Weight loss advice is a funny thing. People ask for it and they get frustrated when the advice is what they have heard before...
"Eat less.""Eat more vegetables.""Do a little more activity."
Weight loss advice is basic, although losing weight is not. People try to spruce up diet plans but in actuality, they are all very similar.
I do have one piece of advice that might be new to you. Maybe not, but when people ask me for advice, this is what I tell them.
It is 11:45 at night, and your day was horrible...
It started off waking up late. You had all of these plans to go to the gym. You even had your clothes ironed and ready in your gym bag. Yet, it would have to wait another day. You do not have any time. You try to justify it a little. I mean, you needed your sleep, right?
Sleep is very important in weight loss, right? Yet, you really had plans to go to the gym and you knew you should have woken up.
Then you go to the refrigerator. The honey crisp apple you were wanting is gone. Where is it? Oh, that is right. Your wife decided to eat it last night. You cannot get mad because it is not "your apple". When you are married, nothing is yours.
Then you stop at the store to get a honey crisp apple. You decide to also get a few Twix bars for the guys at work. You could have gotten them apples as well, but everyone is not on a healthy journey, and some people do not have food addictions.
For those people, we salute you with a Twix Bar, full of cookies and caramel.
Yet you get one extra Twix bar. You know that you will not eat it.
I MEAN, YOU KNOW IT, RIGHT!!!!!
I mean, one Twix bar will not hurt.
You are angered that you would not be satisfied with one Twix bars.
Then you get to work. You boss is excited to see you. Because you have been doing a great job he decided to give you a gift. A box of Fiber One brownie thingys.
He knows you are trying to eat well. You have lost a little weight yet it is still not very noticeable. He cares about your health. He tells you that they are only 130 calories each, and they have fiber. Fiber is good!
You thank him. What else can you do?
Tell him you would eat the whole box?Tell him that sugar is a main ingredient in it?Tell him your life story again and again?
Then work does not go as planned. It is stressful. You stay focused. Yet, nothing goes your way. You officially are having a bad day.
Then it is 11:45pm.
You are beating yourself up for not working out. You are wondering why your day was stressful. You wonder if you are mad your wife ate that apple. Then, you stare at that box of Fiber One brownie bars. You start believing they are healthy. Maybe they are, or maybe they will spiral you to eat 5000 more calories.
You start believing you can only eat one of them.You start to believe in the fiber they have.
Then...
Let's stop the story for a minute. That is weight loss right there at 11:46pm. The decision you make right there. Are you going to justify over eating? Are you going to say just this once? Are you going to start fresh tomorrow? What are you going to do?
That is what weight loss is to me. There will be days where everything goes your way. The eating is there. The workouts are great. You and your spouse love life. The baby takes naps all day long. Life is grand.
What about the bad days? The ones where nothing goes your way. The days where you are hungry and do not care what you eat. When you skip a workout. Where you hate everything around you and you just want to eat even though you do not need to.
In weight loss, you have to treat every day like the good ones.
When I got married I said for better or for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish; from this day forward until death do us part .
When I decided to change my life, it was the same.
I think, "weight loss advice" you see in magazines can be a little condescending, because it is the same advice I have heard all of my life. Practicing is harder than the preaching.
So my "weight loss advice" is treat the bad days like the good ones. There is always a bad day. What will derail you? What decisions will you make?
Because at 11:47pm, I knew the decision I needed to make.
And after gaining a decent amount of weight this year after losing over 200 pounds...I need to make the right decision more often.