You Know How!
Weight loss seems to be a great mystery to the masses! Have you ever known anyone who worked relentlessly at their job, home, side-projects and raising children but seemed to be unable to lose weight? I think we all have either known that person, or been that person. Sometimes obesity and the seeming inability to lose weight is equated with laziness but more often than not, that is not the case. We tend to burn the candle at both ends, neglect ourselves and grab whatever sounds good in the moment because we have not paid due diligence to our health needs.
Weight Loss Sabotage
Everyone that holds down a job or is raising kids, knows the feeling of thinking how much easier it would be to just hit the drive-through rather than cook when we get home. Once we make that stop and we’re hungry and miserable, we tend to give into high calorie meals based on simple carbs. That kind of food will satisfy you for a little while but before bedtime, you will be in the kitchen looking for a snack and the already stretched calorie budget is completely wiped out. Boxes of cereal, chips and cartons of ice cream fit all too nicely into this deprived way of living.
YOU MATTER!
You may say that this is anything except deprived but you are wrong! There is some kind of martyr mentality that causes some people to neglect themselves in the course of the day. Binge eating and poor nutrition is always the result for those of us who tend to overeat. I work with people who almost NEVER have food with them. They will either go hungry all shift and binge with food and alcohol after work or go out and get a nutritional nightmare in a bag. I am the oldest and the healthiest person at work most of the time but I ALWAYS have food. Occasionally I will order food but I am NEVER without something in my backpack to eat. If I do order, it’s well thought out and fits my calorie budget. I use the same energy that I bring to other projects to make sure that I eat well. You can do this too!
Make Weight Loss Your New Project!
If you know how to work as hard as you do on things that you either want or need to do, simple apply that same energy to your health. If you are an overachiever in other things, a sought-after employee, a hard-working parent and always looking for something else to do, then you have the energy and ability to lose weight.
It really isn’t rocket science.
1-Understand that you are a person too. Your needs matter. If others depend on you then you need to be at your best to serve them too.
2-SEE YOUR DOCTOR AND FOLLOW HIS ADVICE.
3-COUNT YOUR CALORIES! I like the free version of the My Fitness Pal app for this. You can find any food that you want and instantly track those calories. I USE THE FREE VERSION! We strongly believe that weight loss is so simple that the knowledge of how to do it should be FREE.
4-IF YOUR DOCTOR APPROVES, start an exercise program that you WILL DO. I love to swim and was a regular swimmer for many years. The problem is, swimming takes more time than I am willing to invest. It will possibly also interfere with my strength training now, but when it was my main exercise, there were many days that it didn’t get done due to time constraints. Your exercise has to be doable. DON”T GIVE YOURSELF EXTRA CALORIES FOR EXERCISE.
5-COOK! While it is entirely possible to get healthy food out, restaurant food does not need to be your main source of nutrition. You just don’t have enough control over what you get unless you order the same thing all the time. If you do that, sooner or later you will start ordering the high calories offerings and not only stop losing weight, you will gain.
6-PLAN your meals! Food prepping is the ideal but if you don’t do that, at least plan a skeleton menu and shop so that you have healthy, whole foods in the house to whip up a tasty, nutritious meal on the fly.
7-Stand up to food bullies and other negative influences. Just yesterday, I witnessed a “well-meaning” food pusher who brought carrot cake into the office of a good friend of mine who has lost about 50 pounds. Desserts were her main source of excess calories and she simply quit eating added sugars. As she “spent” her calories on wiser choices, the pounds began to melt away. As she said “No, I don’t want that, but thank you anyway.”, I yelled at the offender to get that out of her office. Whether it’s a loved one, a work-buddy or a church lady, they are all negatively impacting your health and longevity if you succumb to their influence. JUST SAY NO! Sugar addiction is as real as any other addiction. Don’t feed it. Starve it and it will lose almost all power over you.
8-Study health and nutrition. Most people spend endless hours on social media sites, watching TV or doing some other mindless, lethargic activity. Use some of that time to read about health and nutrition and extend your life and improve the quality of those years. We have about 1200 articles right here on David’s Way to Health and Fitness. Look in the search box for any topics you are interested in. You can also leave a comment to tell us something that you would like to study and we’ll do some research for you. FREE.
9-Set specific goals. Instead of saying, “I am going to lose weight.” say, “I am going to lose X pounds (or a specific body fat percentage).” We respond better to specific goals.
10-NEVER QUIT working to be the best version of you that you can be. You will have setbacks in your weight loss, and your progress will slow, but as long as you have a body, you must perform maintenance. If you never put gas in your car, it would stop. Look at your body as the vehicle that gets you through life and perform daily maintenance.
Use the passion and energy that you have for other people and projects to achieve goals that you never dreamed possible. You have already proven that you will work. Now, work on YOU.
Dream BIG.
Work HARD.
MAKE IT HAPPEN.