My goal is for you to get the body you are looking for, to get results and add value to your life. I'm going to begin with a story of one of my clients. She is doing great right now, but in the past, there was a month that she was actually getting the wrong results. She was gaining weight, so I took the time to ask her a couple of questions because when you're not going in the right direction, you need to ask yourself why. Why I'm I gaining weight? Why am I not getting the results I want?
And don’t blame it on outside variables like your thyroid. I'm not saying your thyroid doesn't contribute, but it's a very small percentage. That means that your behavior could be the biggest reason why you can’t lose weight. If you're not losing that weight, don't blame it on anything else. Take responsibility and find out what is wrong, and fix it. There is nothing wrong with making mistakes. I made mistakes at the beginning and found out what I was doing wrong which helped me to correct those mistakes and then head in the right direction.
The story goes like this, she came to me, and we sat and talked about it. She had missed almost a month of workouts. Probably she came four times in the whole month. We found one mistake right away, but it was not the only one. Eating was a big one as well, so we sat, and we talked, and she thought about the things she was doing. She started talking to me about her daily habits. She thought she had healthy eating habits, but she did mention that she added sugar to her coffee. So, I asked her if this was a daily habit or just now and then. She said more than once.
I don't think making a mistake occasionally in our diet makes you gain weight…
But I'm going to quote a great guy, his name is Jim Rohn and he said “You must think about the future. You must think about the decisions that you make right now and how they are going to affect you in the future.” If occasionally you eat a snickers candy bar instead of an apple, it's not going to affect your future. But if you do it every day, it might. If you do it once, every 10 years or so, I don't think you should be worried about it. But if you do it daily, you need to think about how it will affect you in the future.
Let's go back to the coffee and sugar. If she is doing it once, I don't think it's a big deal, but if she's doing it every day it's a big deal. Those calories add up. In her case she was drinking around three cups of coffee loaded with sugar, so all those calories added up. She was also drinking a couple of glasses of alcohol every other day. Those are empty calories as well. They have no nutrients, just like the sugar has no nutrients. The only thing it has is the simple carbohydrates which is energy that will turn to fat because it’s all extra calories.
You don't need a weight loss diet...
Then as we continued talking, she mentioned she was eating a couple processed power bars. That's another factor and as we continued talking and she mentioned some other things she was doing and then finally something clicked in her head and she said “Do all these things add up by the end?” and I said, “Yes,everything that you're doing little by little adds up.”
The same works in the opposite direction. If you are doing something that is contributing to weight loss, it also adds up. As you can gain by practicing all these bad habits, all those extra calories in your life, you can reverse it by doing the opposite.
Here is a good example, you can eat around 1600 calories when you are eating healthy…
But think about this, the reason you are eating is because your body needs those nutrients. We are talking about minerals, about vitamins, fat and carbohydrates; we all need these to survive. Your body requires that food for your sight, for your metabolism, for your digestion, for everything. When you eat the right foods, you won't need to eat as many calories. You get a lot of nutrients that your body needs to function normally, and the calories that you eat are just enough for you to survive and stay active while you're getting all these nutrients for your body to function correctly.
The opposite happens with processed foods, empty calories...
When you eat empty calories, you don't get any nutrients. You get nothing for your body to function properly and you are eating a lot of calories. You are probably doubling the calorie intake when you're eating that processed food and the reason is because once again, your body is looking for nutrients and when you are not getting those nutrients. You are always going to be hungry and when you eat extra calories, those extra calories are going to turn into fat.
It’s not only the calories, once again, it’s the nutrients that you are not getting. The truth is that you either get nutrients or you don't, and you have to decide what foods you want to eat. But if you're doing it for weight loss and to be healthy, it is very important that you eat nutritious foods.
Now we have an idea about the calories you're eating…
If you want to lose weight, you want to eat the right food and if you think you can get away with it, think again. If you are making a habit of eating the wrong things, it will add up and instead of losing weight, you will gain weight. Just like my client, she wasn't eating the right food.
Now let's talk a little bit about exercise. Since my client was missing a lot of her sessions, not only was she eating a lot of extra empty calories, she was also not burning those calories. While she was, for example, eating around 2500 calories, she was only burning around 1600 calories. She had some extra fat that she wanted to get rid of, but she was adding extra fat on top of that and not burning enough calories. What would you choose? Make $100 every day or you can make a penny and double it every day? If you choose the second option, you make millions i a couple months because it compounds. The same happens with calories every single time that you eat the wrong foods; it gets more difficult to lose that weight. It's not because there is something wrong with you; it's because you're doing the wrong thing.
I recommend that you take responsibility for your actions, be clear with yourself, be honest with yourself, understand there is something wrong and then fix it. Think about your life, your daily habits, then ask, “What I'm I doing wrong?” Once you know where you are making mistakes, then you can make a plan.
Creating a goal sheet is very important. Once you find out what your mistakes are, then you can fix them every day. Write it down. It is like following directions to a place. If you go somewhere that you've never been before, you are going to get lost if you don't have directions or a map or GPS. You don't know where you're going and if you don't know where you are going then you will go around in circles. You need a starting point, and you need a destination. You need to know exactly the steps, the roads, and everything that you are going to follow to get there. So your goals and plan will be your map to follow to your success.
The same thing goes with your exercise…
Make it a priority, those days that you missed, you're not going to get them back. Think about it. How long have you been trying to lose weight? One year, two years, three years, four years, five years? Stop trying to lose weight and just do it. Every time that you don't exercise, and you don't put in the effort or the time, It adds up.
You need to find out what you're doing wrong and how it’s adding up. How it will affect your future the next month, the next year and the next ten years. Make sure you write down clear goals for yourself and then follow them. Write down all the mistakes you are making and have a plan to fix them. This way you don't need a weight loss diet.