Gaining Fitness (Speech)

Recent speech I delivered for Toastmasters:

New Year is around the corner, there is a tradition that is common across the world. Do you know what is that tradition? It is to make New Year’s resolution. Babylonians make promises to their gods to return borrowed objects and pay their debts. Romans make promises to the god Janus for whom January is named after.

At the end of the Great Depression about a quarter of American adults form New Year’s resolutions. At the start of 21st century 40% did (according to statistic brain). Did you know that in a 2017 survey 45% of their respondents would like to lose weight. You can look it up in The Statistics Portal.

Why would anyone want to lose something? Isn’t it better to gain something? When it comes to Law of Attraction, we need to say things using positive phrases. That is why this speech title is on Gaining Fitness and not Losing Weight.

Losing Weight is easy, if you are very sick, you will automatically lose weight. However, is weight loss the real goal? Why do we want to lose weight?

Before considering weight loss, first consider components of our weight. Hydration, fat, muscles and bones. Bones are the only component that cannot change, everything else are variables. We can lose weight by dehydrating ourselves. I ran 2 hours and loss 1 kg in weight from my sweat.

A much better way is to burn fat by gaining muscles. I recommend reading the book “Burn the Fat Feed the Muscles” by Tom Venuto.

One approach I tried several years back was counting calories (also know is CICO). The approach works, but there are rules. To lose 1 kg of weight we need to have a deficit of 7000 calories. Formula is simple enough but our body is alive; so we adapt. Reduce your calories too much then it will protect itself and turn on starvation mode. Weight loss using this method requires a lot of will power but is not sustainable. It requires substituting yogurt for ice cream, whole meal bread of white bread.

We had a program a few years ago where participants had to lose weight and the winner is the one who loses the most percentage of weight during the program. One of the participants misread the label and thought 0 cholesterol means 0 calories and ate a lot and ended up gaining instead of losing weight.

I am starting an experiment, instead of reducing my weight, I would like to lose my body fat. It is currently at 30% and the plan is to get it down to 15% in two years. Would you like to join me in that journey?

Note from the evaluation:

1. The speech lacks proper transition.
2. Speeches work better if there are three main points.