The Common Sense Approach to Weight Loss (Part 1 of 2)

The Common Sense Approach to Weight Loss (Part 1)
by Corey Wells
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First, let me start this with a disclaimer. I’m not a doctor or personal trainer. Before doing any exercise or diet you should consult your doctor. The following advice is only common sense. It is a simple outline of what works for me. I’m not guaranteeing any results.

I HAVE NO WEIGHT LOSS PRODUCT TO SELL. I’m writing this post with the hope it helps at least one person.

The title of this post is “The Common Sense Approach to Weight Loss.” I bet without reading any further you can guess what this is… That’s right, you guessed it, exercise and eating right. Not to hard to figure out. I’m going to give you all the things I think you should do in this area, and at the same time help you discover a reason to do them.

Slow is fast, fast is slow.

Have you ever seen those people that lose an amazing amount of weight in a short period of time? It’s just incredible. Often times it’s so inspirational that you may want to start a diet and exercise program yourself. As inspirational as all those stories are they are not a realistic approach to weight loss in my opinion. The odds are stacked against you doing anything similar to these dramatic weight loss programs in a short period of time. Not only is it unrealistic it also sets up false expectations that lead to failure.

With weight loss, “Fast is slow and slow is fast.” What that means is you should keep your expectations in check. Imagine you set a goal to lose 30 pounds. That is a great goal if you are 30 pounds overweight. If you set a timeline of six months or less you are probably setting yourself up for failure. I’m not saying that it’s not possible to lose this amount of weight in six months. I am saying it’s probably not a realistic or healthy goal.

Time is going to pass no matter what we do, so why are we always in a hurry? What if you set your goal to lose 30 pounds over the next two years and decide today to live a healthy life for the rest of your life. Is a two year window realistic? Sure it is, but more importantly you’re setting up a lifestyle that will stay with you for the rest of your life.

There are no quick fixes.

I think we all know deep down that there are no healthy quick fixes for losing weight. So why do we keep searching for them? Simple, because it sounds great. Who wouldn’t want to lose weight fast?

Not only are there no quick fixes, there are no shortcuts either. It’s going to take a lot of work. It’s going to take physical work, you will be exercising. It’s going to take mental work as well. Of the two the mental work is probably going to be your biggest battle. Remember the top of this post where you guessed what the common sense way to lose weight was? You know what to do and you probably know how to do it. So what’s stopping you?

Weight loss is like standing at the bottom of a skyscraper and looking up to the top. You’d love to get to the top of the building. You even know how to do it. But do you really want to climb all those stairs? There are no short cuts, or elevators in this example. If you want to get to the top bad enough you have to decide and start doing the work. That’s going to be one step at a time.

To do this you’re going to need to accept the fact that it’s going to take time. You’re going to need to trust the process and find small victories each and every day. It’s going to be a long battle and there’s going to be many temptations. The only way to do it is one step at a time, one day at a time. You can do it.

Change happens in an instant.

Yes, losing weight takes time, but the decision to lose weight happens in an instant. It can happen in many different ways. Maybe you can’t fit into a pair of jeans anymore. Maybe you got out of the shower and caught a glimpse of yourself in the mirror. Whatever it was that caused you to decide to make a change, in that instant you decided to do something

What if you haven’t decided to make the change yet? What if you know that you should change but you don’t have the motivation to do it? This is one of the biggest challenges in losing weight.

Here’s my formula to create motivation.

1. Determine what it is you want to change.
   You have to be clear about what you want to do. It’s important to be as specific as possible. If your goal is to lose weight try to figure out the exact amount of weight you want to lose and the date you want to be at this weight. You want to be a specific and realistic as possible. As state above, fast is slow and slow is fast. Don’t set unrealistic expectations for yourself.

   A better way to do this would be to take measurements of your body. Like the size of your waist. Often when we began an exercise program you will began to build muscle and muscle weighs more than fat. So you may be losing inches but actually gaining weight. Your ultimate goal should be a healthy body, so moving away from worrying about how much weight you lost is a good thing. Try to focus on how many inches you lost.

2. Find your why.
   To do anything in life we need to have a strong enough “Why.” Otherwise it will be difficult to follow through. “Why,” is your reason for doing your goal. Often times the “Why” that seems the most logical is not the “Why” that will cause you to stay on track with your goal.

   If your goal is to lose weight, you might state your “Why” as: “I want to lose 10 pounds so I’ll be healthy and fit.” This is a great “Why!” But, does it really motivate you? My guess is it will not. It’s a great reason to lose weight and it’s going to make the rest of your life better. But, will it motivate you?

   To find your “Why” you must search deep. Have you ever heard the story of a bodybuilder that was picked on in school and started lifting weights to stop that from happening? What was the bodybuilders “Why?” Pretty easy to figure out, and that’s the kind of “Why” you must find for yourself.

   To find your “Why” you have to be prepared to find a little pain. Often we find ways to comfort ourselves and hide the things that hurt. For change to occur we must be willing to face our pain and find motivation to change. Don’t be afraid of being hurt. Don’t worry about facing a few tears. This is where you will draw your strength from to stay on track with your goal.

3. Make it a commitment.
   Once you’ve determined your “Why” you must, “Make it a commitment.” It’s great that you have a clear goal and you know exactly why you are going to achieve it. Now it’s time to make this goal an absolute commitment for yourself. This is the time where you “Commit” to burning the bridges to your past. You have to put yourself in a position where the only option is to climb the steps of that skyscraper.

   How do you make something a commitment? The first thing you need to do is get leverage on yourself. To get leverage you need to create enough pain for not achieving your goal and enough pleasure for achieving it. This means you need to have both a carrot to motivate you towards your goal and a stick to drive you away from your past. Without both chances are your goal will be much more difficult to achieve.

   Find something that is so painful, that you would do anything to avoid it. Maybe your high school reunion is coming up and you don’t want the pain of showing up overweight. Maybe you saw yourself in the mirror and realized you need to change and your not going to take it anymore. Maybe you need to give away all your clothes and start buying a size smaller. It will be different for everyone, but it’s extremely important that you find a consequence for not following through.

   At the same time it’s important that we reward ourselves for accomplishing our goals. Often just the thought of being fit is enough motivation to keep you on track. I like to think longer down the road. I like to imagine being healthy and active into my 90′s. I like to imagine myself running a 10K with my grandchildren. This is a big enough motivation to keep me going for years.

   If you find you’re not following through with your goal, than you’ll need to come back to “Making it a commitment.” Not following through on a goal means you don’t have enough leverage to achieve this goal. Without strong leverage your goal will be a daily battle.

4. Hold yourself accountable.
   You have a clearly defined goal, you’ve determined your “Why,” you’ve made it a “Commitment,” now you simply have to hold yourself accountable to your goal.

   Accountability is probably the hardest part of the process for most people. It’s the main reason why I have a successful coaching business. It’s extremely hard to hold ourselves accountable. It’s too easy for us to buy into our excuses and choose the short-term pleasure over the long term pain. But accountability is exactly what you have to find to keep you on track.
   
   “Nothing tastes as good as fit feels”
   Anthony Robbins

   I love that quote from Tony Robbins, to me it encapsulates personal accountability. Yes, this chocolate cake is going to taste fantastic, but being fit is going to make my life feel great! Accountability is about choices. The choice you make that will either move you towards your goal or move you away from it. It’s going to be a constant battle in the beginning. Gradually, if you stick with it, it will become a habit. Once it’s a habit it becomes addicting and easy.

   The best way to hold yourself accountable to a weight loss goal is to review your day. Spend 5 minutes writing down everything that passed your lips for that day. How much water did you drink? What did you eat today? Which choices did you make right? Where do you need to do better tomorrow? How much exercise did I do?

   By reviewing our day, it forces us to take a hard look at ourselves and our behaviours. Often this is enough to keep you on track. If you find yourself failing more days than succeeding, it may be time to put a little pain into your daily review.

   Set up a rule that for everyday you made more than one mistake you will not allow yourself to watch TV, or read your favourite book, or anything else that you enjoy. Try to take away from yourself simple pleasures for failing. This will keep you on track and accountable to your goal.

   As well as setting up consequences for not achieving your goal it’s also healthy to have a positive result for staying on track. You could reward yourself with a night out, new clothing, or anything else that will be enough to keep you motivated.

I believe you now have everything you need to set a goal and keep on track with it. In part two of this post I’ll explain the basics that I know about weight loss and living a healthy life.

I’ll let you in on a little secret… YOU ALREADY KNOW WHAT TO DO. So get out there and start doing it.

Please, share your goals or success’s with me below. I’d love to hear if this post helped anyone.

I asked my twitter followers for their suggestions on losing weight. Here’s what they had to say:

@inquisitive22 Burn more calories than u take in…common sense for weight loss

@MrsDamianMarley Start out with small goals that aren’t intimidating. Instead of 100lbs, start with 5lbs and work from there.

@fiscalstudent run more, eat less

@ShotbyRobins stop worrying about what foods you can and cant eat. Get off your arse, do some exercise, eat what your
grandparents ate.

@_jorn Food is fuel. Ask yourself “What do I intend my body to do with this after I swallow it?”

Making time to work out is almost impossible. TAKE time. Take it back from something that took it from you; it’s yours.

@robmccullough best workout supplement in the world: sweat

@berrygirlygirl Calories in vs. Calories Out. Trust me, tried it ALL.

@crimulus Drink mostly water + natural juice (at most 2 8oz glasses per day), halve portions, eat slow, and drink water b/w bites.

@MWM4444 WLdiets don’t work. Decide how much you want to weigh as 90yo & design a diet to support that weight. Eat that way FOREVER.

@willfalls I don’t think there is any common sense when it comes to losing weight. It’s hard to do & does not always work.

@kb5961 Simple…..eat less….move more

@Junebugged If a diet seems too good to be true (like the ‘hollywood cookie diet’), it is.

@marthenya <~eat more living stuff, less dead stuff. Drink H2O

(C) 2009 Corey Wells
(4 votes, average: 4.25 out of 5)
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Part 2 in now available. Click here to read it.

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