5 Tips to keep you from putting on the "Pumpkin Spice 15" this Fall
Pumpkin Spice and Everything Not Nice About Pumpkin Spice Everything
I just got off the phone with one of our Fire Team Members, and I had a very frank conversation about his level of commitment to his weight loss goals. It is inevitable. This time of year, almost all of my clients end up having that "coming to Jesus talk" with me. We don't sugar coat it (excuse the pun).
The basic question is:
IS THAT FOOD WORTH GIVING UP YOUR WEIGHT LOSS GOALS FOR?
Does it really make you feel THAT GOOD? The answer is in the moment right after you take your first bite of that pumpkin spice oreo is YES. Then an entire sleeve later, when your feeling kind of sick and mostly really sick of your lack of self-control, the answer is NO.
I was just speaking with a woman yesterday and she was complaining that her new workout routine of hard exercise 45 minutes a day was not helping her lose weight. I asked her the obvious, "What nutrition plan are you following?" She said, "I am already miserable working out 45 minutes a day, I would be more miserable if I had to give up my favorite foods on top of that."
I just shook my head in wonder.
Here are 5 hard and fast EATING PSYCHOLOGY tips that are IMPERATIVE to implement if you are really serious about losing weight (and keeping it off long term).
#1 YOU ARE HUMAN, THEREFORE YOU ARE SHORTSIGHTED
Our brains are not able to see the big picture. It is impossible to be 40 pounds overweight and to have a vision of what you will look like one day if you stick to your program. Our brains are impulsive and short sighted. Having a “weight loss goal” or a skinny jeans size goal is totally pointless. You MUST set up small baby step goals that you NEED TO ACHIEVE in order to achieve that big goal. For example. My big goal is to lose 50 pounds. Ok my first baby goal is to do my Fire Team Whiskey workout video all the way through without stopping 3 times a week. That’s it. Once I achieve that, I ADD another baby step goal. Alright now, I will still be doing my Fire Team Whiskey workout all the way through without stopping 3 days a week, plus I will eat food that I have prepared by my own hand at home for 3 entire days of a week. Then I work on that. Baby step. Our brains can only handle small achievable goals. If you are a mountain climber, you focus on the next hand placement, the next foot placement, etc. You are not just staring up at the peak the whole time, if you do, you will lose focus on what is needed to be achieved in front of you and lose your handhold and quickly tumble to the ground.
#2: YOUR WHY ISN’T STRONG ENOUGH
This is a huge problem in the weight loss world. Most people are looking to lose weight because they want to “look better”. If that were a strong why, then most people wouldn’t put on weight in the first place. It’s shallow and almost never works as a motive. You have to dig deeper. One of my favorite things to do with clients is the 7 WHYs exercise. The rule is, you cannot answer the question in the same or similar way. You have to have a different answer each time. Here is how it goes.
Why do you want to lose weight?
Example answer: Because I want to look good.
Why (2)?
Because I hate the way I look right now.
Why (3)?
Because I feel ashamed when I see myself in the mirror or the way my stomach rolls over my pants.
Why (4)?
Because I feel like people see that and think I am lazy and slovenly.
Why (5)?
Because that is not who I really am and people judge books by their covers and my cover is fat.
Why (6)?
I want people to see the real me, the hard working person who really wants to achieve things.
Why (7)? Because I think if other people saw me for who I really am, I would feel a lot better about myself.
Do you see why the above is much more powerful than just “I want to be a size 4”. Drilling down to what you really are working for is so important when times get rough. When your college brings donuts to the office, you can look at them and say, I am choosing not to have one because it’s important to me for people to see me for who I really am and for me to feel better about myself.
#3: YOU ARE WHAT YOU EAT
Don’t worry, the food industry had billions and billions of dollars spent every year working to find ways to manipulate you, con you and get you addicted to their foods. Once of my favorite sayings is “Eat like you love yourself”. When you are eating garbage, you are telling yourself you think your body is garbage. It’s disposable. It’s not worth taking care of. It’s fine if it’s always sick, in pain, struggling with medical issues and something you are ashamed of. Garbage in, garbage out. I feel that so many people are obese because they deep down suffer from depression. When we are eating those high sugar foods, it turns on all those “feel good” receptors in the brain…temporarily. If someone is depressed, it’s an easy way to get some temporary relief from depression. Get that sugar high. Then it wears off, you feel crappy again. Then eat again. On and on this cycle goes. This is why diets and fitness programs don’t work. Because NO ONE is addressing the mental health side of this issue. The Fire Team Whiskey coaching programs address this through our Eating Psychology expert, Captain Stephanie Lincoln, our Warrior Wellness Health Education series and our one on one weekly coaching sessions which basically are mini-behavioral therapy sessions. You have to address the mental health issue of obesity and the addiction patterns that have been established, if not, you will go right back to your old behavior eventually.
#4: YOU GOTTA “LET IT GO”
It’s not just a huge Disney musical hit, you really got to “Let it go”. Those UNACHEIVEABLE, UNREALISTIC expectations are set in lace to sabotage you from the very beginning. I DON’T EVEN LET MY CLIENTS MAK A WEIGHT LOSS GOAL! Why? Because it’s not about that. We are not going to get fixated on a number, realistic or not. If it’s unrealistic, then when you don’t achieve it, you are gonna quit. If it’s too realistic (achieved quickly) then that means you will stop after it’s achieved and most likely go right back to your old behavior that helped you gain weight in the first place. We let it go. The goal is to feel better, stronger and happier. That is the goal every day forever amen. Who knows what you can achieve? But what we won’t do is to set up false expectations and set you up for failure. The world is full of people who achieve the impossible, and we are always believing that you can too, but “impossible” won’t be our goal. If it happens, great, if not, great. I am 5ft 3 inches. I am a split image of my dad. Stocky and athletic build. I have my mother’s genetic saddle bags and my dad’s freakishly short legs and long arms. I am as flexible as an oak tree (that means not at all) and not very fast. But I have crazy endurance, I can hike, run, bike or kayak forever. I genetically just carry a little more body fat than my more slender, taller, more petite sisters. If my goal was to look like a Victoria’s Secret model, I would have given up long ago. It’s unachievable. So why kill myself and set myself up for constant disappointment expecting that to happen? The expectation should be feel healthier, stronger and better every day.
#5: LATER, WILL MOST LIKELY NEVER HAPPEN
Most people procrastinate starting a fitness and nutrition program. “I’ll start the new year”, “Ill start next week” “I’ll start when the kids all start school” and many more excuses are repeated by millions of people every day. Here is the certainty. Most people don’t start a program until they have had a health scare or an epiphany of some sort. A diagnosis of pre-diabetes or high cholesterol. Having your 20-year high school reunion come up and realizing that you are unrecognizable to your former school mates because you have put on 80 pounds. Failing your fitness test as a firefighter or military member and told you are on probation or flagged and that you may lose your career. Most people don’t actually get serious about starting the path to health until something major happens. What is unfortunate, is that when this happens, it may be too little too late. Just like in your car, when you ignore your check engine light. You say “just 100 more miles then I will take it in”. Then 100 turns to 1,000. Then 1,000 turns to 2,000, then you are stranded on the side of the road with your engine on fire calling 911. If you would have taken your car in at the first sign of a problem (being overweight), then the problem could have been solved with much less time, effort and money. But because you put it off and waited for a crisis, it’s going to cost you and it’s going to be a very long road to recovery. You can’t undo decades of damage by doing just 30 days of workouts (see #4, unrealistic expectations). You can’t even undo it in 90 days, 1 year or 2 years. This is YEARS of commitment. I am coming up on year 6 of my health journey and I am still not 100% healed up! I am getting very close, but I understand that the fact that I trashed my body from the age of 1 to 35 is going take a long while to heal. Yes, age 1, my mother used to put coca cola in my bottle!
If you are ready to start walking down the path to long term health, wellness and fitness, give us a call. If you are still focused on crash diets, quick fixes and unrealistic expectations, please don’t call us. We will be here when those efforts fail and you are ready to make the commitment to health.
