant was below the US standard weight for anorexia according to height.

Recent BMA research found that many currently popular models and actresses only have 10-15 per cent of their body composition as fat compared with 22-26 per cent for a normal, healthy women.

It's estimated that 85 per cent of Americans have dieted. Hundreds of thousands of other women are undergoing cosmetic surgery, stomach stapling and liposuction.

In the 1994 Glamour survey of 33,000 women, three-quarters of the respondents regardless of age, income and education, reported feeling overweight, although only one quarter could be classified as truly overweight.

In a study done in a hall of distorting mirrors it was found that women were much more likely to believe the mirror that made them look fatter than the mirror that accurately reflected their size or made them thinner.

And the tragic part of it is ideal women get smaller, real women get bigger, so the dissatisfaction gap is widening all the time.


Winners and Losers

The reason why some people succeed and some people don't is less to do with luck or talent than how they think. Obviously, in sport, some people have more potential than others, but at the top, the physical gap between the champions and the also-rans is very small. It's the mindset that makes the difference.

So what's the difference that makes the difference between success and failure? Well, there isn't one, there are quite a few.

Successful Slimmers know when they've had Enough

A lot of successful slimmers finally win their battle when they eventually get fed up with feeling fat and guilty. They've had enough so they are left with no choice but to change.


Successful slimmers are willing to take responsibility for what they eat and how they live. They don't need external rules; they eat and exercise accordingly to how they feel. And they can do that because they are back in touch with what their bodies need.

What do you think?

 Well Done Jane! You have won the PCTV Member of the Month award for August

Jane is a very worthy winner as she has embraced PCTV and got so much out of it. I have been apart of her journey since she joined back in December 08. She has written a 191 journal entries and has offered so much care and support for others.In her own words;

"Pete's programme has given me the self confidence to carry on to a healthy and fit future. I have found a new respect for myself and would recommend this programme to everyone who wants to be slim, fit and healthy"

Her weight loss is obvoiusly fantastic but what I most admire about Jane is that she struggled in the begining but never gave up. She wobbled but didn't fall down and she is living proof that if we want something enough we can achieve it. I am very proud of Jane and what she has achieved. She is an inspiration to us all.

Hi everyone 

I have special pod-cast for you to listen to with Health and Fitness Professional, Susan Cass. I have known  Susan for some time as we write articles for a fitness magazine called UltraFit.

In this pod-cast we discuss the best type of exercise for weight loss. 

To find out more about Susan please visit her website by clicking here.

Take care and please make a comment if you find this pod-cast usefu.l

Pete

Hi there

Click below to read a great article that I wrote with personal trainer Susan Cass, called Dietary Snakes and Ladders.

Snakes and Ladders is a game that we may have  all played. You know where the game starts on the  board and you know where the end is, but there  are many different routes you can take and an infinite number of outcomes. The same can be said for weight loss

Please make a comment below about this article if you find it helpful in any way.

CLICK HERE TO READ THIS ARTICLE

Dietary-Snakesladders-petecohen.pdf
Open/Download PDF file

Photo by Ollie Crafoord | Flickr

Hi everyone

Let me please ask you a question, “What do you think you could achieve in six weeks? Is it possible that you could break some habits and become even healthier, fitter and slimmer?”

Petecohen.tv has gone from strength to strength and we now have more and more success stories and a great community of bloggers who are all positively supporting each other.

I know that people can achieve so much in this time frame and are likely to do it, if they do it with others, and are supported along the way.

What this will involve is getting as many people to start the programme from day one on Monday 15th of June and to go through the 21 days twice. I would encourage you to blog as much as you can using your on-line journal, as you allow yourself to support and be supported by others.

For more details listen to this short pod-cast below

Lets make this Summer special, where we are all feel better about ourselves, have more energy and look great. I personally dare you to do this, whether you’ve never completed the whole programme or you’ve been through it lots of time. Even if you don’t want to follow the 21 days, you could still decide some tools to use and just go for it.

So the question is, "Are you up for it?"

If you are and you are not already a member of petecohen.tv then click here to visit the site and sign up. If you are member just activate your calendar to start on the Monday the 15th of June. 

Take care and lets all have a go

Pete

Photo by lu_lu | Flickr

Hi everyone,

I have another pod-cast for you to listen to about health and fitness. In this pod-cast I'm interviewing Health and Fitness Professional, Carl Benton.

Let us know what you think and if you find it useful.

Many thanks,
Pete