LIVE IT!
You have bravely dug deep over the past seven days, and have begun to remove some of the major roadblocks that have kept you from achieving your lifelong goals. From this place of newfound strength and clarity, you are now ready to take all of the incredible work you accomplished in the first 14 lessons, and build upon this new foundation for transformation you are creating. In the next seven days, we will coach you through another radical shift in thinking so that you have the know-how to live a life of transformation forever.
These lessons show you how to make concrete changes in your behavior. We will teach you the secret to never failing, how to balance your priorities, and give you a full forecast of what to expect on the journey ahead. We are going to show you how to zero in on the bad habits that have been sabotaging your weight loss and transform them into healthy, sustainable habits that will fuel your weight loss and fitness.
These are the final seven days and lessons to live a life of transformation. Take them in, embrace them, and hang on for the ride. Here we go!
DAY 15
Day 15: High-Carb Day 
Meal 1: Breakfast
Recipe: Power Mocha Shake with Fruit
Meal 2: High-Carb Meal
Recipe: Strawberry and Banana Quinoa Muffins
Meal 3: High-Carb Meal
Recipe: Turkey Sliders with Sweet Potato “Bun”
Meal 4: High-Carb Meal
Recipe: Apple and Dip
Meal 5: Low-Carb Meal
Recipe: Eggplant Curry Stir-Fry
Day 15: Metabolic Mission: The Countdown (Stepladder) 
Set a running clock and, as fast as you can, do 21 reps of each exercise in the circuit, then 18 reps, then 15 reps, then 12, 9, 6, and 3.
Push-Ups
Hollow Rocks
Air Squats
Day 15: Accelerator: 15 minutes (minimum) 
Select any activity of your choosing, and keep your heart rate above 120 beats per minute (bpm) the entire time. Prescribed optional interval for maximum results: Thrilling Thirties (:30 low intensity / :30 high intensity)
LESSON 15
GO ALL IN
If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always gotten.
—Tony Robbins
When Cassie started her journey of transformation, she would never go all in. She would report following “most” of the program, but always reserved reasons why she needed to do her own portions, make her own food choices, and follow advice contrary to the advice we gave her. She would justify her behavior by saying that she was the only one who truly understood her body and how it worked—but in reality she was just protecting her food addiction and wanted the option to binge when she wanted. Most important, she was too terrified to lose control. She had always held the power, control, keys to her life. By giving them up and going all in, she would need to admit that her way didn’t work. Because of this, her weight kept stalling out. By the 90-day mark she was struggling to lose a pound a week. She finally came to terms with the fact that “Cassie’s way doesn’t work.” “When I realized that I was no longer moving toward my goal weight, I realized I had to submit to the process that Chris and Heidi laid out for me—the one that had worked for so many people.”
If Cassie was going to make a lifelong change, she had to give up what we call her “ace in the pocket” and follow the program that does work. So she went all in. And became one of our greatest transformations of all time.
Submitting to the process is a crucial step in your transformation journey. It’s not just submitting to the diet and the exercise, it is acting upon all the lessons of transformation! This is the step that led to Cassie’s huge success and her final accomplishment: not only the loss of 176 pounds, the rejuvenation of her marriage, and being reunited with her son, but most important, loving herself for the first time in decades.
Trust the Process
What do we mean by trust the process? We mean giving up that ace in your pocket, that “control card” that you hold on to, and throw down on the table to justify breaking your commitment to the plan. The mental conversation that we have is: “My body is different. I know and understand it better than anyone else, so I’ll just do what works for me.” Or it can also be based on a physical or emotional setback, such as “Well, they don’t have a bad knee,” or “They aren’t dealing with the struggles that I have right now.”
Trust us, we’ve heard it a million times before. This is the ultimate excuse, the reason of all reasons that your ego makes you feel like you are in control, because it is too afraid to show weakness or struggle. But deep down, you know you are simply protecting your bad behavior. Cassie spent so much time trying to convince herself that she knew her body better than anyone else. But she was lying to herself: Her body was not different. She, like all of us, abides by the laws of physics. The reality was that she did not have control over her binge eating.
Listen up: There are over 7 billion of us on this earth, and all of our bodies abide by the laws of physics, which dictate that if we take in less energy than we consume, we lose weight. If your body does not lose weight when at a calorie deficit, then your body defies the laws of physics. You need to put down this book and immediately check yourself in to a scientific research facility for evaluation.
Many people who struggle to lose weight and keep it off are struggling with something much larger than themselves: an unhealthy relationship with food and weight. Just take Heidi. For years as a teenager and young woman, she struggled with an eating disorder. “Although I am recovered, I still am vulnerable to the kind of thinking and behaviors that triggered my eating disorder to begin with.”
And that’s true for many people, Cassie included. When she was able to see that she was not in control of her food, she was able to see with clarity that she was simply a food addict. That revelation was ultimately liberating.
When you act like you don’t have a problem, always justifying that your conditions in life are different, or your body is different than everyone else’s, be aware that you are most likely hiding that ace in your back pocket!
DAY 16
Day 16: High-Carb Day
Meal 1: Breakfast
Recipe: Turkey Frittata
Meal 2: High-Carb Meal
Recipe: Sweet Wrap
Meal 3: High-Carb Meal
Recipe: Barbecue Chicken Salad
Meal 4: High-Carb Meal
Recipe: Peanut Butter Shake
Meal 5: Low-Carb Meal
Recipe: Curry Turkey Sliders with Cucumber and Tomato Salad
Day 16: Metabolic Mission: Afterburner (Rounds for Time)
Set a running clock and do 5 rounds of the following exercises as fast as you can, but keeping good form!
20 Back Lunges
15 Push-Ups
Day 16: Accelerator: 15 minutes (minimum)
Select any activity of your choosing, and keep your heart rate above 120 beats per minute (bpm) the entire time. Prescribed optional interval for maximum results: Tenacious Twos (2:00 low intensity / 2:00 high intensity)
LESSON 16
FALL WITHOUT FAILING
Our greatest glory consists not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.
—Oliver Goldsmith
Sometimes the unexpected happens. And even though you now know how your promises are the most important thing in the world, sometimes you’re just not going to keep one. This is to be expected.
Let’s face it: You’re human. We all make mistakes. You’re going to mess up and break promises along the journey. You’re going to eat what you shouldn’t. You’re going to skip a workout… or two. You’re going to have some bad days. You’re going to fall flat on your face when you least expect it.
This sounds awful, doesn’t it? Because in your past, falling flat on your face meant that you’d failed yet again. Meant less self-love, less trust and belief in yourself.
Well, we have good news for you. Falling no longer needs to mean failing.
When you commit to Extreme Transformation, you are embracing a path where it’s impossible to fail.
We know the secret lifeline to prevent failing.
Built into Extreme Transformation is the proven formula for getting back on your feet and continuing your journey. It is the lifeline you will always have the choice to grab onto when you fall. This is one of the most powerful shifts in your thinking during your journey of transformation. It is inevitable that you will mess up sometime. When you do, the backslide will begin. To stop the bleeding, and get back on your feet, you must learn and apply this formula:
Confess + Reassess + Recommit
These three simple actions, when done in this order, have a profound impact. This will be one of the most valuable lessons you can learn on the journey, and you will use it time and again!
Merhbod had lost over 100 pounds in just six months and was well on his way to his ideal weight. Then slowly but surely his weight loss slowed to a stop… and he began to gain it all back. We had no idea because he kept sending weigh-in pictures and video showing that he was continuing to lose weight, when in reality he was rigging his scale at home to make it look like he was. This went on for three months until Mehrbod finally realized that the addict had completely taken over. He was terrified to disappoint us, but he knew there was only one way to stop the backslide. He picked up the phone and called us. We met with him, and he confessed everything. We took it all in, and when he was finished he put his face in his hands and cried. We lifted his head, looked him in the eyes, and said, “Thank you. We can only imagine the courage it took to do that.”
Immediately, we could see an emotional weight lifted off his shoulders. He sat back, took a deep breath, and said, “What can I do now?” We reassessed his goals and daily commitments, and when we came up with something totally attainable, he recommitted. Sure enough, he went on to break weight-loss records in the final three months of his transformation, and qualified for skin-removal surgery. When Merhbod summoned the courage to confess, reassess, and recommit, he broke free from the backslide, got back up on his feet, and surged forward with more vigor than ever before. We cannot underestimate the power of this formula.
As Lisa recalls, “I remember the first time I messed up a couple weeks into my transformation. I doubled my portions for dinner one night. Didn’t seem like a big deal, but it haunted me, because deep down I knew I had broken a commitment to myself. I fell back into my old way of thinking and felt like I was a failure. Sure enough, I ended up overeating the next couple nights, until I remembered what Chris and Heidi taught me about falling without failing. I knew that if I didn’t stop the bleeding, it was going to take me down, and I would fail yet again. It was so hard to pick up the phone and confess, but when I did I immediately felt control again. Together, we reassessed and recommitted. It was the lifeline I needed. I messed up a handful of times on my weight loss journey, and every time, I used this same formula—and it got me to my goal. Without a doubt, it was the greatest lesson I learned on the journey!”
As Jami described for us, “The 90-day boot camp was just the beginning of my transformation. The real work happened when I returned home. It took me a while to realize that the journey I was on was really the rest of my life. I had always lived my life in an all-or-nothing way. If I ever messed up, that was it. I was a failure and I’m done. Maybe a year later I’d try again. And that just set me up to fail—over and over again. Now I understand what Chris and Heidi mean when they say it’s okay to fall—it’s just an opportunity to get back up again. This way of thinking about mistakes is so much more realistic and encouraging than thinking of failure as a personal quality or source of shame. That’s the old Jami. I just don’t think that way anymore.”
If you break a promise, will it start the downward spiral again? Will you once again give up on yourself, beat yourself up, and find yourself in a dark place?
Now you have the lifeline. You can choose the single most powerful and proven formula to get back on your feet, or you can choose to quit.
When you break a promise to yourself, it is not cause for shame or embarrassment. In fact, mistakes and setbacks are the training ground for flexing the real muscles of transformation—the muscles that get you back up on your feet and moving toward your goal. This is why during your transformation journey you will learn to fall… not fail. This is one of the key steps of your journey—learning how to clear broken promises, strategize an easier path toward your goal, and move forward with more enthusiasm than ever before.
The power is now in your hands. Any time you fall, you are always just three simple steps away from being right back on track.
Perfectly Imperfect
Disappointment happens when expectations are not met. Simple as that. Most people make the grave mistake of setting unrealistic expectations for themselves. They create a vision of perfection that not only is impossible to fulfill but also hampers their ability to stay on their journey. When these expectations are not met, the strong emotions tied with disappointment come flooding in. In these times, most people lose the magical ingredient of belief and any further effort (and progression) toward the goal comes to a rapid halt.
Remember: We are all perfectly imperfect. That’s the awesome part about being human. It is working through our setbacks and slip-ups that creates our uniqueness and character. Why place such expectations of perfection on yourself when they are simply unrealistic? Without messing up, we could never appreciate the beauty that life offers us along the way.
Heidi Tip 
I am perfect.
Perfectly imperfect, that is.
I use the word perfect a lot, and often people remind me that nothing is perfect. I totally disagree. I believe that everyone and everything is perfect and beautiful in its imperfect state of being. Think about that for one second—imagine that just maybe your imperfections actually make you perfect. Don’t you just love the freedom that thought gives you? Well, time to realize the reality of the thought and let go of our self-judgments and negative self-talk. It’s time to embrace our imperfections. Now, I’m not saying to throw caution to the wind and go indulge in a gallon of super-chunky triple chocolate fudgy goo. I’m saying that it’s okay to mess up, and it’s okay to have faults. For those of you who don’t, I’m sorry. These faults, trials, imperfections, and stumbles are some of our greatest blessings—they’re our springboards to becoming the strongest person we can possibly be!
XO Heidi
DAY 17
Day 17: High-Carb Day
Meal 1: Breakfast
Recipe: Turkey and Potato Skillet Breakfast
Meal 2: High-Carb Meal
Recipe: Strawberry and Banana Quinoa Muffins
Meal 3: High-Carb Meal
Recipe: Italian Tuna and White Bean Lettuce Wraps
Meal 4: High-Carb Meal
Recipe: Greek Yogurt Parfait with Fruit
Meal 5: Low-Carb Meal
Recipe: Barbecue Grilled Pork Tenderloin
Day 17: Metabolic Mission: Chippin’ Away (Chipper)
Set a running clock and see how long it takes you to do these exercises. Record your time in your Daily Tracker!
100 Jumping Jacks
75 Air Squats
50 Push-Ups
25 Kickbacks
Day 17: Accelerator: 15 minutes (minimum)
Select any activity of your choosing, and keep your heart rate above 120 beats per minute (bpm) the entire time. Prescribed optional interval for maximum results: Nasty Nineties (1:30 low intensity / 1:30 high intensity)
LESSON 17
BE BENEFICIALLY SELFISH
Make your own recovery the first priority in your life.
—Robin Norwood
The journey of transformation requires that you put yourself first. Plain and simple. If you don’t put your needs, your promises, your goals first, then you will not succeed. For many (especially us parents), this can seem totally selfish. We are programmed to put our families first. However, this programming is actually a bit faulty. While our family may be the most important people in the world to us, if something happens to you that affects your ability to be a good parent, the family suffers in the long run. Nobody captured the importance of our own health better than the FAA and their safety guidelines for airplane emergency situations in the cabin.
We are ordered to put an oxygen mask over our own mouth before we turn to help a child or another person. For good reason: If you can’t breathe, how can you help your child, your neighbor, and everyone else around you?
The same rule applies for your health.
If it isn’t a “life-or-death” situation; Other people and their needs can wait. They can be uncomfortable for a moment while you ensure your health and survival—so that you can be there for them in the future.
We call this being beneficially selfish. Our society and culture have taught us that it is selfish to put ourselves before others. In actuality, we are taking care of ourselves first, for the benefit of everyone around us. Keep in mind that as you take this step and make this shift in thinking, others around you might still be programmed by society and culture, and many will likely call you “selfish” for putting yourself first. They just don’t see the bigger picture. Explain it to them if you like, but either way, it is the truth.
Over time, putting everyone else’s needs first pushes most people into dire health situations. Look at the position you are in right now, and what has led you here. Maybe you’re frustrated with the 20 pounds that is taking forever to come off. Or perhaps you picked up this book after a triple bypass surgery. Either way, making yourself a priority in your life is of utmost importance—not just to your physical health, but to your mental and emotional health as well!
When we are fulfilling promises and taking care of ourselves, we feel better about ourselves and can bring more joy into the lives of our families and friends. How much joy did you spread when you felt like crap about yourself? Want to bring more long-term joy into the lives of everyone around you, your family, your friends, your children? Be beneficially selfish!
After years of putting her son first, Kathy declared independence so that she could finally take care of herself. David also had to learn how to put himself first. When he was working 14-hour days, he reduced his hours to 11 per day, to carve out time for his health. In fact, all the people you have met so far in this book have had to learn how to put themselves first and make their health and fitness journeys their number one priority.
For Georgeanna this lesson, this step in her transformation journey, was one of the most difficult to actualize. “I only saw myself as a pastor’s wife who was meant to serve—serve God, my husband, my children, my community. I didn’t even know how to take care of myself, never mind put myself first. But I did learn. And what I realized is that when you surround yourself with loving people who really do understand what you are trying to do, then you can put yourself first without guilt or looking over your shoulder.”
Chris Tip 
It’s necessary to have realistic expectations of life so that you are fully prepared. Here is a glimpse into your likely future. This is what you can expect from life over the course of your weight loss journey… and beyond:
- Loss and tragedy
- Family struggles
- Career struggles
- Financial struggles
- Relationship struggles
- Overall bad days
Events such as these are inevitable and unavoidable. Expect them to happen, because they will. It is our natural tendency to fall back into comforting habits, or put things on hold with our health so that we can handle such issues as those listed above. However, we are here to tell you that these are everyday occurrences in life. With many of these events ahead of you, there will never be a right time in the future to make your health and fitness a priority. The only right time… is right now.
If you play your cards right, you may have a good 75 to 100 total years here on earth. And not for one second will anyone walk in your shoes. This is your journey. Aggressively defend it. Do it for your health, for your happiness, and for the subsequent benefit of your family, friends, and loved ones. Let nothing get in the way of your destiny and what you deserve. Get your priorities straight!
DAY 18
Day 18: High-Carb Day
Meal 1: Breakfast
Recipe: Pumpkin Spice Vanilla Protein Pancakes
Meal 2: High-Carb Meal
Recipe: Hulk Shake
Meal 3: High-Carb Meal
Recipe: Loaded Potato
Meal 4: High-Carb Meal
Recipe: PB & J Rice Cakes and Shake
Meal 5: Low-Carb Meal
Recipe: Fajita Chicken Roll-Ups with Roasted Squash and Avocado Puree
Day 18: Metabolic Mission: “Go Time” (AMRAP)
Set a running clock and do as many rounds of the following circuit as you can in 11 minutes.
7 Push-Ups
9 Leg Levers
11 High Knees
Day 18: Accelerator: 15 minutes (minimum)
Select any activity of your choosing, and keep your heart rate above 120 beats per minute (bpm) the entire time. Prescribed optional interval for maximum results: Mighty Minutes (1:00 low intensity / 1:00 high intensity)
LESSON 18
HAVE REALISTIC EXPECTATIONS OF OTHERS
You’re in the midst of a war: a battle between the limits of a crowd seeking the surrender of your dreams, and the power of your true vision to create and contribute. It is a fight between those who will tell you what you cannot do, and that part of you that knows, and has always known, that we are more than our environment; and that a dream, backed by an unrelenting will to attain it, is truly a reality with an imminent arrival.
—Tony Robbins
You may not want to hear this, but we are determined to be honest and up front with you: Your family and friends may not be your best supporters. As you begin to make changes in your life, the people around you may very well feel uncomfortable. Your changes affect their status quo. They may claim that they want to support you and that they want you to succeed at your goals. But often, they are really, really uncomfortable with how your changes make them feel.
We are by no means saying that your family and friends are bad or malicious, but chances are that your goals and new life may not work well with what they are used to. In fact, your new lifestyle can be downright threatening. Unless they understand and embrace change, most people wince with discomfort if asked to move out of their comfort zone. So as innocent humans not yet on their own journey of transformation, some of the people in your life might react negatively to your new choices and newfound confidence.
- When you start to eat healthy, stop drinking, and spend more time at the gym, your boyfriend or wife may feel abandoned.
- When you stop indulging in pizza and wings, and instead choose healthier options every three hours, your buddy might feel angry that you’ve ditched him and your shared Friday-night routine.
- When you make your health a priority, your children or spouse might feel jealous of lost time and express resentment.
Everyone has a reaction. But it’s up to you to surround yourself with those who understand and truly support your journey and perhaps distance yourself from those, including family, who might be trying to impede your success. Now, we are not saying that you should distance yourself from your friends, family, and loved ones simply because they may express some frustration with the process.
But by having realistic expectations of their responses to you, you will not get distracted or disappointed. You can separate your goals from their desires and practice patience and perseverance (and compassion for them) even in the face of adversity! There is a very good chance that your friends and family do love and support you… chances are, they are just terrified of losing you in their life. it’s just nearly impossible for them to understand what you are going through since they are not walking in your shoes.
What’s the best response? Love! Even if friends or family try to pull you from the process or get upset with your new routines that might be causing them an inconvenience, you can think and respond to them in love—as long as doing so doesn’t compromise your own goals.
Part of this loving response is learning how to communicate effectively with those you care about. If the way your friend/family is being is pulling you away from your goals, you should feel confident enough to pull them aside and have a loving, open communication about what your goals are, and what you need from them (support) to get there. Express to them that you know they love you, and that is why you feel safe having this conversation.
For instance, you might say, “I know you don’t think you are hurting me when you try to get me to eat dessert with the family, but it triggers an impulse in me to binge that I can’t control. Please don’t take it personally when I decline your homemade ice cream… I love you no less, but need to focus on my health.”
As you make changes in how you eat, how you live, and the choices you make, you will likely trigger discomfort in your friends, family, and co-workers. Changing your routine, the way you eat, and when you’re available impacts all those with whom you regularly come in contact. Many of our peeps tell us they seem to have “lost” their friends or even family members. You might hear words from them like “You’ve abandoned us” and “You think you’re too good for us now.”
You might also hear people begin to doubt you, question you, even criticize you. When one person changes, everyone around that person is affected. Sometimes this reaction will stem from a sort of jealousy—they are struggling with seeing your success while they are stuck in their unhappy life. The best thing to do is to love your friends and family regardless and lead by example.
But remember: If you aren’t getting the love or support you need, you should expand (not replace) your circle of friends and supporters and include more people who are more aligned with your vision and goals. These people are most likely members of your gym, running group, or support team. As Dr. Holly says, “A connection to others who are living a similar lifestyle improves the odds of success.” Which is why it’s so important to look again at your social connections.
Mitzi felt that she didn’t quite lose the people in her life, but rather that those who didn’t understand or support all the changes she was making simply drifted away. “I didn’t feel any ill will—it has just been a case of being in different places. And you know what? It’s all right. It doesn’t necessarily mean that our two roads won’t ever converge again.”
Mitzi points out something important: It’s all right. It’s all right if people don’t seem to like the new you. It’s all right to lose touch with a friend or family member. It’s all right because you are learning to put yourself first. When you live your life with you as the number one priority, you will begin to feel so much more at ease with your choices. You will feel clear and confident, instead of tangled up in trying to please other people.
DAY 19
Day 19: Low-Carb Day 
Meal 1: Breakfast
Recipe: No-Bake Oats
Meal 2: Low-Carb Meal
Recipe: Quinoa Bites with Zucchini, Tomato, and Arugula
Meal 3: Low-Carb Meal
Recipe: Citrus Salmon Slaw
Meal 4: Low-Carb Meal
Recipe: Popeye Shake
Meal 5: Low-Carb Meal
Recipe: Chipotle Turkey Burger with House Pickles
Day 19: Metabolic Mission: Wake-Up Call (Tabata)
For each exercise, do as many reps as you can in 20 seconds. Rest for 10 seconds, then do as many reps as you can in 20 seconds again. Repeat for 8 total rounds (for a total of 4 minutes) per exercise. The lowest number of reps you get in any round is your score. You’ll get one score per exercise. Add up all three scores, and record it in your Daily Tracker!
Kickbacks
Leg Levers
Air Squats
Day 19: Accelerator: 15 minutes (minimum)
Select any activity of your choosing, and keep your heart rate above 120 beats per minute (bpm) the entire time. Prescribed optional interval for maximum results: Dirty Two-Thirties (2:30 low intensity / 2:30 high intensity)
LESSON 19
REPLACE YOUR ADDICTION
Nothing tastes as good as being skinny feels.
—Anonymous
In transformation, we use the word addiction because it is a very powerful way to describe the impact of our habits. You may be a true food addict and engage in compulsive behavior, or you may simply have a bad series of habits that led to weight gain. Either way, the fact remains that in order for a new habit to be effective, the payoff must be more desirable than the habit you are replacing it with. This is true of relationships with food and other addictive substances.
As you have moved through the lessons of transformation, we have pointed out places and times when it’s necessary to change your behavior in order to stay committed to your new lifestyle. Essentially, what we have been asking you to do is replace your addiction to junk food or soda, with eating foods that don’t create such a strong physical craving. If you don’t replace the addiction, it will simply reassert its control over you. For example, we understand that junk food is both positively reinforcing and rewarding—it acts upon the reward pathways of the brain and triggers you to want to repeat the behavior—but when done repeatedly over time, it comes with a heavy cost to your appearance and health. You get fat and sick.
When it comes to the weight loss journey, we are asking you to replace the satisfaction and enjoyment of eating what you want, when you want, and living a sedentary life with little to no exercise—with eating structured meals, eating on a schedule, and moving on a daily basis.
When looking at the two lifestyles, the former is more attractive. Of course everybody wants to eat whatever they want, whenever they want! However, that lifestyle comes at a great cost. When you look at the beneficial outcome of the latter, it quickly becomes the frontrunner!
The Payoff of Your New Habits
Everything has a cost and a payoff. The major cost of your new lifestyle is no longer having the convenience of eating what you want, when you want. Instead, you eat new foods that don’t have the same reward impact, but keep you full for a long period of time. You can indulge, but only when it is customized into your plan and still accommodates your weight loss. As you are on the journey of transformation, here are some of the new payoffs you are now receiving:
- You are losing weight on the scale every week—and you feel good.
- Your clothes are looser—you may just need to invest in a new wardrobe!
- You are healthier.
- You are more attractive.
- You are seeing your body develop shapely muscles.
- You are getting an endorphin rush and euphoric sense of well-being from the exercise.
- You have a sense of pride, accomplishment, and control over your life.
- You are receiving accolades and respect from others—we are certain that you are the happy recipient of compliments and well-deserved praise.
All of the above results are payoffs for your new lifestyle. These payoffs are positively reinforcing. They do not always play directly upon the reward pathways of the brain in an immediate sense, but they do offer long-term fulfillment. The question is: Are the payoffs to your transformation more rewarding than the immediate satisfaction from food?
The purpose of this lesson is to create an awareness of the trade-offs that have happened here: what you have given up with your old life, for what you are getting with your new life. Granted, your new life is much more attractive (literally), but we want you to begin thinking ahead to when you reach your goal and some of these payoffs don’t occur as often. Enjoy the payoffs of the weight loss journey now, but we will explore in much more detail the process of finding another new addiction as you transition from weight loss into maintenance.
DAY 20
Day 20: Low-Carb Day
Meal 1: Breakfast
Recipe: Breakfast Frittata Veggie “Muffins”
Meal 2: Low-Carb Meal
Recipe: Protein Punch Wraps
Meal 3: Low-Carb Meal
Recipe: Grilled Lamb Kebabs
Meal 4: Low-Carb Meal
Recipe: Shrimp Cocktail Salad
Meal 5: Low-Carb Meal
Recipe: Creamy Cauliflower Soup
No Metabolic Mission: Day Off!
Day 20: Accelerator: 15 minutes (minimum)
Select any activity of your choosing, and keep your heart rate above 120 beats per minute (bpm) the entire time. Prescribed optional interval for maximum results: Thrilling Thirties (:30 low intensity / :30 high intensity)
LESSON 20
TRIGGERS AND TACTICS
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
—Serenity Prayer
We are surrounded by triggers all day, every day. The people in our lives, the places we pass through, the rituals of our daily routines. These triggers can evoke an emotional response in us. Some can be stronger than others, but either way any reaction can influence our decision-making ability.
When we encounter strong triggers, powerful emotions surface—so strong that we feel the need to soothe or numb ourselves when the emotion is negative, or to heighten the euphoria when the emotion is positive. We look outside ourselves for an instant comfort or way to make the high last longer. Unfortunately what we reach for can often set off a domino effect of old habits and behaviors, such as eating a pint of ice cream or racing over to the nearest convenience store for a package of donuts or a case of beer.
This lesson is all about being clear on your triggers—those situations, behaviors, and surroundings that tempt you to go back to your old ways. The beauty is this: Once you identify your triggers, you can see them more clearly. You can also train yourself to avoid them and resist them by using tactics that support you and your journey.
Just like habits, triggers can take time to dissipate. The purpose of a tactic is not to make the trigger go away, but to distract or empower the mind to prevent the emotional response. Most triggers can last for 5 to 15 minutes, so rest assured that if you employ these tactics to keep your mind and emotions occupied, you can navigate easily around or through any trigger!
People Triggers
Oddly enough, people triggers don’t have as much to do with the actual person triggering you; people triggers are more about ourselves. People triggers usually stem from a deep emotional need that we feel is not being met. For example, our parent, teacher, boss, or partner might trigger within us:
- The need to feel loved
- The need to feel trusted
- The need to feel valued
- The need to feel desired
- The need to be respected
- The need to be right
- The need to be understood
- The need for freedom
- The need to be in control
This list just scratches the surface. We have many more emotional needs that might trigger us. We become reliant on one or more of these needs because at some point in our life, that basic emotional need worked to benefit us in some way. So we learned that when that emotional need is fulfilled, the results are typically positive. However, when we feel that the need is not being met, the reaction is usually one of anger or fear—both powerful triggers that turn many of us to junk food to numb and cope.
Tactics for People Triggers
1. Write down one to three emotional needs that you have.
2. Do your own reality check: Is this person really denying you of your emotional need, or preventing you from getting it? Does this person have enough relevance in your life that they have this power over you?
3. If they do hold enough relevance in your life, and you feel it is important that you receive the emotional need from this person, try communicating it with them. Let them know how you feel and how important it is to be trusted, valued, et cetera.
4. If you find yourself emotionally charged and it is clear that this individual will not help satisfy your emotional need, then it is time to separate yourself from this situation:
- Relax and shift your focus to your breathing.
- Choose one word that describes how you want to be in this moment: calm, relaxed, powerful, centered, or the like.
- Reach out to a member of your Transformation Team to help you sort through your reaction to the person or situation that is triggering you.
Food Triggers
As humans, we are programmed from infancy for food to be soothing and comforting for us. We develop an emotional connection with sweet and savory comfort foods, overloaded with sugar, salt, and fat. These “hyperpalatables” release the feel-good endorphins in our brains. Because of this, such food helps to calm and relax us when we experience feelings of anger, sadness, anxiety, or loneliness. It will even heighten feelings of happiness. It’s no surprise that these hyperpalatables have become one of the biggest addictions in the United States and abroad. Because they act on many of the same systems of the brain as many drugs, these comfort foods have become an emotional “painkiller” for the masses.
It doesn’t help that we are also bombarded by junk food advertisements on TV, online, in newspapers, magazines—all over our media.
Tactics for Food Triggers
If you find that certain foods trigger binge behavior, use these tactics to beat the binge:
- Use teamwork. Call or text someone on your Transformation Team to talk about how you are feeling. Simply talking about the issue is one of the most powerful steps in creating awareness and taking control of the trigger.
- Clean out your environment of any trigger foods (you should have done that in Lesson 4!).
- Avoid places, restaurants, or situations where you might find your trigger foods (the break room at work, drive-thru row, your friend’s house that’s loaded with junk food). Those who’ve successfully transformed themselves sometimes actually found alternative routes to get where they needed to go, just to avoid these dangerous pitfalls.
- Have healthy options available at any moment: fruit, nuts, protein bars, protein shakes, gum, flavored water, and so on. Whatever you need to satisfy a sweet or salty craving, there are hundreds of amazing healthy alternatives available!
- Stay on track with your five meals a day. Skipping a meal or snack will put you in low blood sugar, a vulnerable place for a trigger!
Event Triggers
Some of the main triggers we experience on a regular basis are event triggers. These powerful triggers are made up of a multitude of situational events such as going to a restaurant, social gathering, party, or family reunion. Even going to work can be a trigger for some people. The drive to and from work, walking by the break room or cafeteria, finally getting the kids to bed and sitting down on the couch—these regular daily events can trigger responses in us that make us want to reach for food.
Boredom is actually one of the biggest event triggers we can experience. You know, those moments in the middle of the day when the kids are at school and the spouse is at work… and you find yourself wandering aimlessly around the kitchen pantry. Or when you have hours to kill doing xyz…
Believe it or not, another huge event trigger for some can be finishing a long workout. Many people feel the need to reward themselves after a good sweat session and then develop a food reward habit that negates all of their hard work!
Whatever habits have been formed during these daily events can be difficult to break. One of our peeps confessed to us that the simple click of his seat belt always triggered a craving for fast food because for years, nearly every time he got into a car he would hit a drive-thru wherever he was going.
Certain times of the year are loaded with powerful triggers—our birthdays, the holidays, the anniversary of a breakup. When we are reminded of certain powerful events in our lives, our triggers can be summoned.
We have created a list of tactics that can help guide you through the toughest of event triggers. Find the triggers and tactics that best apply to your life!
Tactics for Going to a Restaurant
- Eat something healthy before you go out and just order something extremely light when you are there.
- Order an appetizer or side order instead of an entrée.
- Order an entrée and cut it in half as soon as it is served. Eat half, and take the rest to go.
- Ask your server to remove or not serve any trigger food items beforehand (say, chips, bread, soup or salad before the meal).
- Choose a dish that has been steamed, baked, or grilled instead of fried or sautéed.
Tactics for the Drive to and from Work
- Avoidance. Choose a different route to and from work so you don’t pass by your drive-thru trigger.
- Be prepared. Eat something before you leave home and before you leave work. If you are hungry on your drive, your inner voice will create any excuse it can to rationalize your destructive habit. Do not break your promise!
- Keep your “why” in front of you. Keep a picture on your dashboard in the car. Never forget why you are doing this and how much better your life is going to be!
Tactics for Social Gatherings
Tactics for Workplace Triggers
- Avoid the trigger areas as much as possible. If necessary, find alternative routes around the break room, cafeteria, vending machine, and so on.
- Keep your desk well stocked with healthy options at all times.
- Rally your co-workers to join the health and fitness bandwagon. This has become extremely popular these days, with thousands of businesses now offering only healthy options in their break rooms, cafeterias, and vending machines.
Tactics for End-of-Day Triggers
Typically after a long and stressful day, we feel the deep-rooted need to reward ourselves. Walking in the door from work, getting the kids to bed, or typing up those final emails can trigger some monster cravings for something that will derail you. Here’s what to do:
- Keep your hands and taste buds busy. Chew gum. Have your flavored water or low-calorie beverage in hand.
- Grab the chopped veggies. They will give you a nice crunchy snack and fill you up.
- Go to bed. We call the time from around 7:00 p.m. until you go to bed the “red zone.” This is typically the time of the day when people are most likely to succumb to triggers and cravings. Ben Franklin said it best: “Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.”
Tactics for Boredom
- Call or text someone on your team and figure out something fun or relaxing to do.
- Give yourself a project or hobby: Play a video game, build something, start a collection, clean out the closet, whatever you need to do to keep your mind busy.
- 3. Chew gum and drink water.
- Volunteer for a service event in your area.
Tactics for Holidays and Events
- For anniversaries and birthdays, eat ahead of time and come with a full stomach. Just like social gatherings, keep a glass of water, soda water, or diet soda in hand. Chew gum. Avoid the food as much as possible.
- Also see tactics for social gatherings and people triggers.
Why Am I Always Hungry?
Do you ever consume thousands of calories in a sitting, and then feel hungry again within just minutes or hours? It can be so frustrating and depressing feeling like your body is an out-of-control eating machine. Many people have lost touch with their true hunger and become slaves to their emotional hunger.
There is a huge difference between the feeling of physical fullness and feeling emotionally satisfied. However, the wiring in our brains often gets crossed so that it is difficult to distinguish between the two. Through years of poor eating habits in response to emotional triggers, yo-yo dieting, and bouts of binge eating we can confuse the brain to think that loneliness and depression are hunger, and the act of eating is comfort.
This can lead to the endless consumption of thousands of calories. While your body may be full and satisfied, your emotions are not… so you continue to mindlessly eat, searching for a comfort of fullness that may never come… until you are ready to stop, take a moment, and pay attention to what is really going on.
It is easy to get stuck on autopilot and find yourself “blind bingeing” on junk foods. However, you need to:
- Relearn what true hunger feels like.
- Before you eat anything, stop and ask yourself, “Am I really hungry?”
- Log your foods.
DAY 21
It’s Time to Weigh In
Your End-of-Cycle Weight.
At this time, feel free to take any other measurements as well.
Day 21: Reset Day 
It’s Reset Day! Make meals easy by cooking up our Clean Cheat recipes (see suggested menu below), or simply add 1,000 extra calories of foods you love to a normal high-carb day.
Meal 1: Candied Pecan Protein Waffles
Meal 2: Sweet Potato Nachos
Meal 3: Banana Berry Ice Cream
Meal 4: Pigs in a Blanket
Meal 5: One-Minute Brownie
Rest Day
Now relax! Take the day off and rest—no Metabolic Missions and no Accelerators!
Man is a goal seeking animal. His life only has meaning if he is reaching out and striving for his goals.
—Aristotle
Right now, you may be solely driven by your own personal goals, wants, and needs—which is totally awesome. Remember, in order to change you must be beneficially selfish! Setting your goals and declaring your dream has given you a direction and a purpose. And now, 21 days or more into your journey, you are seeing and feeling the difference in your life. However, to make this “difference” lifelong, we want to ask you to open up your mind to something that may seem a bit counterintuitive…
We want to ask you to begin to open your mind to the value that you can bring to others’ lives. In his 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, the great Stephen Covey wrote about the distinctions among dependence, independence, and interdependence.
We are programmed to be interdependent with others—to contribute to our family, community, and society—and when we make this connection real, we not only help others but also maximize our sense of value and belonging. When we have a contributing purpose in life, it satisfies and fulfills us on a whole new level.
In many ways, this process of transformation is akin to the process of rehabilitation, and one of the most powerful steps in true recovery is when a person becomes a sponsor to help others through their journeys. That’s what we have in mind here.
So what if you could make a positive impact in someone else’s life? Or many people’s lives? You can. Transformation is not just about changing your life, but also about being the catalyst for change in others. In the most beneficially selfish way, reaching out to others—to help, guide, or inspire—helps keep you living a life of transformation without sliding back into your old destructive habits, and so keeps you from gaining the weight back.