“The secret to success is constancy of purpose.”
– Benjamin Disraeli
So you’ve made the decision to change your life. You bought this book. You’ve chosen a healthy diet. You’ve joined a gym. You’ve written your goals out, made your dream board and practiced your self-confidence. That’s all amazing and important. But now comes the hard part – carrying it through. Dreams and goals are all well and good, but if you’re not willing to take the steps necessary to reach them, you’ll be dreaming forever. In other words, you need to find the initiative to do what you’ve got to do in order to get what you want. No matter how enthusiastic you are, you must learn how to direct and control your efforts consistently to achieve those things you’ve decided on. Controlling your focus and directing it in a balanced way is crucial not only to losing your excess weight, but also to keeping it off.
MY GRANDPARENTS, ROSE AND CHARLIE
The will to achieve can be defined as: “The mental faculty by which one deliberately chooses or decides upon a course of action.” Deciding isn’t enough, though. You must maintain your focus despite the challenges that are certain to arise throughout your journey to getting the body you deserve.
A strong will can make a person succeed when all signals point to failure. I learned this early on in my life. My grandfather wasn’t given the privilege of going to school. His father, the sole breadwinner of the family, died of a heart attack when my grandfather was very young. This meant my grandfather and all his brothers had to go to work to support the family, although they were still children. They did a variety of odd jobs and piecemeal work – anything to bring in a little money. Lacking education and learning to associate pleasure with the mere idea of being able to eat, my grandfather’s brain quickly associated food with luxury.
My grandfather grew up and married my grandmother, whose father had had a stroke while she was in high school, and so she too had had to go to work without finishing her education. Together they had four sons, including my father. My grandparents successfully made ends meet because they had to. It’s true that they didn’t have the education to teach my father or his brothers the importance of choosing healthy foods, but they did survive despite the odds against them. This is because they had the will to survive and care for their children. This will was highly emotionalized and, despite their difficulties, they achieved their goals because they kept a constant focus. They never accepted their circumstances and always found a way to provide, no matter what. That need was in their mind at all times.
To succeed, you need to turn your goal into such a burning desire that it is on the same level of your other needs, like shelter and water. In pursuit of your goal, you must never accept less than your best, and you can never convince yourself that not trying hard enough is okay.
Terry Fox is a shining example of this. In 1977 at the age of 18, he was diagnosed with bone cancer. His leg was amputated above the knee. The night before his amputation, he decided he would run about 5,000 miles across Canada to raise money for cancer research. These days we hear about all kinds of people running or biking across countries to raise funds and awareness for a cause, but just two-and-a-half years after his leg amputation Terry Fox was the one who started it all.
People train for months or even years to run one marathon and consider it a big achievement – which it is. But during his “Marathon of Hope,” Terry Fox, on one leg and with a heart condition, ran a marathon every single day until cancer struck him down again after he had completed 143 days and 3,339 miles of his journey. One marathon in a lifetime is a lot for an able-bodied person, and yet here was a young man with only one leg and a heart condition who ran close to 143 marathons over as many days. How could he possibly have done it? He did it with will.
“A strong will can make a person succeed when all signals point to failure.”
Terry had shown early on that he had a strong will. In junior high school he was an average-sized, mediocre basketball player who barely made the team, but he was determined to play guard. He didn’t lie in bed wishing he could play; he practiced every single day, getting better and better. He became a starting guard a couple of years later and by senior year he was chosen athlete of the year.
Terry’s success was not accidental, nor did it come easily to him. He succeeded because every day he did what he had to do to reach his goal. His dream didn’t get him where he wanted to be. To get there, he needed the Discipline to practice, the Willpower to practice even if he didn’t feel like it, the Consistency to practice regularly rather than in fits and starts or simply whenever he felt like it, and the Focus to keep his eye on his goal – not just for days, weeks or even months, but for years.
“Terry Fox was an extraordinary person, but in ability he was utterly ordinary. His exceptional achievements came from his own will and determination, not from any special ability on his part.”
He used the same four important traits to get him across those 3,339 miles. First he had the dream – some might say a crazy dream – of running 5,000 miles across the country on one leg. Then he spent 18 months training consistently and with great discipline. Then he dipped his artificial toe in the Atlantic Ocean and set out on the first of his daily marathons. Every day, his foot was covered in blisters and his stump in painful, bleeding cysts. We can only imagine the willpower it took for him to wake up every morning, put on his artificial leg, tie up his shoe and hit the pavement. And then run an entire marathon. Imagine the focus he must have had to tune out the pain and complete the task he had set for himself. In fact, he was so focused on achieving his goal that he said when he was running he felt good, not bad.
Terry Fox’s goal was to raise $24 million for cancer research by the time he crossed Canada. Even though he was forced to finish just past the halfway point, the donations kept coming in and Terry raised just over $24 million. The annual Terry Fox runs that take place in his name across the world each year have now raised more than $500 million.
Sure, Terry Fox was an extraordinary person, but in ability he was utterly ordinary. His exceptional achievements came from his own will and determination, not from any special ability on his part. As iconic coach Vince Lombardi once said, “The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather a lack of will.”
DISCIPLINE
No question, it takes discipline to go out with friends and stick to your salad and grilled chicken breast when they are all drinking margaritas and eating nachos. It takes discipline to get up and go to the gym on a cold winter morning when you’re snuggled under a comforter beside your significant other or favorite pet. But if you want to accomplish your goal of losing weight, then you can’t choose when you will and when you won’t follow your plan. Your burning desire has to be so great it gets you out of bed in the morning. Knowing that each and every day filled with good decisions is getting you closer and closer to your goal has to be so compelling that, time after time, doing what’s right is second nature. Debating with yourself over whether or not to do what’s right will leave you struggling with your weight forever, zapping your self-esteem because as soon as you start making progress you will backslide. If you want to climb a mountain you have to keep moving upward. If you keep having to climb the same 100 feet over and over again you’re never going to reach the pinnacle.
“If you were to rate your self-discipline on a scale of 1 to 10, where would you put yourself? If you are near the low end, we have work to do! If you are closer to mid-range, congratulations, but to succeed you’ll have to move higher up the scale.”
Discipline, or self-control, helps you take the actions necessary to accomplish your goals, even though you would rather do something else. For example, instead of staying up to watch a late movie and being too tired to make it to the gym in the morning, you use your self-discipline to turn off the TV and go to sleep at a decent hour. At its core, discipline is maturity. A baby has no self-control. If he wants something, he cries to get it and cries louder if he can’t have it. Through the toddler years, a child slowly learns that by waiting he might get more than he would otherwise.
Walter Mischel’s marshmallow experiment is a perfect illustration of this. In the late 1960s Mischel, a Stanford psychology professor, conducted a delayed gratification experiment involving four-year-olds. Each child would be put in a room with a marshmallow. A researcher would tell them that if they wanted one marshmallow they could eat it right away, but if they wanted two they would have to wait while he stepped out of the room for a few minutes. The results varied greatly and were often humorous – some children ate the marshmallow immediately while others tried valiantly to wait till the end – but things really started to get interesting as Mischel kept track of these children throughout their lives. He discovered that those who were able to delay gratification and wait for the two marshmallows experienced greater success throughout their entire lives. How much success? On average, the child who could wait 15 minutes had an SAT score that was 210 points higher than the child who could only wait 30 seconds! In fact, more than any other predictor including family income, the longer the child waited for the two marshmallows the more successful he/she was in all areas of life.
EVENTUALLY, MAKING THE RIGHT CHOICE WILL BECOME SECOND NATURE.
As we get older, we get better and better at either waiting for what we want, working for what we want or giving up something we want right now in order to get something better later on. Some of us, however, are better at this than others, and these are the ones with the discipline it takes to succeed. If you were to rate your self-discipline on a scale of 1 to 10, where would you put yourself? If you are near the low end, we have work to do! If you are closer to mid-range, congratulations, but to succeed you’ll have to move higher up the scale.
Residing at the bottom of this scale normally goes hand in hand with the belief that your circumstances are beyond your control. You believe success comes because of a person’s genes or background or because of luck. The further up the self-discipline scale you go the more you are likely to believe in your own ability to determine your success. To succeed, you need discipline. To be disciplined, you must have faith – not only in the program or person who is helping you to lose weight, but also faith in yourself. As William James, the father of American psychology, said, “The greatest discovery of the 19th century was not in the realm of physical sciences, but the power of the subconscious mind touched by faith. Any individual can tap into an eternal reservoir of power that will enable them to overcome any problem that may arise. All weaknesses can be overcome, bodily healing, financial independence, spiritual awakening, prosperity beyond your wildest dreams. This is the superstructure of happiness.”
You do not become healthy by fighting obesity or by fighting the state of being fat, but rather by raising your consciousness and choosing to embrace a healthy lifestyle plan. You will not succeed with a diet plan that fights being fat; you will succeed with a lifestyle plan that promotes wellness. In other words, change comes from focusing on a positive solution, not by combating negativity. There is nothing to fight, simply something positive to embrace.
“Start to take charge of your life by making conscious decisions each day. Count on yourself more. Stop relying on others to make the change for you. After all, no one can change you but you!”
Nothing external has caused you to be overweight. You have made a long series of decisions that have given you the result: the body you now live in. It’s time to not only change the way you eat and move, but to change the way you think! You must take responsibility for your result. This book cannot change you. It can influence you in a great way but, ultimately, when you finish reading the final page, it’s up to you to make the changes I’m suggesting. Responsible people know that if their life is falling apart, they need to take action. This means they know they can have a positive impact on their own life. It’s not what happens to us, it’s what we do with what happens that dictates our future.
WHAT'S MORE IMPORTANT: ONE LITTLE COOKIE OR LOSING THE WEIGHT FOR GOOD?
Some people think mysterious mystical forces have predetermined their fate and they are destined to be overweight and unhappy for one reason or another. These people are forever “the victim.” They push people away – even people who would be great assets in their lives – because of their self-pity and misery. They envy others who are successful rather than working toward that success themselves. Because of their negative attitudes they tune into a negative frequency, attracting more and more experiences to support their belief that life is terrible and they are unlucky. They get so caught up in their moaning that they miss all kinds of opportunities to change and instead get stuck in a place they hate. Some of these people stay in that wretched place their entire lives, never fully understanding they have the key and can escape that prison.
Many overweight people are caught in that pattern. The trick is to break it. You must change your blueprint. Start to take charge of your life by making conscious decisions each day. Count on yourself more. Stop relying on others to make the change for you. After all, no one can change you but you! Going off your program doesn’t hurt your trainer. Her butt doesn’t get any wider – yours does! Your coach won’t develop diabetes if you choose to eat foods loaded with preservatives and soaked in sugar and syrup – you will!
Little things build upon one another to create something great. When I was a kid I enjoyed playing with Lego. When you look at Lego blocks as an adult, you see how tiny each one is. But when put together in the right order and sequence, they can build massive towers, bridges, animals … practically anything in the builder’s imagination. The one piece is pretty much useless, but when a person puts the pieces together, a wonderful creation is built. The same is true for you. Every morsel of nutritious food you put in your mouth, every step you take, every day, is a step in the right direction, even if it is not perfect. With each day, you get better and better. After a few months your food and exercise plans will be second nature.
When you find your discipline waning, you have to ask yourself which is more important, having that order of fries right now or losing your excess weight for good? Is it more important to sit on your rear watching TV feeling lazy or is it more important to accomplish your goal of toning up your flabby arms? Where do you really want to be in a year? It might help to picture that little angel and devil on your shoulders. The devil will tell you whatever he thinks will convince you to do what he wants. He’ll be very convincing: “You’ve followed your eating plan for four days straight. One little cookie won’t mess things up.” “You’ve already worked out three times this week. Missing one workout won’t matter. You can work out extra hard tomorrow to make up for it.” Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? After all, you’ve trained yourself to think that way for a long time! You’ll have to tune out that devil and listen to the angel on your shoulder who’s telling you to get your butt to the gym if you want to reach the mountaintop instead of slipping back down. Remember the marshmallow test! You’re being a more mature person by giving up what you want now (to be lazy and sit in front of the TV) for what you really want but have to both wait and work for (a fabulous body, long-term health, energy).
“You need discipline to go to the gym; you need willpower to not sit in front of the TV. You need discipline to eat the salad and grilled chicken, you need willpower to not eat nachos and drink margaritas.”
Some of us were never taught that our decisions mattered. When I was growing up I often changed my mind in restaurants. I would see so many delicious, unhealthy options that I would want them all at once. If I ordered spaghetti and meatballs, for example, and my sister’s order of a bacon cheeseburger and onion rings came out first I would think hers looked so good that I’d change my mind and try to switch my order. That kind of behavior is childish, of course. We must make decisions and learn to live with them. Although our parents may have meant well, allowing us to change our minds so quickly didn’t teach us much about living with the choices we’ve made.
THE ANGEL ON HIS SHOULDER IS SCREAMING, "GET OFF THE COUCH!"
As Albus Dumbledore said in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, “It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.” I’m sure you’ve made some choices you wish you could go back and change, such as the eating and exercise habits that brought you to the point you are now. You are fortunate that this book has come along. As far as your health and body are concerned, it’s almost never too late to change things.
God is willing to give you a second, fifth, sixth, or even hundredth shot at changing, but you have to make the decision and use your will to stick to it.
WILLPOWER
Willpower can be defined as the strength of will to resist barriers to carrying out one’s decisions, wishes or plans. This sounds a lot like discipline, and indeed the two are closely related. You could say willpower and discipline are like yin and yang – the balance that equals success. Whereas you need discipline to do what you need to do in order to succeed, you need willpower to not do the things you can’t do if you want to succeed. You need discipline to go to the gym; you need willpower to not sit in front of the TV. You need discipline to eat the salad and grilled chicken, you need willpower to not eat nachos and drink margaritas.
But willpower is more than that, too. Willpower is what makes you continue when you feel like giving up, and this is really important when you have difficult times during your weight loss, which you inevitably will, such as the most difficult time of all – the plateau.
“When you hit a plateau you have to keep in mind that there’s a lot of stuff going on inside that you don’t know about. Just because you’re not seeing the outward effect at the moment doesn’t mean the inward change isn’t happening.”
Nothing is worse than when you’re sticking to your plan, eating exactly as you should, not sneaking any food at all, training with gusto, feeling like a million bucks and then stepping on the scale to find – surprise! – you’ve gained a pound. What?! How could that happen?
The body is a very complex machine, and we all sometimes experience situations that just don’t seem to make sense. When you hit a plateau you have to keep in mind that there’s a lot of stuff going on inside that you don’t know about. Just because you’re not seeing the outward effect at the moment doesn’t mean the inward change isn’t happening. In fact, normally when people make their way through a tough plateau they’ll find that after a few weeks of no weight loss (or even a little weight gain) they’ll step on the scale one day and find they’ve suddenly lost five or six pounds for no apparent reason. While it may not be apparent, the reason for the sudden weight loss is that they stuck it out through the plateau and stayed with the program even though they couldn’t see the outward results. And how did they manage to do that? With willpower.
When I was just 17, I decided to change. I had a plan consisting of healthy foods, and I was ready. Unfortunately, my parents had heard that before. To say the least, they were not excited about my new “plan.” In fact, I had to save up for my own groceries since most people in my family didn’t think I would stick to it. Talk about frustration! I wanted to make the change immediately but had to wait, saving up money from my minimum-wage job until I could buy the healthy food I needed. That would have made a great excuse to prevent me from succeeding if I had not tapped into my willpower.
You cannot expect the world to change because you’ve changed your eating and exercise habits. When that world and your lifestyle change collide, you will have to prove where your priorities lie. I had to make sacrifices and come up with my own resources to buy a George Foreman Grill, chicken breasts, fresh vegetables and other healthy foods when I was still a high-school student making minimum wage at a part-time job. I had to be very careful with my money. If you are going to be a true success, you too must be willing to do whatever it takes.
MODIFICATION
Many dieters fail because they have an all-or-nothing attitude. They either stay strictly on their diet at all times and work out in exactly the manner they had planned, or they go completely off the rails. Some dieters even unconsciously (or maybe consciously) look for problems they can use as an excuse. If you really don’t want to keep up with an exercise program then an injury is the perfect excuse to stop. But if you have the willpower to continue and the desire to truly succeed, then you can stay with your plan under these types of circumstances by the simple act of modification.
We all have times when the going gets rough and sticking to our original plan is a challenge. We might have to go away on business unexpectedly, or the weather might turn cold and rainy when we had been intending to go for a run, or we get sick or injured, or we come home to find our kids have, for a once-in-a-lifetime event, made dinner, and that dinner is garlic bread with cheese, Caesar salad and Fettuccine Alfredo. These things happen, and while your plans may have to be altered somewhat to deal with them, you cannot let these events dictate your success. You have to find a way to succeed despite them.
You need to take time to think ahead in times you expect travel or to be out of your environment. Through the hundreds of people I’ve helped to lose tens of thousands of pounds, I find the most challenging times for these individuals are when they lose their perceived structure as a result of being out of their environment. You need to organize yourself ahead of time so your success does not become compromised. Call ahead and find out if there is a fitness center in the hotel you plan to stay at or find out if your friend can get you a guest pass at the local gym. Ask if the hotel has rooms with fridges and microwaves – you may even find a whole kitchen. Ask if a blender is available and if not, pick up a travel blender – they’re inexpensive and handy! Check online for restaurants at or near the hotel. If you can’t find what you need on the menu, give them a call and ask if they’ll make your required items for you. Most restaurants have no trouble with special orders.
“If you are planning to go for a run and the weather is cold and rainy, you have any number of choices. Many runners will go out anyway, but if this is not an option for you, then you can go to the gym and run on the treadmill.”
If you are sent on an unexpected business trip and your hotel does not have a gym, your best bet is to get a day pass at a local gym. But even if you can’t do that, you can still work out. You can run in place, skip or go for a jog outside if you’re in a safe area. For strength, you can bring along resistance bands if you think ahead. If not, you can use a towel for resistance (yes, that works) and you can do bodyweight exercises. Lunges, squats, pushups, dips on a chair … pick a few exercises such as these and you can have a great circuit-training session. You may even find that by training in a completely different way you work your muscles harder than usual.
If you are planning to go for a run and the weather is cold and rainy, you have any number of choices. Many runners will go out anyway, but if this is not an option for you, then you can go to the gym and run on the treadmill – that’s the most obvious substitution. You could stay home and do a skipping workout, or you could climb stairs, use a stationary bike or elliptical trainer or go to an aerobics class. Anything that really gets your heart pumping over an extended period of time is great. What I’m saying is that you have to learn to be flexible. The important thing is that you continue to reinforce the pattern you’ve grown accustomed to by exercising in some way.
When you are honestly sick, you have to take some time off – no question. Trying to work out when you are sick will stress your immune system, possibly making you sicker. In addition, your training will not be beneficial. You will not be able to put adequate energy into your training and you will not get enough out of it. This refers to sickness such as the flu, not a chronic sickness; most people with chronic illnesses benefit from a modified training program. As for injury, keep in mind that all professional athletes suffer from injury at some point or another. They don’t stop training; they train around their injury. If you have a broken ankle, then maybe you’ll have to do more upper-body training. For cardio perhaps you can do an upper-body circuit. You can train your non-injured leg with light squats and other leg exercises. Instead of looking at what you can’t do, find whatever you can do, and do it.
If you’re lucky enough to come home and find that your kids have made dinner, then make the best of it. Have small portions, consider it a treat and get right back on your normal plan the next day. If the heavens have shone on you and your kids start doing this on a regular basis, then you will want to talk to them about which foods you’re trying to eat more of and which you’re trying to avoid. Ask them to help you out on your journey. If you ask them for help as opposed to telling them to make what you want, then they are much more likely to do what you would like them to.
There were times in my own journey when I couldn’t stay on my own food program because of unexpected circumstances. At those times, my creativity served me well. For example, since I was in the habit of eating fast food when I was heavy, I relied on healthier fast-food choices once I made that change. I chose to go to the local sub shop rather than other fast-food establishments because it had healthier options. I could have a grilled chicken sub with no sauce and lots of fresh veggies. I could have a whole wheat bun and ask them to remove part of the inside. If I was out with no food and couldn’t find any sub shops, I went back to a place I never thought I would – McDonald’s. I would order two grilled chicken sandwiches and toss out the buns. You have to improvise when life presents challenges – it forces you to grow and learn!
Successful people don’t let the little things hang them up. They keep their eyes on the ball. They don’t get a negative attitude and give up simply because things didn’t turn out exactly as they had anticipated. Successful people see the challenges before they occur, when possible, and are ready to find a quick solution when necessary. They are proactive when dealing with challenges, and they move on. They don’t look back, keeping their mind stuck on things that went wrong, labeling themselves or their experiences as failures. There is no such thing as failure. Failure comes when you stop trying. Since you’ve picked up this book, you are not a failure. You haven’t stopped trying. People like you, who succeed, will look back on all the challenging times as the times that helped them to grow and get even better, leading them to the moment of change and ultimately to success!
CONSISTENCY
Think about this hypothetical scenario: You decide you’re going to start a diet and exercise program. “This is it!” you think. “This time it’s going to work! I’m going to diet and train so hard!” So you start exercising every single day, for two hours each day. Two or three weeks pass and you’re feeling tired. You haven’t put a day off in your training schedule, so instead you find an excuse to take a day off. That day off feels so good, and now you’ve broken your routine, so you take another day off. Soon your days off become the norm and your training days become the exception. Two months down the road and you’re rarely seen at the gym, until the next time you decide to transform your life. When I had an office at a gym, throngs of people would flood the gym during the first week of January, but very few of those people would still be around in March. They spent money and invested time and energy, but quickly gave up.
“Successful people see the challenges before they occur, when possible, and are ready to find a quick solution when necessary. They are proactive when dealing with challenges, and they move on.”
Sound familiar? This may surprise you, but the main reason people quit an exercise program is that they try to do too much too soon. It is far better to set up a program that fits in with your schedule, that gives you time off, both to recuperate and to allow for repair of muscle tissue, and that you can carry out over the long term. In fitness circles they say: “Consistency is king,” and with good reason.
An up-and-down exercise program is just like the up-and-down of backsliding down the mountain. Every extended break you take in your exercise program brings you sliding back in the direction you started, so you never get to the point where you are progressing. If you work out once in a while when you feel like it, or work out like mad for a few weeks and then stop, you will never reach the point where your gains endure, and so you are again climbing up and sliding down the same 100 feet of the mountain. If you consistently work out (in a challenging manner) even three or four times a week – consistently – then every week you are building on what you accomplished the week before, and you are progressing up the mountain.
Consistency is also extremely important with your diet. If you consistently eat properly but have a treat now and then, you will lose weight when you need to, and these habits will keep you lean once you succeed at your weight loss. However, if you diet and then binge, or diet, lose the weight and then go “off” the diet and back to your former eating habits, you will either not lose the weight you want to lose, becoming very frustrated and discouraged, or your weight will bounce up and down. Again, you’re going up and down the same 100 feet of the mountain. I’m going to guess that you don’t want either of those things to happen. Not only do these habits of inconsistency mean you will either not reach your goal or not stay there, inconsistency will also mess up your metabolism, making it harder and harder to get lean.
STARTING AND STOPPING YOUR DIET AND EXERCISE PLAN IS LIKE CLIMBING THE SAME 100 FEET OF A MOUNTAIN, OVER AND OVER AGAIN.
Perfection in eating is not the goal. Consistent good eating is. Often I am asked how you get yourself to do it even when you are angry, tired, frustrated or excited. I always think of the following note from Napoleon Hill, referring to how he maintains his composure no matter how angry he may be. “[I handle it] in exactly the same way that you would change your manner and the tone of your voice if you were in a heated argument with a member of your family and heard the doorbell ring, warning you that company was about to visit you. You would control yourself because you would desire to do so.”
Always stay focused on what you’re after – don’t let the short-term immediate circumstances determine your action. It does take time to cultivate the habit of not immediately reacting, but rather responding with thought – but with practice it becomes second nature.
FOCUS
Picture this: You’re driving on a busy highway while getting in a fight with your spouse on the cell, eating a meal and putting on your makeup – a disaster waiting to happen. When you drive, you have to focus on your goal of driving where you want to go, or you will crash. Simple, right? But it applies to any goal. If you are not focused on your goal of losing weight and doing what it takes to get there, then you will end up crashing, and you will never reach your weight-loss destination.
It’s easy to slip back into bad habits if you aren’t being vigilant. I find the movie theater is a trigger point for many of my clients. I understand this well – when I was overweight there wasn’t a more ideal place to be than the movie theater. It was dark, so people couldn’t see me well. The seats were large and spacious since the arms lifted up, and it was always kept cool, so I didn’t have to worry about perspiring. Couple those attributes with the fact that I could escape to a fictional, happy, movie fantasy world, and I was in heaven. The trouble is, who sees a movie without popcorn and a soda? Picture this: You start a diet on a Friday morning and go to a movie with your friend that night. Your friend orders an extra-large popcorn to share with you. “A handful won’t hurt,” you think. The next thing you know you’ve eaten half the bag, to the tune of about 600 calories if no butter was added, and closer to 1,000 if it was. For half the bag! What went wrong? You lost your focus, that’s what. You got distracted by the movie, by your friend and by the fact that you were sitting in a movie theater – and besides, you’re supposed to eat popcorn there, right?
“Temptation abounds. It’s everywhere, from the leftovers on your child’s plate to the candy jar on your coworker’s desk to the sandwiches and cheese tray on the table at your meetings.”
Temptation abounds. It’s everywhere, from the leftovers on your child’s plate to the candy jar on your coworker’s desk to the sandwiches and cheese tray on the table at your meetings. These are all ways we add hundreds of calories to our daily consumption without even thinking about it … or counting it, for that matter. Then there are the more obvious temptations: going out for pizza and wings with your friends, or grabbing an iced cappuccino and muffin for your break. Whether the temptation is large or small, obvious or insidious, you will have to stay focused on your goal to beat it.
“If you allow yourself to forget your goal, then you will not reach it. When you see the candy or donuts on your coworker’s desk, remind yourself of your goal.”
You will also have to be focused on your goal just to stay on the right path. You may begin the week or day well, but as the hours or days slip by, you unwittingly slip further and further from the plan until you find yourself miserable, feeling like a failure and saying, “Okay, tomorrow I’m starting again.”
YOU MAY FIND IT HARD TO LOOK YOURSELF IN THE FACE WHEN YOU'VE FALLEN FURTHER AND FURTHER FROM YOUR PLAN.
Just as success builds upon success, failure mounts up upon failure. The key is recognizing patterns and breaking those that are negative. While it’s true that tomorrow is another day, you can’t go back and live the past differently and you should not beat yourself up if you slip. The fact remains that if every day or week sees you repeating this pattern, then your focus is definitely not clear enough. Give yourself a strong visual reminder every morning, and then remind yourself throughout the day: You have a goal. If you allow yourself to forget your goal, then you will not reach it. When you see the candy or donuts on your coworker’s desk, remind yourself of your goal. Before you eat even one bite of any food, ask yourself if that bite moves you toward your goal or brings you away from it. Force yourself to log every single morsel of food you eat in a book and report to a friend. This will be especially helpful if you don’t have a person formally coaching you. Make someone else a part of your goal and your fear of disappointing that person will help you to succeed.
Ultimately, you cannot control whether your coworkers bring candy or donuts to work. You do not have total control over whether you get sick or injured, and you cannot live a life without temptation. You don’t even have complete control over how quickly you lose your weight. But you can control how you react to all these challenges on your journey, and the way you react will determine your success. Become proactive instead of reactive. Be mature. Recognize that you dictate your future. Stay focused. You will reach your goal.
“Become proactive instead of reactive. Be mature. Recognize that you dictate your future. Stay focused. You will reach your goal.”
SUCCESS STORY
“Thank you for saving my legs and my life!”
NAME: Patrick Brennan
AGE: 57
HEIGHT: 6'5"
WEIGHT BEFORE: 332 lbs
WEIGHT AFTER: 220 lbs
WEIGHT LOSS: 112 lbs
IT WASN’T UNTIL PATRICK BRENNAN’S DOCTOR TOLD HIM HE NEEDED TO GET HIS DIABETES UNDER CONTROL OR FACE HAVING HIS FEET AMPUTATED THAT PATRICK FOUND THE MOTIVATION HE NEEDED TO LOSE WEIGHT. Patrick’s overeating, lack of exercise and overall sedentary lifestyle had all contributed to his development of type 2 diabetes. For 13 years, Patrick struggled to get his condition under control, often ending up in the hospital because of his cellulitis – a bacterial infection of the skin common in those with diabetes. The doctor’s dire diagnosis of amputation was due to the fact that Patrick’s diabetes was interfering with the medication being used to treat the cellulitis.
With an aching back, sore feet and a major medical condition, Patrick walked into Charles D’Angelo’s office looking for a miracle. And that is exactly what he found. Charles helped Patrick regain his health and retain his limbs by teaching him how to pair excellent nutrition with exercise. Charles taught Patrick that there is no room for excuses. In fact, Patrick had to ditch his excuses at the door and make a total commitment to Charles’ plan. It was tough at times, but Patrick persevered and discovered this lifestyle was one definitely worth living. With sound guidance and advice based on his own personal experiences, Charles helped Patrick drop 112 pounds. According to Patrick, hard work and the fact that Charles’ experience resonated with him ended up being “the right combination at the right time.”
“Patrick had to ditch his excuses at the door and make a total commitment.”
Patrick has received a new lease on life. He sleeps better, he has more energy, his knees and back don’t ache, he can shop at regular clothing stores, he can get in and out of his car with ease and he can even run! This year he competed in a five-mile St. Patrick’s Day run with his three sons. Patrick is setting an excellent example for them, as well as for the rest of his family and friends. Best of all, Patrick has managed to eliminate all of the diabetes medications from his life, which saves him more than $2,000 dollars a year on co-pays alone!
All that extra cash piling up in his pocket is a great motivator, but Patrick also stays on track by picking up two 50-pound weights and walking around with them to remind his mind and body of what it was like to carry around all that extra weight. But the most powerful motivator of all is that Patrick no longer has to make regular trips to the doctor, hospital and drug store. He does not want to return to his former way of life. And for all of those gifts, here is what Patrick has to say to Charles: “THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, for saving my legs and my life!”