When people start on a weight-loss journey, they talk too much. They talk about the latest diet they are trying or the latest fitness craze that they are meaning to get to tomorrow. But talk is cheap. You need to listen to lose! Listen to your heart, listen to your body, and listen to others.
Listen to your heart. The you that you are meant to be is one heart beat away. So, listen what your heart is telling you to do. Do not turn to things that stress you out. The latest fitness craze does nothing if your heart is not in it. It just stresses you out and will cause you to stop when you are discouraged. Instead, do what you love. Also, be thankful for what you have. A thankful heart is a stress free, restful heart. Stress is often the reason for losing sleep and gaining weight. Lastly, strive for a goal that inspires you. Your heart needs to be in it to win it!
Listen to Your Body. Your body knows what it wants. That is the reason too many hamburgers and fries give you indigestion. Feed your body with the good stuff. Choose vegetables and fruit over candy and sugar. Remember, just like listening to someone, you must listen to your body closely to understand what it is saying. You may think is saying I need sleep when in reality your body is saying I need to exercise and get energy, or I am dehydrated, and I need water.
Listen to Others. Some people are struggling as you are and may have caught on to something new that you have yet to discover. Others may have won their battle with weight and have inspiring stories and important teachings to tell. Also, when you have met your target, listen to others to pass on your lessons and to provide you with a reason to stay on track.
Like all things, you learn more through listening than talking. So close your mouth, open your ears to Listen, Learn and Lose!
Most people try anything and everything to lose weight when first starting. They will try the latest supplements, liquid diets, eating only select foods (cabbage soup anyone), the hottest fitness craze, eating at only certain times – you get the picture. Let’s do A through Z and sticks to the wall and un-sticks my diet.
I was a proponent of the more is more approach for years and it didn’t work. Over the years as my weight climbed and my hope failed, I tried everything, many simultaneously, from being a vegetarian (failed because M&M’s are not meat!), popping Green Tea pills, cleansing in various ways, the latest exercise craze, and on and on… Then I discovered two things. Weight Watchers (WW) and the book Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18077875-essentialism . Both teach the same thing – Do less, but better. The key to weight loss and a better, more successful life is by correctly assessing the few important priorities, focusing on these priorities exclusively, and dumping the rest. Mr. McKeown provides how to do this in his book and WW in its classed for a Essentialist’s Playbook for Weight Loss.
You can lose 170+
pounds like me by not doing everything but these three things:
Track everything you eat or drink. The best way to know how to lose weight is to
track what you eat. By consciously tracking
your food intake, you will better understand portion control and the trigger
foods you need to avoid. You use this
along with weekly weight tracking to find out what works and what foods to
avoid. That way you focus on what works,
rather than trying everything that doesn’t!
Be kind for yourself. You can’t focus on what is important if you
are unhealthy in body or your soul. It
is therefore important to focus on your health both mentally and
physically. Take time to journal
positive thoughts, rest, and relax. A
few minutes a day of being kind to yourself will not only help you lose the
stress that sabotages most people’s health.
Take time to exercise. Study upon study have shown that sitting is the
equivalent or worse to smoking for health.
It does not take much to get the exercise your body needs and craves. Get up for 10 minutes every hour and take a
walk. Also, block out 30 minutes in the
morning to recharge and energize.
Bottom line: You do
not need to do A through Z to lose weight and be a better you! All you need is the essential 1-2-3! Go out and practice Essentialism to gain a
new body and soul.
The key to improving your health and losing weight is your environment. We in the 21st century live in a toxic environment. Artificial food, false friends, and feelings of discontent lead to stress, weight gain and self-medication. To embark on a journey toward health, we need to put away the fast food, vitriol and anxiety of everyday living to embrace real food, real experiences, mindfulness and thankfulness.
55 Bday Picture
I know I lived in that environment up until a few years back
and experienced its negative consequences.
With ready access to Quarter Pounders, Diet Cokes, and M&Ms, I doubled
my size and diminished my disposition.
These unhealthy eating practices were exacerbated by too much face time at
work and Facebook for leisure. The
result was an unhealthy, grumpy middle-aged man who could not walk around the
block. Something had to change! Only when I started to change my environment
did I change my life!
There were three aspects to my environment that I decided to
change in January 2015. Weighing more
than all but three of the heaviest players in the NFL with a goods deal less muscle
tone and height, I had to take the following actions to change my environment
and restore my hearth:
Changed my food environment. The first aspect that I set out to change was
my pantry. There were several nemeses
that I had to swap out. The first was
Ice Cream. I was an absolute ice cream
fanatic. So much so that I created an
acronym for my Ice Cream addiction – ICR.
This is how it is used. Once my
kids could drive, I would call out – “Hey, Kyle can you go on an ICR. Get me a large M&M blizzard and get
something for everyone else.” ICR if
you have not figured out yet is Ice Cream Run and it supplemented the ice cream
I already had in the freezer. In
addition to Ice Cream, I kept a pantry well stocked of chips, peanut M&Ms,
and a big 1-gallon plastic container of mixed nuts. All available for ready access whenever I
became stressed. This had to change so I
sought out alternatives.
I initially replaced my DQ Blizzard with Skinny Cow Ice Cream sandwiches and eventually Non-Fat Greek yogurt with Banana’s (I still stay away from Ice Cream totally since it is a trigger food). I replaced peanut M&M’s overtime with WW Chocolate Peanut Butter Pie flavored bars that are individually wrapped, the same calories of a two peanut M&M’s and less likely to gouge on by the cupful! I replaced chips with a crunchy, healthy alternative that absorbs Salsa just as well – Broccoli. I dealt with my Mixed Nut affliction in a similar way that I did Peanut M&Ms. I swapped out the tub full of Mixed Nuts from Costco with individual packets of smaller size that are less likely to gouge on in fits of stress eating. These and other food changes got me one third of the way to a better environment.
2. Changed my social and work environment. The next thing I needed to do was change up how I spent my time. During the day and into the early evening I was spending time locked to a desk in conference calls or directing my team. At night, I read the latest political debates late into the night on Facebook. Both resulted in too much work time and not enough downtime. Additionally, the constant diatribe of uncivility on social media was stressing me out. I could feel the cortisol racing through my veins as I dealt with the next work issue or latest political debate.
I decided to take two measures to change my
social and work environment. First, I vowed
to get up and move for 10 minutes each hour and to block out 1 hour for working
out in the morning. Additionally, I
vowed to leave no later than 7 PM unless the world was ending. At first, I thought these actions would
detract from my work effort, but I was wrong.
Instead, it fostered communication between my team and I and provided me
with the respite to come up with better actions.
The second thing I did was make a determined effort to spend less time on social media and to spend that time on positive feeds. I accomplished this in two ways. I monitored and reduced my time reading social media. When I could not reduce it as much as I hoped, I decided to change my feeds and to listen to mindful podcasts. I actively sought out positive Facebook groups such as Spreading Positivity and liked their content. Over time, my Facebook feeds have changed because of this determined effort from politics to positive messages. Many of these serve as inspirations to my blogs! I have switched my environment from Trump to Tranquility!
3. Changed my internal environment. The most important environment to change to get healthy is the internal dialogue running through your head. The change in the social and work environment helped a lot in this endeavor, but I was still having negative thoughts. To counter them, I took up meditation and mindfulness. I have used the Headspace application as well as the Christian Meditation blog to get mind off the problems running in my head to the progress I am making in my heart!
Changing your environment is the first step to changing to
the new you! I did it and so can you!
Recently there has been a lot of controversy on the song “Baby It’s Cold Outside”. Now, I am not going to get into the controversy. No. Instead, I decided to use the melody, which I love so much, and make new lyrics that are appropriate for those losing weight!
Here is the song with the lyrics directly below:
I really should go play,
But it’s cold outside,
I got to get away,
But it’s cold outside,
I need to exercise,
So, I don’t get fat,
What do you think of that?
I have to go, go, go,
But my body says no, no, no,
I really should go and do my exercise,
But I despise,
The cold, the cold, the cold, THE COLD!
Most of us hate to exercise when it is cold outside. But it is a necessity if we are going to keep on our weight loss journey. So, how do you get your exercise in, when you don’t want to go out? Here are five tricks of the trade.
Bundle up and play! A key to good health is getting sun. So, the first thing is to layer up and get outdoors. Winter is a good time for high calorie burning especially if you are in Minnesota which I will be in a few weeks. So, layer up and have some fun with winter sports such as cross-country skiing, and sledding (as long as you are climbing up the hill after sledding down!) Take advantage of these great sports that are only available in the winter (or early spring and late autumn when you are in the frozen tundra up north).
Romp around in your romper! Those Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and Jack LaLanne fans out there know the power of the romper. The founding father of exercise, Jack, and Abe Weisman, Tony Shaloub’s character on The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel show us how it is done old school with simple calisthenics. Whether you are in the warmth you are home or in the Catskills as Abe, old school calisthenics can get your heart pumping. If you have YouTube,you might even want to one of Jack’s old TV routines shown here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4A3mdG5zbQ
Take your Dog for a walk! Some dogs are conditioned to walk in the cold. Boots, our Bernese Mountain Dog, gets way more active when its get’s colder. As you can see from his thick coat and bear like appearance, Boots loves the cold and can walk a lot further when it is 30 degrees than 100 degrees in Austin. So, take care of your body and take your dog on a walk to escape that pesky cat.
Dance fever. This last one comes from my daughter Kate the Great. When she gets done from a tough day teaching high school, she goes home, turns on the X-Box and “Just Dance”s. Whether with an X-box game or to some Venmo videos of Taylor Swift (I personally love “Shake it Off”, dancing is an excellent way to shake off the pounds!
Boots and that Pesky Cat!
These are just five ideas to keep in shape during the winter months. There are many more like chopping wood for your own fire or hot yoga, but these will suffice for now. Bottom line: Don’t get old, just because it is cold. Exercise and have fun!
