Whether or not you are a fan of Nike, we all need to heed their slogan a little bit more.
Just. Do. It.
What is this? Drill Sergeant Mike coming on strong now? No more empathy, compassion, and love? Not so fast…this is where many go wrong.
- How do I wake up earlier?
- Eat more vegetables?
- Exercise more?
- How do I lose fat?
Which one of those questions is not like the other?
The first three can honestly be answered with – Just do it. People often spend so much time looking for tips, tricks, and hacks to find the motivation to do something – yet the answer is honestly right in front of them Sometimes there is no hack – you just have to decide to do it.
Do it today. Then tomorrow. Then the next day.
Newsflash – we have to do things we don’t want to particularly do in order to get results for things we want down the road.
How about the 4th question? How do I lose fat? – Just do it?
No.
And this is where compassionate Mike comes back in…sort of.
You can’t just decide today I’m going to lose fat, and have it happen. Sometimes, when you DO lose fat, you won’t even know it happened! This is something that takes time. Patience, Persistence, and a strong Will to change.
Depending on how long you have been living a life that has promoted your current health status of the physique, it may take some time for you to attain the Greek God or Goddess body that you envision in your head.
Patience
What do you mean the scale didn’t go down again?!? It won’t ever be linear – and as said before, the scale is not the only measure of success when your goal is fat loss.
You could be losing fat, and not even know it thanks to water weight.
Don’t focus on days, but rather focus on trends. Here is an example: a client of mine had a recent spike on the scale. 6 pounds up from his low! Talk about frustrating…
Look at the spike near the end. He was mad. And I understand why. But look at that trend line. Also – after looking at his food journal, I saw a bad night’s sleep and a heavy salt day for two consecutive days before – makes total sense!
This is the kind of thing that makes most people throw in the towel.
But you aren’t most people. You have patience – and now you know to follow the trend, not single points!
Persistence
The journey will get hard at times. There will be days or weeks, or hell, even months that don’t go your way.
This is where you need to take a step back and figure out what you can control, and what you can’t. Shift into damage control mode, and get back to work.
As I stated before, depending on how long you have been living a life that has supported your current health, it may take some time to learn new habits, and break old ones. Throughout your journey, there will be plateaus – on the scale, in your clothes, and in your workouts.
Plateaus are okay, and honestly, pretty normal.
Your body takes time to adjust to new levels of fat, new levels of muscle, and new levels of lifestyle. Instead of thinking of plateaus as “bad”, rather think of them as maintenance practice – because the eventual goal should be to maintain, not keep losing to zero.
How cool would it be to maintain a lighter weight, a leaner body, and a healthier way of life without even having to think about it?
That would be great – but truth be told, you NEVER will have to not think about it. You need to make a conscious effort to change your life. You need to make the conscious effort to continuously break old habits. Yes, the more you do this and the longer you go the easier it gets, nearly effortless…but never completely.
The Will to Change
This is where the will to change comes in.
Why do you want to change? Really – be honest. No answer is dumb, because it’s your goal. I always chuckle when someone says “I want to look better” – because they always precede that with “I know this sounds shallow…”
No, it’s not! It’s your goal, and it’s totally normal!
Now, are you willing to change in order to reach that goal? How much are you willing to change? And are your expectations in line with your actions?
Depending on where you currently are, and where you want to get, it may take more work than you are willing to put in. Just being real here – to reach 10-12% on guys, and 20-22% on females takes doing things that your average person won’t want to do. Even leaner takes MANY things that your average person WILL NOT DO.
But again – look at the average person, and what they do. Do you want that?
I’m not here to shame or tell anyone to change – I am just presenting the facts on the current situation in our country when it comes to average trends, and compared to the fact that the average person is
overweight/ borderline obese.
- Average sleep – 6.6 hours per night.
- Physical activity – 17 minutes per day.
- Alcoholic consumption (wine, beer, hard booze) – 12 ounces per day – roughly a beer a day.
- Vegetable consumption – slightly under 1 cup per day.
- Fruit consumption – slightly over 1 cup per day. (FRUIT IS NOT UNHEALTHY!)
- Sugar intake per day – 1/3 of a cup per day.
- Percentage of highly processed food – 60% of the daily diet
- Saturated fat intake – 20% of daily calories (goal is less than 10%)
- Calorie intake – 3600 calories (this may be a healthy amount for some, but not for many!)
These are your averages. Essentially the recipe to be overweight, borderline obese. What are you willing to change? Are you willing to go against the norm? Be different?
Make changes now, see results later. Let’s get to work!
Would you like more help on taking back your life, learning to love health and food again, and getting life long results along the way? IF so —> CHECK OUT ONLINE COACHING***
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Stay healthy my friends,
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