You’re finally sick and tired of being sick and tired: you stepped on the scale and it’s ridiculous, you need a bigger size pair of pants, or you feel like death in the morning after 8 hours of sleep and you still feel exhausted. Whatever your reasons are for reading this, I’m glad you rolled through– you need to start somewhere, right? Might as well make today the day.
When it comes losing weight, I’ve heard all the stories from people who have tried “everything” and then quit...again The moral of each story is this: they sucked at losing weight or that something was wrong with themselves – this is a faulty self-image or belief that begins with poor framing of the original thought process.
Don’t waste your time with negative self-talk...there’s been too much of that already if you've read this far, right?. Before we start, understand that everything listed below is my personal opinion, based on my own research and almost a half a century of personal experience and over three decades with helping people lose weight. Take what works for you and ignore the rest.
If I were a gambling man (which I NO LONGER am:), I’d bet you’ve tried to lose weight again and again. Whether it was a specific diet, or the new fad, a weight loss challenge at work, or a diet pill that you saw on TV, you probably lost a little weight and after a few weeks on vacation, got sick, or found a hidden stash of your favorite candy...you gave up. What we need to figure out what specific point or the triggering event you got derailed in the past, and what went wrong:
How much do you seriously want to lose that weight?
It all starts with your perceptions and beliefs which shape your attitude. I know that sounds kind of new age woo-woo, but it’s true. If you’re not committed to a fitness lifestyle and weight loss thing for the right reasons with the right attitude, it will be an uphill challenge. George Santayana once said, “those who forget history are doomed to repeat it.” Figure out what will make things different this time, and recognize the old habits start to repeat – then stay away from these triggers, you’ll have an increased chance of survival.
You can’t out train a bad diet, so just going to the gym more isn’t going to solve your problems. Sure, exercise is a big part of the equation, but it’s more focus on your diet that produces the best results to seeing your body, I’m making an educated guess that spending more time in the gym isn't your number one goal.
I’ve said this before, I’ll say it again: if you exercise 5-10 hours a week after sitting the rest of the day in your office, you still have 158 hours to make self-sabotaging behaviors. If you want to lose weight, you must make changes to your diet. Period. Even if it’s just a few minutes per day of physical exercise to keep you healthy (along with an improved diet). Find something you enjoy doing, start there and then do it all the time.
So you have some self-perceived limitations and some physical limitations as well. Whatever the case…and I’m going to put this as “PC” as possible…So What? Those were the hand of cards you were dealt at birth. Take that hand and play it the best way you can instead of folding again and again when things seem tough. You have to earn the bigger goals in life.
Some people can lose weight quickly. Some people can look at a set of weights and get muscular. But guess what? That’s how life is for some people and not for others. Wherever your starting point is, whether it’s being over or underweight, that’s it: That's your starting point...your test. Some people get a head start, most don’t. Quitters never make it until they stop quitting. The people that succeed are the ones that realistically assess their situation, stay focused on the goal and get the job done.
Dieting sucks. It’s uncomfortable and restrictive, it forces you to deprive yourself of favorite foods, and once you stop it you revert back to where you started. Why waste your time? A diet won’t change your life, but a change in your lifestyle that will. Today, you’re going to skip the fast food after work – not because you’re on a diet, but because the new you no longer eats that way. The cravings you experience are typically food addictions you feel in your mind after eating poorly for so long
YOU determine how different this new you really is. The more you try to change all at once, the higher chance you’ll have at giving up. You need to find a balance of changes that works for you, by incorporating small steps into your routine.
If you try to change everything at once, you’re going to get overwhelmed and quit. If you usually eat Subway seven days each week and drink two or three sodas daily, switching to completely to a ketogenic diet will make you crazy and the cravings you'll likely experience will be too intense.
Instead, make one change per week. Switching from man-made junk food to a “clean house” (non-processed foods) and skipping happy hour all week plus sports bar craziness give up one extra meal a week from the “Cheetah Lounge, stop going to “7-11” or vending machines at work, etc. Analyze your diet, find one thing per week to change, and eventually, you’ll get to the point where you don’t even miss those self-sabotaging habits anymore.
Remember: it’s a lifelong marathon, not a 30-day sprint. I guarantee that first time one of your co-workers asks, “WOW! hey, did you lose weight?” it’s a great feeling. Build on that short range victory and keep the momentum going. A body in motion tends to stay in motion and once you get the inertia going, keep going. If this week’s weigh-in isn’t as low as you had hoped, don’t let it slow you down. Think big picture and keep doing what you’re doing.
3500 calories = 1 lb. of body fat.
If you consume 500 fewer calories per day (or burn 200-300 extra calories per day while training), you will lose up to .5-2.0 lbs per week. So what’s easier: saying no to soda, or running 5 miles? Drinking one can of soda is 150 calories per can. World class runners can burn 500-600 cal/hr running, but are you world class. Why not skip the soda and skip the five miles? You can save the stress on your body. If you skip the soda PLUS run the five miles, you’ll lose a pound. It’s really a numbers game.
Just focus on losing 1-2 lbs. Per week as a goal and it’ll be smooth ride versus trying to rush the process with “no pain no gain attitude. Getting sick from overtraining will just set you back by trying to be in a hurry.
If you plan on cutting your food intake by 600 calories a day to lose weight or fast, it won’t work as planned. When you start to cut calories, your body senses the cutback and begins to fight back by slowing your metabolism down because it thinks you’re trying to starve it and decides to revert back to our pre-programmed genetic times when food wasn’t abundant. Your body flips it’s “survival starvation switch” and begins to store every calorie that comes through your system.
Thus, you stop losing weight. Then, when you start eating normally again your body is still in starvation mode and all of THOSE extra calories will get stored too.
Suddenly, you’ve gained more weight and are bigger than you were before. 1-2 pounds a week is a safe, attainable, sustainable goal. Don’t get too impatient, or your plan will backfire.
Okay, so now you understand how it works. You did your reading, and you want to know what to eat to lose weight. You really have two options:
Keep eating what and how you’re eating now, but eat less of it.
If you want to keep eating what you’re eating now: you’ll need to count calories. Yeah, I know…it's inconvenient. Well, you’re the one that wants to keep eating subs, processed cereals, and pizza. Here’s what you do: sign up for a free account at MyFitnessPal and spend a few days keeping track of EVERYTHING you eat and drink. A half a can of soda counts, a handful of your kid’s M&M's count. The two light beers after work definitely count. I guarantee you eat more calories than you think you can burn off. After a few days, you can start recalling trigger points places where you can cut stuff out or reduce your portions. At this point, it’s up to you to stick with it.
If you decide not to keep track of what you’re eating: Here’s the thing...you must make some changes to your diet. First, cut the sugar. It’s what makes you fat. Next, you need to recognize that it’s not the fat content in foods that is making you fat, it’s all of the processed sugars in the carbs and starches in your foods. What do I mean by that? READ ON!
Stop eating crap and poisoning your body. Eat real foods like fresh fruits, vegetables, nuts, and lean meats. Eliminate processed carbs and starches, which can be found in most man-made foods. No matter the calorie and “fat content” of these things, it’s the man-made carbs and various types of process sugar content that poison your body causing inflammation making you fat.
Although I’m actually trying to keep a more solid and lean physique, switching to a Ketogenic diet which has caused me to lose close to 50 pounds and keep it off over 25 years. I haven’t lost any muscle, I’ve just dropped my body fat % WAY down. If this work for me, and it can work for tens of thousands of people around the world, it can certainly work for you.
Give up the low-fat man-made meals from the freezer section (they’re made in a lab...I call the “Frankenstein Foods”), and eat all the vegetables, essential fats, lean meats and fruits you want. When you switch to all veggies, EFA’s and lean meats, you WILL lose weight. I explain my take on the Ketogenic Diet in my online coaching program it makes a lot of sense, and it works. As I said at the beginning, this is the lifestyle that works for me and has worked for 1000’s of my clients.
This is a variable topic. If you skip breakfast, you’re way more likely to be starving by the time lunch rolls around if your last meal was 12-16 hours beforehand and you're a lean individual already.
If you're into intermittent fasting and prefer to train fasted, that’s fine...just eat a similar meal combination after training
This is the most common change I see in people who have turned their lives around. DON’T SKIP BREAKFAST if hungry. I’m not talking about more processed foods either. Eat a good, high protein breakfast with veggies and fat...you’ll have a much better start to your day.
This is a challenging area to influence due to the massive marketing associate to sports and weight loss supplements. Daily, there’s a new ad for a weight loss supplement that promises incredible results in a short amount of time without having to do any diet or exercise change.
When something seems too good to be true, it’s because it is.
These weight loss supplements don’t work and they can cause some serious damage to your body. Remember ephedrine, Fen-phen Hydroxycut? It was on the market for a few years before it was banned and then pulled from the shelves for being linked to liver damage. Think about all the junk out there now.
Better safe than sorry.
Losing weight should be important to you, but not at the expensive your overall health. My advice: Save your money, spend it on a session with a sports nutrition expert, weight loss pro or personal trainer, and thank me later.
It’s okay to slip up. So you drank a case of beer and watched football all day Saturday while eating a pizza, buffalo wings, and cheese covered do-dads. No big deal. It's just one day You can’t do too much damage to yourself in a day after starting a solid fitness and nutrition coaching program, so take it easy with your food consumption for the few days after that and get back on the train. One or two days isn’t terrible; it’s when you let that one day tumble like dominoes into a total derailment backward. Reach out to your coach.
Make Yourself Accountable
Tell everybody you know your plan to start losing weight. It’s one thing to let yourself down when you skip a workout and eat like a kid at Disneyland every other day, it’s another when you have to tell everybody around you that you’ve fallen off the wagon.
“But I tried another program last time and then I failed, nobody is going to believe me this time.” That should make you want to tell everybody, even more, to prove the doubters wrong when you are successful this time.
Accountability is a really powerful motivational tool.
Use it.
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Posted on 01/07/2017 at 09:45 AM