All posts in category weight loss

It’s not for Looks, It’s for Life

The title of this post sounds like the tagline for today’s hottest weight loss program. (If it actually is, I apologize and no endorsement is intended.)

When talking to folks about the greatest challenges they faced after they lost weight, one man said it was coming to the realization that he actually wanted to be fit and healthy, not just x pounds lighter on the scale. His initial motivation for losing weight was to simply look better. Once that was accomplished and he felt better about himself, he wanted to take this a step further. He wanted to be fit in ALL ways.

I’ve been through the process. I understand that weight loss is all consuming (pun not intended) and becomes an integral part of who we are. Once you reach your goal, however, there can actually be a mental vacuum that must be filled. Expanding your life and moving forward in other aspects is important and that’s what this site is all about. In making the transition to maintenance, many feel like they’re always one bite of cake away from being the overweight person they once were. They get stuck in this constant state of dread and panic and find themselves stalled even though they’ve met their goal. By making the mental shift to actually being a fit and healthy individual, you develop the sense of personal trust and confidence needed to thrive.

Once you’ve reached your goal, think about what’s next. What’s your continuing motivation for eating right and taking care of yourself? You may have drop the pounds to look better for a wedding or that vacation on the beach. What can you envision that will act as a strong motivator to maintain the weight loss?

Think about how you feel now. What can you do now that you’ve lost weight that you couldn’t do before? What are some new goals you have to get the most out of that new body? Really stretch yourself and it doesn’t need to be purely physical. Maybe you’ve always wanted to move up in the corporate world but felt your weight may have been holding you back. Picture that corner office and go for it! Sometimes doing things for others can be motivating. If you’re a parent, being around for your kids and being able to participate fully in their lives is a great example. Next time you feel like downing an entire pizza, ask yourself if that will get you any closer to their wedding day.

It’s all about your vision and the choices and commitment you make to get there. Right now, make a list of all the reasons you deserve to be healthy and post that on your ‘fridge or mirror. Better yet, share the list with a friend or two to help you stick to the commitment and hold you accountable.

Image courtesy of koratmember at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Leave a comment

by Paul on November 6 • Permalink

Posted in self-esteem, weight loss

Posted by Paul on November 6

https://motoringforwardcoaching.com/2012/11/06/its-not-for-looks-its-for-life/

It’s Not Cheating, It’s Called Living

One of the hardest changes anyone can make after they’ve successfully lost weight is establishing a more healthy relationship with food. While losing weight, you monitored everything that went in your mouth. To move your life forward and leave that fat-suit behind, you need to learn to stop treating food as an enemy.

Here’s a quick story. A young lady was excited that she had been invited to her first fancy work affair. It was at a really nice restaurant that she’d never be able to eat at on her own because of the high cost. She was really afraid, however, that she was going to make a mistake with her eating and “cheat.” She was petrified! The worry around food was going to ruin her enjoyment of this special occasion.

Food nourishes us and gives us energy. It’s also a lot more. Food is often the focal point of social gatherings and, honestly, provides us with a lot of pleasure. Without changing thought patterns to allow you to successfully navigate these situations, you’ll find yourself missing out on everything life has to offer. You can enjoy these special occasions by learning that the occasional indulgence does not mean you’re going to immediately gain back your weight. You just need to be smart and act the part of the fit person you’ve become.

Keep everything in balance. Your goal is to enjoy the event, participate fully and not let food panic ruin your time. Just be mindful that this is an indulgence. You’re not changing your eating patterns to match this meal going forward; this is something special. Acknowledge that mentally and give yourself permission to enjoy the meal and the time with your friends or family.

Make some smart decisions. Remember, you’re a fit, healthy person now so there are some choices you’ll make naturally. If you’re at an awesome steakhouse, you get a leaner cut of steak, a lot of veggies and maybe a decadent side that you share with a few people. For drinks, you have a little red wine. When the meal comes, the portions are huge so you save at least half to take home. Finally, dessert. You pass on it, right? Heck no! But you do share something with all your friends and enjoy every bite you do take. You might hit the gym extra hard the next day but you do it because it feels good and you know it’s good for you—it’s not done out of guilt.

By setting the correct mental image as we just discussed and allowing her new healthy instincts to take charge, our young lady truly enjoyed her special event. It created great memories and she has no guilt.

You worked hard to get where you’re at today. You have to trust your knowledge about the right way to eat. You’re also active now and you’re burning plenty of calories. Allow yourself these “free meals” periodically. Otherwise, you trap yourself in an eating prison that will make you feel like you’re dieting for the rest of your life.

With the Holiday season approaching, you’ll have a number of opportunities to try out your new skills. How will you see these events? Will you create potential pitfalls or opportunities to celebrate and enjoy your life?

Image courtesy of imagerymajestic at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Leave a comment

by Paul on October 30 • Permalink

Posted in change, confidence, weight loss

Posted by Paul on October 30

https://motoringforwardcoaching.com/2012/10/30/its-not-cheating-its-called-living/

Exorcizing Your Demons

It’s funny how our minds work. We can start down the path of a simple, innocent, harmless rationalization to explain away an action and that takes on a life of its own. In past posts, I’ve written about how our thoughts drive our feelings and behavior. A runaway rationalization can turn into one heck of a monster.

During an online discussion, one individual stated:

I find one particular “Mental Trap” can be very dangerous. Basically it becomes easy to slowly start justifying eating bad/worse just because you are working out. It’s like your subconscious is whispering, “pizza ain’t that bad… besides, you just had a great workout.”

Does this sound familiar? This can get magnified when the “working out” is elevated to “body building.” I know a lot of guys that lose weight then set themselves back because they now want to “bulk up.” To bulk up, you have to take in more calories than you need. That’s what you were doing when you were overweight. You’ve returned yourself to the exact same behavior, just under a different label.

To exorcise these little demons, you need to recognizing rationalizations for what they are and put them to rest. The key is to first realize what you’re doing then examine your motivations. Once you’ve gotten that far, it just takes some discipline (and maybe the help of your coach) to change your mindset allowing you to make decisions that are in your best interest.

Here’s an example. A man has a girlfriend that won’t eat unless he’s eating. Because of schedules and eating preferences, this forces him to eat more than he should. His rationalization is that he has to do it to make sure that she’s eating enough. So, how should this be handled?

The first step wasn’t too difficult; he realized what he was doing. Now, let’s look at the motivation. On the surface, his concern came from a genuine place of caring for his girlfriend. Delving deeper, however, we learned that there’s also a sense of guilt and responsibility for another person’s actions. Instead of addressing the core issue, he was looking for ways to tweak his eating to account for these inevitable extra calories. To move forward, he needed to be exposed to more options.

To activate the necessary change in behavior, he first needed to acknowledge that he can not be responsible for his girlfriend’s eating choices. (He, better than anyone, should recognize this having come to terms with his own choices.) Having an honest discussion with his girlfriend is a place to start. He might even discover that his girlfriend wasn’t aware of what she was doing and that she would be supportive of him. A more difficult but far more productive option might be to provide the support needed for his girlfriend to confront her own eating issues. Regardless of the final path chosen, identifying the real motivation behind his actions and changing his thoughts related to the situation will allow him to put an end to that rationalization before it further ruins his weight loss and maintenance efforts.

So, do you have any mental vampires you need to stake?

Image by Flickr user elycefeliz (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Leave a comment

by Paul on October 25 • Permalink

Posted in confidence, weight loss

Posted by Paul on October 25

https://motoringforwardcoaching.com/2012/10/25/exorcizing-your-demons/

Clothes Make the Man: I Hated the Husky Section!

For some it’s a pleasure while others see it as just a chore. It can also be terrifying. I’m talking about clothes shopping.

I don’t know if they still have them in department stores but I had to buy all of my clothes in the “husky” section when I was young. This was essentially a men’s section they put in the children’s clothing department for the fat boys. I was wearing a 42″ waist in eighth grade so there was no way I could fit into traditional kids’ clothes. Accordingly, most of my clothes weren’t in line with what other kids my age were wearing. [Great, just one more thing to set me apart from my peers.] I hated shopping for clothes at the start of each school year. My mom would just cart me off and we’d get it all done in one morning so that the trauma was minimized. For some, this negative experience continues into adulthood. I recently heard from one guy that simply lost it and broke into tears in the middle of the men’s department because he couldn’t find anything that fit.

For most men, buying clothes is a pop-in-and-just-get-what-I-need event or they buy online. However, this doesn’t stop retailers from marketing to men or those that buy their clothes for them. You can pick up any health magazine and see the most current trend being worn by a fitness model with a sub-30″ waist and 44″+ chest. While women have dealt with this for most of their lives, I think men are just now starting to feel similar pressure to look good. When you’re fit, buying new clothes might not be an issue (other than coughing up the dough) but when you’ve been buying your clothes in the big-and-tall section until recently, how do you make that transition?

As I started losing weight, shopping for clothes still wasn’t all that enjoyable because I had some vision of where I should be at any point in time. I’d pick up a large shirt and find I still needed an XL or my pant size hadn’t dropped. Though sometimes frustrated, I pushed ahead and eventually started seeing some progress. I started using clothes shopping as a motivator. I would regularly get a few new things in the smaller size so I knew I always had something that fit well and looked good. These first few new items were always a better brand (relatively expensive) too so there was a financial incentive to not go backwards. I donated my larger clothes as soon as I replaced them with smaller sizes. I felt I had “made it” when I took some shorts into the Abercrombie and Fitch dressing room and had to actually buy two sizes lower than I had expected.

So I share this with you as another example of some of the mental trash that can be taken to the curb once you have lost weight. I know guys that still buy clothes too large either because they simply haven’t thought to go to a smaller size or they’re still trying to hide their body. As you reach your goal weight and figure out what your new size is going to be, treat yourself to some new clothes that fit well. Take a friend or spouse/partner that knows something about style with you and have them give their opinion. You worked hard for the new body and you deserve to look and feel your best. Don’t let prior discomfort or lack of knowledge stop you from enjoying a simple pleasure of life.

Image courtesy of imagerymajestic at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Leave a comment

by Paul on October 16 • Permalink

Posted in body image, confidence, self-esteem, weight loss

Posted by Paul on October 16

https://motoringforwardcoaching.com/2012/10/16/clothes-make-the-man-i-hated-the-husky-section/

Ditch Your Fat-suit!

When you’re overweight, your mind can be full of guilt, longing and self-loathing. Once you start the weight loss process, you’re singularly focused on your diet, exercise and the results on the scale. Now that you’ve finally reach your goal weight, what happens? The activities that have been taking up a good portion of your brain space are no longer needed, creating a vacuum. That vacuum has the potential to suck back in all of the insecurity, doubt and fear from which you worked so hard to free yourself. This creates a healthy, fit person that still feels overweight. You’ve basically put on a fat-suit!

We view ourselves from two different vantage points—how we feel about ourself (internal) and how we think others see us (external.) Our perceptions skew these views rooted in our self esteem and confidence. Our actions and feelings are directly driven by our thoughts or perceptions. If that vacuum pulls back in all of the negativity you’ve longed to be rid of, it will cause you to act and feel accordingly. This will have an impact on your confidence and self esteem and may actually cause others to treat you as if you’ve made no change. You get depressed, fearful, apathetic and wonder what you worked so hard for and BINGO, you slide back. Can you see how we get stuck in this vicious cycle? To succeed, you need to ditch that fat-suit mentality once-and-for-all and leave the “old you” behind.

Plugging that vacuum is one option. This takes an awful lot of energy though as you constantly try to remind yourself of what you’ve achieved, that you know how to eat, that there’s no rational reason for you to be be afraid, etc. But I think there’s a better way. Instead of patching, how about replacing the space in your brain with new thoughts so that the old ones simply can’t come back?

Think of it this way. What do your naturally fit and healthy friends think about all day? Are they worrying about what every next meal will bring? Do they panic or have a meltdown if they miss a gym day? Probably not. Food and exercise may be important to them but they also have so much more going on in their life. That’s the key; create a full, rich, well-rounded life experience for yourself. By focusing on your overall wellbeing and developing new talents and interests you’ll naturally begin to change your perceptions of the world. You’ll increase your self-esteem and confidence in all aspects of your life. You’ll create a new, vibrant, completely whole you with a fit, healthy body at its core.

So, what to do next? Create new goals and explore new interests. Try something you wouldn’t have done when you were overweight. Do things that purposefully increase your self-esteem and confidence. Take risks; maybe go after that promotion you’ve wanted. Focus on your overall wellbeing. Live as if you’ve always been fit and knowing you have the ability to shape your own future. Yes, losing weight is tough but peeling off that heavy, ugly mental fat-suit can be harder—but you can do it!

Image from Flickr user dsb nola Creative Commons Attribution 2.0

Leave a comment

by Paul on October 11 • Permalink

Posted in body image, change, confidence, self-esteem, weight loss

Posted by Paul on October 11

https://motoringforwardcoaching.com/2012/10/11/ditch-your-fat-suit/

Why are Scales so Scary?

I think I’m fit and athletic looking. I’m 5′ 10″, have a 29″ waist and body fat around 7%. Notice that there isn’t a mention of weight there? For the last three years, I’ve been staying to a fairly strict Paleo style of eating. The premise is that you can simply eat whatever you want and not gain weight because of the types of foods that are excluded. I don’t eat any grains, starchy carbs or sweeteners and dairy only sparingly. That leaves me with meats, fish, fruits and veggies along with nuts and seeds. It’s worked well for me. I initially dropped another 5 pounds, I have tons of energy and my weight was incredibly stable the first year. In fact, I stopped weighing myself at all a few years ago. As long as my pants are a bit loose in the waist and my shirts are just a little snug in the shoulders, I’m good.

I initially lost 75 pounds using Weight Watchers and I had faithfully followed the system for years prior to “going Paleo.” For those of you familiar with Weight Watchers, you know that they modify their program every few years and in 2010 they made a huge change by going to the PointsPlus system. I talk with a lot of guys that are currently on WW and they always ask for tips and my opinions. Since I haven’t been “on program” for a few years, I found that my knowledge was falling out of step so today I decided to pop back in for my first Weight Watchers meeting in years.

If you’ve never been to a meeting, the first thing you do is weigh in. I started this post describing my current physical state to highlight the absurdity of what happened next. I still broke into a bit of a cold sweat getting on the scale. When I heard my weight, I still had that internal voice say “What, can’t be?!” (Keep in mind that I’m actually well within what WW considers a maintenance range for me and I’m far below my goal weight.) Now, understanding the power of our own perception, I could quickly “self coach” myself back into the proper mindset that I’m fit and healthy. It brought back to mind, however, the power that one number holds over us.

When you’re overweight, your entire life revolves around the scale. You check your weight weekly. The result can lead to a feeling of accomplishment or, sometimes just as often, frustration, failure, disappointment—you name it. It’s no wonder why, through all that negative conditioning, that stupid hunk of springs, glass and metal causes such a response even after all this time of successful weight maintenance. But really, it’s just a number.

Guys, as you hit your weight loss goals and possibly start putting on some lean mass, keep in mind that the scale becomes less important. Put two men side-by-side, both the same height and weight, but one has some muscle definition where the other guy still looks a bit soft. Does weight matter here? Of course not! You want to be the one with at least a little muscle and the only thing that’s going to show you that is the mirror (or a tape measure if you must have some number.) Ultimately, you need to worry less about the scale and pay more attention to how you feel. Making this huge change will help you move into your new healthy and fit lifestyle, leaving part of the “fat you” behind.

Image courtesy of chainat / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Leave a comment

by Paul on October 5 • Permalink

Posted in body image, self-esteem, weight loss

Posted by Paul on October 5

https://motoringforwardcoaching.com/2012/10/05/why-are-scales-so-scary/

Have You Stalled Out?

You’ve just been through one of the hardest things you’ve ever had to do in your life. You made the decision to finally lose weight. You gave it your all. You counted every calorie, regularly hit the gym and watched your weight and waist size go down. You reached your goal and celebrated the accomplishment. So, why do you still feel like a fat person in a new, fit body?

Losing weight is tough but making that transition from weight loss to maintenance can be just as challenging. Maybe you’re still worrying about every bite you put in your mouth? What if you slip up and it all comes back? Are you feeling guilty about that second beer that you just let your buddy goad you into? Your weight loss has been the focus of your life for so long, now how do you lead a “normal” life filled with new goals and challenges?

Where weight loss results in changes in your body, a successful transition to maintenance requires a complete change of your mindset. You have to leave the old you behind (ditch the fat-suit) and start living the new life you’ve created for yourself. This takes a lot of confidence and self-esteem—two things that may have been depleted by having lived the life of an overweight person.

The best tool available is a strong support system. Friends, family, trainers and coaches can all help. If you don’t have someone you trust that you can talk to as you make this transition, then find someone now. Here, on the Motoring Forward Life Acceleration site, you’ll find ideas and bits of motivation to get you out of the mud and get your life motoring forward. You have control of the wheel. Now just step on the accelerator!

Motoring Forward Coaching

All posts in category weight loss

It’s not for Looks, It’s for Life

It’s Not Cheating, It’s Called Living

Exorcizing Your Demons

Clothes Make the Man: I Hated the Husky Section!

Ditch Your Fat-suit!

Why are Scales so Scary?

Have You Stalled Out?

Recent Posts

Categories