PEERtrainer Diet

Some Early Results and Feedback From The New PEERtrainer Cheat System

We are about two weeks into the "test phase" of the new PEERtrainer Cheat System, and I wanted to share some of the feedback with you.

1. We are seeing a lot of success from people right out of the gate, especially from people who know the basics of portion control, and know the benefits of vegetables. Here is one email that I just got this morning, and it contains some pretty interesting observations:

"The cheat system is working really well for me.

I don't follow it religiously, but the principles of it are really helpful. I generally am a fan of vegetables, but my policy was to try and cut down on portions, including vegetables, in order to get into the habit of eating less in general.

The problem was, after skipping the salad that went along with dinner, I would become hungry a couple of hours later, and find an excuse to eat a slice of bread with cheese or something of that sort. With your system, there are multiple advantages for me:

1. I eat a lot more vegetables so I do get more energy, like you said.

2. I don't eat more than I need in meals in order to not be hungry later, because I know I can always eat later at any time, as long as it's  on the "left column".

3. I don't have to spend so much energy resisting the urge to eat, and I can focus on my work a lot more."

2. Some people who have not read the PDF are resisting use of the word cheat. As we explain in the guide, our intention here is to turn a negative into a positive. So many people on a variety of plans fall off track and very often use the word "cheating" in a negative way. Our two main objectives here is to present something that people  a) wouldn't feel badly about, and b) be able to do. 

We know from hearing from so many of you that you can do this "for life" and as this mornings emailer said, you don't have to follow it religiously.

3. Guys are a huge surprise. We have tended to be a little "touchy feely" with a lot of things we have done at PEERtrainer. Emotions are a big deal, and we have paid close attention to them. But with the Cheat System, we are hearing from guys who are saying, "I read it, understood the basic principles, and I just do a lot of it." Guys like easy and uncomplicated.

4. The athletes love this and are getting more energy from the plan. We are getting strong feedback from people who exercise a lot that they are finding the system easy to follow, and are getting more energy. We will work to post some detailed feedback and insights from them. In general, many people are feeling more energized.

5. People who have already been healthy eaters but have not embraced the concept of portion control, are finding it harder to follow than others. We are paying very close attention to this group, and will be posting more detailed feedback from them. 

6. People are sharing this system with others. What is interesting about this is the first thing we have done that is not about emotions or support or any of that. Which makes it easier to tell others about. Because of the focus on health and energy, it makes it much easier to share.

If you do share, please use this link:

http://blog.peertrainer.com/tip_of_the_day/2011/02/the-peertrainer-cheat-system.html

We are rolling out new versions of the PDF as we make changes. (Which we did this morning) and will be sending that new link out to the people who signed up for the download.

If you have some feedback you would like to share, please hit reply to this email and tell me or please post it on our Facebook Wall.

7. Finally, we know people have a LOT of questions about why we have done certain things with this system. We are going to be awaiting feedback, but we will start "spilling the beans." Stay tuned!!

 

Review and Feedback Of Weight Watchers Meetings From The PEERtrainer Community

We surveyed the PEERtrainer community to ask them about their experience with Weight Watchers, and their meetings in particular. We have published many of the more detailed responses on this page. Plus we are creating a Q and A so that the most popular questions will be answered at the top of the page.

A lot of detailed feedback, lots of positive responses in particular. Where there was negative feedback, it usually had to do with people not connecting to the leader or the other members of the group. From PEERtrainer's perspective, the type of support that Weight Watchers can provide in person is critically valuable. People need as much support as they can, and need it in as many forms as they can.

Weight Watchers has committed itself to becoming a company that is dedicated to helping people make permanent and healthy changes in their life. This was not always the case with that company, and we applaud the changes that the management has chosen to make over the last few years.

http://www.peertrainer.com/articles/weight_watchers_meetings.htm

Here are some of sample comments:

"I've been attending this past year and would HIGHLY recommend it. I would not recommend any of their "food" products because they are processed junk, but their concept of filling foods, 35 extra points for the week and earning points from exercise has completely changed my way of eating. "

"Love the support and the people. Also love the fact you can bring you questions there and get information. There is a lot of variability among leaders and the communities that form around various meetings. When it's possible to find a leader that speaks to your needs (I found two) and meeting members you find fun to relate to, that is invaluable."

"I went to Weight Watchers for 2 years, lost weight but did not make my goal weight, quit, and gained it all back and then some. Weight Watchers is a very good program and I hear that they have improved it. I just got really tired of paying weekly dues and not really losing weight very quickly. I spent over $1000 over two years time. I have done much better with PEERtrainer but am stuck at a plateau just like I did with Weight Watchers.

PEERtrainer gave me better tools and accountablity and dealt with the emotional aspect better. It was more personal. I belonged to a big WW group and it was really hard to get personal help. I can always count on a group or team to advise or encourage me right away. The PEERtrainer Point Of No Return program was a huge help to me and with it I lost 29 lbs. I have gained 2 lbs. so I have a total of 13 lbs. to go to reach my goal."

How To Stop Eating Ice Cream: A Three Step Process

I saw the following thread in the PEERtrainer community:

how do I stop eating ice cream? The person wrote that:

"I can order a salad for lunch but then all I want is icecream. Same thing happens after dinner. Ill have a piece of chicken and veggies and then the ice cream craving comes. Help! Should I eat it anyway because I'm eating so well all the other time?"

There are three steps one can take to reduce these cravings:

1. You are not eating enough vegetables for your meal. If you eat enough vegetables, especially greens you will feel less hungry. Your body is craving more nutrients and is telling you to eat more. Dr. Joel Fuhrman explains that as you feed your body more cooked, pureed or juiced greens, your body will feel full finally and these cravings will shut off.

2. Eat a big, high nutrient breakfast. Often we see that when people experience what they think is "emotional eating" later in the day, they did not eat a good breakfast. Or they did eat a breakfast that was full of "approved diet foods" like lowfat yogurt or high fiber cereal or low carb crackers. None of these foods give you the nutrient boost that you'd get by having a bowl of energy soup with a side of avocado or some healthy fat.

3. Sometimes it actually IS in your head! After you address the nutrition component, definitely explore the psychological component. Joshua Wayne goes deep into this issue in week 4 of the PEERtrainer Point of No Return Program. In this session he advises you to ask yourself if the RESULT of eating ice cream after dinner has become intolerable to you.

If you are worried about eating too much ice cream, odds are that you are gaining weight as a result of this behavior. You need to think about the mental or emotional comfort you get from eating ice cream and weigh that against the result. If the result (added weight) is truly intolerable to you, then you may have a powerful motivator. You can read more about weight loss motivation here.

Joshua has written extensively on the issue of the emotional satisfaction of food. That hyperlink will take you to a fairly long article where he addresses the following observation:

"I think most people enjoy food to at least some extent some of the time, but my experience is that some people develop a level of attachment - something that borders on emotional reliance - to food that goes way beyond normal appreciation for the food that is in front of you.

Often this comes from rich tasting foods.  Whether it's creamy sauces, heavy starches like pasta and bread, lots of sweets, salty snack foods or fast food that may combine all of these, they don't feel emotionally satisfied unless they have them.  If they have to eat food other than this richer stuff they've grown attached to, they feel bored and dissatisfied.    

It is almost like food is a primary source of happiness.  I don't mean that food provides a deep seated, grounded lasting sense of happiness because I don't think food can do that - ever.  Its way too temporary by nature.  Food cannot bring us anything more than temporary, sensory pleasure - a sense of pleasure that is inevitably short-lived and will frankly never be anything more than that.  It will never give us a true deeper happiness or sense of satisfaction in life, but that doesn't stop so many of us from trying over and over again to make it do so - of course with futility.  Its like trying to put a round peg through a square hole.  No matter how much we try, it will never fit.

I'm not saying you shouldn't enjoy your food.  But what I am suggesting is that if you are really struggling to get your weight where you want it, you probably need to look at the way you use food as an ongoing way to provide stimulation, excitement and even happiness in your life.  How is your desire to avoid boredom and seek satisfaction in familiar foods (that don't help your weight loss) standing in your way?"

continue reading: http://www.peertrainer.com/enjoyment_of_food_preventing_weight_loss.aspx

 

 

 

 

Just Diagnosed With Type 2 Diabetes or Metabolic Syndrome? Three Immediate Steps To Take

Roughly 8% of the US population has Diabetes and between 90-95% of these have "Type 2." This simply means the cells in your body go haywire with in the presence of insulin.

The first thing to really know is that this is an extremely serious situation and that you are essentially dying in slow motion. Progression of this disease will eventually shut down most of your important organs and you will die a fairly painful and slow death and experience very poor quality of the remainder of your life. This is simply the reality of the situation. But you can take immediate, massive action to change course in a hurry.

There is good news in all of this for many people. Disease in general is complex, but with something like Type 2 Diabetes you can make changes quickly that will result in improvement to your "clinical picture." Often, simply losing between 5 and 10 pounds will start to improve things.

At PEERtrainer, we see that people can make much bigger changes in their life than they ever thought possible. So expand your mind as much as you can and know that you can make dramatic changes in your health no matter what you currently think. It is rarely too late. But start this process one small step at a time to make it easy for yourself.

Getting in the best mindset you possibly can and developing the belief that change is possible is critical to change. It may be that you are surrounded by negativity with your friends and family. In fact, the odds of  the people around you on a daily basis who negatively effect your decision making process are really high. Start thinking about that. Your doctor might even have some "limiting beliefs" about treatment and even reversal of this disease. You should have people around you who really encourage you and give you hope.

The following is a three step process for you to really get this situation under control. This is what we do at PEERtrainer- we help people make massive change, one step at a time, and we base this all in the reality of how people really live.

Step 1: Glycemic Control and Portion Control

The first step is obviously get the blood sugar under control. This is what your doctor just told you and we'd be very curious to hear the specific things you were told. Leave them in the comments in the bottom of this blog post, we really want to hear them. The ultimate treatment (and potential cure) of Type 2 Diabetes is a diet very high in plant based foods, especially greens. 

However, first things first. You need to get your portions under control and do so in a way that brings your glucose levels inline. You might want to consider a meal delivery service like NutriSystem for the first few months. NutriSystem programs for diabetics like NutriSystem D are clinically proven to help get things under control for you.

The reason this might be a good idea is that for most people dieting is hard. NutriSystem makes it easy, and basically costs nothing for most people. You already spend money for food, more than you probably think. You simply shift the cost to this program. They also do a fairly good job of giving you support and also showing you how to start adding more plant-based foods into your diet.

It may be that you can adopt a healthy diet on your own instantly, but be open to making it easy on yourself and finding ways of boosting your odds of success.

Step 2: Get Massive Motivation and Support

You can make incredible changes in your lifestyle. But as we said earlier, the odds of your immediate friends and family being a negative influence in your life is pretty high. So you are going to need to look outside your immediate circle for daily influence and ideas. To plug PEERtrainer for a second, we have some incredible resources to support and motivate you. The single most effective free tool we have right now is the PEERtrainer Tip Of The Day Program. This will give you massive motivation and support via daily emails. Click on that link to learn a little more, but it is a really cool program.

There are a ton of other resources out there to help you, and just be open to new ideas as much as you can. One of the things we really focus on is helping build your level of belief that massive positive change is possible.  

Step 3: Begin The Path To Nutritional Excellence

We firmly believe that people need to make the first steps towards weight loss as easy and doable as possible. That is why we view things like the NutriSystem Diet to be a very realistic first step. But down the road you are going to need to read Eat To Live Or Eat For Health and learn about the work of Dr. Joel Fuhrman. We go out of our way to credit Dr. Fuhrman with pioneering the field of "nutritional excellence." He is influencing the entire diet industry and has been instrumental in the development of Weight Watchers new Momentum Program and was a core influence of Dr. Ian Smith's Fat Smash Diet.

This three step process that we outlined will help you with both the short term and long term aspects of getting your Type 2 Diabetes in control. If you do start to adopt the high nutrient diet over time that Dr. Fuhrman recommends- only 10% animal protein, high amounts of greens and salads each day- make sure to see your doctor and make sure any medications you are taking are at the right levels. 

No matter what you do, make sure to check out the PEERtrainer Tip Of The Day page. You also might want to join PEERtrainer and start logging your food and exercise each day to make sure your portions are really under control and you get support. And if you feel like you need some help getting started, don't be afraid to get some help with a company like NutriSystem:

Reversing Type 2 Diabetes