the healthy, strong body that you want. Create your own personalized eating program. You can include in this program the foods that you love (in moderation). The only way to control your weight for the rest of your life, is to get on an eating program for the rest of your life. If you love triple-fudge chocolate cake, then include that in your eating program — just not every day. The best way to know if an eating program will work for you is to ask yourself, “How long can I do this?” As much as we crave a quick and easy fix, permanent weight control can only be achieved with a permanent change in nutrition and behavior.
Research backs this up. A study performed by Harvard physicians followed people for two years on various diets — all focused on different nutrients (high-fat, low-fat, high-protein, low-carbohydrate, etc.), but with similar overall calories. At the end of two years, people in every group who completed the program (those who stuck with it and didn’t give up) lost weight.11 Yes, any sound diet works. If you stay with it. Forever.
With the right eating program, after a slip, a binge, or vacation eating, you can resume the program quickly, without a lot of damage, emotional pressure, or negative self-talk. This individualized program will likely only produce a weekly weight loss of one or two pounds per week. However, the goal is not to drop weight quickly — the goal is to maintain the weight loss for years to come.
Unfortunately, with yo-yo dieting (going on and off diets), after the diet is discarded, the weight comes back quickly. Often, the dieter gains back even more weight and becomes heavier then before the diet began.12-14 Some research has even shown that yo-yo dieting can also impair the immune system, cause slightly elevated blood pressure, and lower the levels of HDL (the good cholesterol).15
“I have gained and lost the same ten pounds so many times over and over again my cellulite must have déjà vu.” —Jane Wagner
If you can find an eating program that you can maintain indefinitely, you can manage your weight effectively — for the rest of your life. That is the point of this book — to help you find an eating program that works for you, individually.
No doubt you have talked to friends and relatives who have found their miracle weight-loss program and think it will work for everyone. This book will not give the magic pill to the wonderful world of weight loss. This book is meant to be used as your personal nutrition toolbox to create your lifelong plan to a healthier you. Not your uncle’s or neighbor’s or friend’s plan — your plan.
Motivation
“In order to change we must be sick and tired of being sick and tired.”
—Author Unknown
Motivation to build a healthy body is two fold. First, you must come to a point at which your desire to change outweighs your desire to remain heavy and unhealthy. All of the information in the world is not going to do you a bit of good if you are not ready to change.
Take a moment and really ask yourself, what is driving you to become healthier? A doctor’s visit? Your tight-fitting clothes? An upcoming high school reunion? A wedding? Whatever the reason, your motivation to achieve lifelong, sustainable change must be stronger than your desire for overeating here and now.
Change is hard. There is no getting around it. The second step of motivation to build a healthy life will keep you going, even when you step on the scale (after working like crazy to overcome your old habits) and learn that you have only lost one measly pound, or nothing at all. The body changes will come, but they won’t come overnight. This part of motivation surfaces after the big “New Years Party” has ended. Every moment of every day, the desire to keep working on a healthier you must be more important than the desire to quit. This is what keeps you on track when you are constantly bombarded with the temptation to put trash into your body. It’s this type of motivation that overrides the 3-o’clock in the afternoon gotta-have-chocolate-or-die feeling.
Your decision to embark on a healthier lifestyle will not be a tiptoe-through-the-tulips kind of a change. You need to just accept that fact and be ready for the obstacles. They will come. When they come, you have two choices. You can view each obstacle as a wall to stop your progress, or turn them into steppingstones to reach new heights. You have the power to decide which way it will be.
This requires a new way of thinking about food and eating. You must find yourself looking for ways to stay on the healthy path, instead of looking for excuses to fall off. The excuses and self-doubt will always be in the back of your mind. You can acknowledge those thoughts, but not give in to them. Let them come, and then let them leave. They do not define you. You choose how to define you.
Simply learning more will not motivate you. Somewhere along the way, you must put into practice what you are learning. Start today. Pick one tool. Any tool. Pick the one that speaks to you the loudest. Implement it now. Turn it into a habit. Then move on to the next tool.
You will stumble. You will fall. The key is to get up and keep moving forward every time that happens. It’s not in the falling that you fail — it’s in the failing to get back up. Every time you get back on track, you are that much closer to your goal.
How To Use This Book
Who has time to sit down and read a book from cover to cover (unless it’s about a wizard or vampire)? This book is a reference tool. If you scan the table of contents, you will find that some of the subjects naturally speak to you. Start there. Heck, start at the last chapter if you want. Each chapter is a tool that can help you start building a healthier, sustainable eating pattern. Find what works for you; ignore the rest.
(I won’t be offended, I promise!)
Here’s a good rule of thumb to follow with this book: when you read something and you say to yourself, “Hey, that sounds feasible. I could do that,” then that is something that is going to work for you. Circle, underline, or just rip it out (one usable page is 1,000 times better then an entire unread book). Put it in your personal arsenal of “healthy living helps” to get you on your road to a better body and a healthier life.
The remainder of this book is divided into three sections, Principles, Tools, and What’s in Your Toolbox (personal stories).
Principles are the overarching and unchanging standards. They pass the test of time, science, and research as to how to live the healthiest life. They don’t change, and we can’t cheat them and get away with it in the long run.
Tools are a collection of techniques to implement these principles. When a carpenter decides to build a house, he doesn’t just grab a hammer and use it from beginning to end. He needs several different tools for different steps, challenges, and situations in order to build the most stable, beautiful structure.
The tools that we use to build our personal eating plans will be very specific and different for each individual. For example, green spinach smoothies for breakfast may work great for one person, but make the next person feel deprived and bitter.
If a nutrition program makes you feel deprived and bitter, you will not stay on it long term. Different situations, different people — even different days — require different tools to achieve an optimally healthy body.
Finally, the What’s in Your Toolbox? section included in this book shows you how real people have used the Principles and Tools from this book (or forged their own personal tools) to lose weight and keep it off.
SECTION 2
PRINCIPLES OF WEIGHT MANAGEMENT
Principles are forever. Fads fade. The four tried-and-true principles in this section will help you understand how to keep your body healthy and manage your weight. There are many ways to go about following the principles, but the principles themselves will never change.
Principle 1: Calorie Output Should Exceed Input
This