How many times have we all done it?
Once?
A dozen?
A hundred times?
How many times have we said to ourselves “ENOUGH! I have had enough of being fat, and feeling gross and my clothes not fitting….(insert frustration of choice here)”. We start that minute with iron-willed resolve, only to have it seem a distant memory 4 hours later when hunger strikes and a co-worker brings in cupcakes “for no special reason”.
And we do it again and again the next day.
We may find ourselves resolving and failing, picking this diet after that diet, seemingly going nowhere on the hamster wheel….do you ever wonder what you’re doing wrong? WHY isn’t this working?
A wise man once told me some VERY wise words that stuck with me. That the reasons I couldn’t stick to my “diet” of choice was because:
- A goal is just a goal, when it’s accomplished it’s not sustainable, that’s all it is, a goal.
- When the mindset is about obsessiveness or restriction, the mindset is unsustainable…therefore so is the weight loss
- If you keep this all being about your weight “ then the goal itself is faulty still the goal should be the healthy way you just outlined and the process it takes to finally understand and apply that kind of wellness training from there the weight loss really takes care of itself.
His words resonated with me. I finally understood. But I still didn’t know what to do. I knew that having a Diet, or restriction or just aiming for a number or even a look, was unsustainable. What I outlined to this wise man (Scott Abel in case you were wondering, I want to make sure to give him credit!) was that while yes, I wanted to be smaller, I wanted to be lighter, what I wanted MOST was to CHANGE MY HABITS.
You see, I knew my habits got me to where I was. I recently lost 10-15 lbs going through some grief and trauma in my personal life. Was I happy about it? Actually, yeah, but was it sustainable? No, because I didn’t really change my habits.
How to Change Your Habits
I was listening to The Fitcast Podcast the other day and Kevin was interviewing Dan John. He is a brilliant man, for anyone who doesn’t know. Something that stuck with me was how he said there was a man who lost over 100 lbs over the course of a year, and the first month, the only thing he did was to drink more water. That was it, his ONE goal for the month.
Did you catch the profoundness of that? This man had an audacious goal. The goal in and of itself was not the problem, goals are wonderful. What he did was NOT BE IN A HURRY TO GET THERE. That way, he didn’t obsess over the journey or get frustrated and quit, he said, I have a lot to lose, so to start, I need to start doing something small, something manageable, something I’m not already doing…..and the weight began to come off.
And so this is what I plan to be doing. For the next 9-10 weeks or so, I’ll bring you another installment of the top 10 list (it might not actually be 10, we’ll see 🙂 )
Pre-Change Step: Don’t Be In A Hurry
Before you embark on this journey you need to be really ok with this not being done quickly. It might end up going quickly for you but if you go at it with the intention with this happening quickly, you will be right back to where you are now. Your goal here is to change your habits, and they change neither quickly nor easily. So understand it might take you a 2 weeks to get #1 under your belt before you can proceed. It might take you a month. So what? If you want to do this right once and for all, stop being in a hurry and actually make these habits stick. How long it takes for everyone is different. Be patient with yourself.
Step #1. Drink more water.
Yeah, it sounds simplistic, but come on, how much water do you really drink and how much do you think you should be drinking? I give most of my clients the range of a minimum of 1/2 your bodyweight in ounces of water to 4 liters. Why 4 liters? Most of us are chronically dehydrated and if 4 liters is your goal, even if you only get 2, you’ll feel like you’ve accomplished so much and done really well, and you have, it’s more than you were drinking before.
(Side note: while it’s very convenient to get a gallon milk carton jug and drink out of it all day…please don’t be that guy. It screams “look at me! I drink water, I’m special!” You’re doing this to change your habits, not annoy others or get attention)
That’s it. That’s your challenge. Why is it a challenge? Because you’ll think it’s too easy, it’s too boring and you’re good at multitasking so you will want to do 2-3 new habits at once.
DON’T.
Please trust me in this. You haven’t been successful yet so what do you have to lose? I did this myself and while I am a better water drinker than most, my problem (and probably yours too, if you’re honest with yourself) is consistency. I do not CONSISTENTLY drink enough water, and so it took me the better part of 2-3 weeks to get that first part down.
That’s it! Best of luck on your new journey! Put your comments down below and let us know how it’s going for you: is it easy? Is it harder than you thought? Have you noticed yourself being bored with trying to stick with just adding more water to your diet? Let’s hear the feedback!
The list in it’s entirety:
Top 10 List to get To Who You Want to Be
- Tip #1 Stop Being in a Hurry and Drink Water
- Tip #2 Turn the TV off, put the book down
- Tip #3 and 4 It’s not rocket science, you KNOW what to eat
- Tip #5 Eat whatever you want, no really
- Tip #6 Are you satisfied??
- Tip #7 Are you hungry, bored, tired or lonely?
- Tip #8 Tip #8 Write it down
- Tip #9: Commit to doing some sort of exercise every day
- Tip #10: Take Total Responsibility and Keep Personal Accountability
How many times have we all done it?
Once?
A dozen?
A hundred times?
How many times have we said to ourselves “ENOUGH! I have had enough of being fat, and feeling gross and my clothes not fitting….(insert frustration of choice here)”. We start that minute with iron-willed resolve, only to have it seem a distant memory 4 hours later when hunger strikes and a co-worker brings in cupcakes “for no special reason”.
And we do it again and again the next day.
We may find ourselves resolving and failing, picking this diet after that diet, seemingly going nowhere on the hamster wheel….do you ever wonder what you’re doing wrong? WHY isn’t this working?
A wise man once told me some VERY wise words that stuck with me. That the reasons I couldn’t stick to my “diet” of choice was because:
- a goal is just a goal, when it’s accomplished it’s not sustainable, that’s all it is, a goal.
- when the mindset is about obsessiveness or restriction, the mindset is unsustainable…therefore so is the weight loss
- If you keep this all being about your weight “ then the goal itself is faulty still the goal should be the healthy way you just outlined and the process it takes to finally understand and apply that kind of wellness training from there the weight loss really takes care of itself
His words resonated with me. I finally understood. But I still didn’t know what to do. I knew that having a Diet, or restriction or just aiming for a number or even a look, was unsustainable. What I outlined to this wise man (Scott Abel in case you were wondering, I want to make sure to give him credit!) was that while yes, I wanted to be smaller, I wanted to be lighter, what I wanted MOST was to CHANGE MY HABITS.
You see, I knew my habits got me to where I was. I recently lost 10-15 lbs going through some grief and trauma in my personal life. Was I happy about it? Actually, yeah, but was it sustainable? No, because I didn’t really change my habits.
How to Change Your Habits
I was listening to The Fitcast Podcast the other day and Kevin was interviewing Dan John. He is a brilliant man, for anyone who doesn’t know. Something that stuck with me was how he said there was a man who lost over 100 lbs over the course of a year, and the first month, the only thing he did was to drink more water. That was it, his ONE goal for the month.
Did you catch the profoundness of that? This man had an audacious goal. The goal in and of itself was not the problem, goals are wonderful. What he did was NOT BE IN A HURRY TO GET THERE. That way, he didn’t obsess over the journey or get frustrated and quit, he said, I have a lot to lose, so to start, I need to start doing something small, something manageable, something I’m not already doing…..and the weight began to come off.
And so this is what I plan to be doing. For the next 9-10 weeks or so, I’ll bring you another installment of the top 10 list (it might not actually be 10, we’ll see 🙂 )
Pre-Change Step: Don’t Be In A Hurry
Before you embark on this journey you need to be really ok with this not being done quickly. It might end up going quickly for you but if you go at it with the intention with this happening quickly, you will be right back to where you are now. Your goal here is to change your habits, and they change neither quickly nor easily. So understand it might take you a 2 weeks to get #1 under your belt before you can proceed. It might take you a month. So what? If you want to do this right once and for all, stop being in a hurry and actually make these habits stick. How long it takes for everyone is different. Be patient with yourself.
Step #1. Drink more water.
Yeah, it sounds simplistic, but come on, how much water do you really drink and how much do you think you should be drinking? I give most of my clients the range of a minimum of 1/2 your bodyweight in ounces of water to 4 liters. Why 4 liters? Most of us are chronically dehydrated and if 4 liters is your goal, even if you only get 2, you’ll feel like you’ve accomplished so much and done really well, and you have, it’s more than you were drinking before.
(Side note: while it’s very convenient to get a gallon milk carton jug and drink out of it all day…please don’t be that guy. It screams “look at me! I drink water, I’m special!” You’re doing this to change your habits, not annoy others or get attention)
That’s it. That’s your challenge. Why is it a challenge? Because you’ll think it’s too easy, it’s too boring and you’re good at multitasking so you will want to do 2-3 new habits at once.
DON’T.
Please trust me in this. You haven’t been successful yet so what do you have to lose? I did this myself and while I am a better water drinker than most, my problem (and probably yours too, if you’re honest with yourself) is consistency. I do not CONSISTENTLY drink enough water, and so it took me the better part of 2-3 weeks to get that first part down.
That’s it! Best of luck on your new journey! Put your comments down below and let us know how it’s going for you: is it easy? Is it harder than you thought? Have you noticed yourself being bored with trying to stick with just adding more water to your diet? Let’s hear the feedback!
The list in it’s entirety:
Top 10 List to get To Who You Want to Be
- Tip #1 Stop Being in a Hurry and Drink Water
- Tip #2 Turn the TV off, put the book down
- Tip #3 and 4 It’s not rocket science, you KNOW what to eat
- Tip #5 Eat whatever you want, no really
- Tip #6 Are you satisfied??
- Tip #7 Are you hungry, bored, tired or lonely?
- Tip #8 Tip #8 Write it down
- Tip #9: Commit to doing some sort of exercise every day
- Tip #10: Take Total Responsibility and Keep Personal Accountability