PEERtrainer

What Successful Weight Loss REALLY Looks Like

Hint: It's not the weekly 7 - 20 pound loss you see on reality television!

We tend to see the same thing over and over at PEERtrainer: people can actually be on a successful weight loss track, but because they don't KNOW what a successful track looks like, they think they are failing.

Once they believe they have screwed up, then they say "screw it" and really screw up. If only they knew how well they were doing! While success does depend on your specific goals, starting point, body type and regimen, there are a few things that are consistent across the board. Once you measure your weekly weigh in against this checklist, you'll know if you're on the right track.

1. Weight loss does NOT come in the form of losing 2 pounds every week until you reach your goal, no matter how well you've stuck to your food and exercise plan.

When you were gaining, you didn't gain 2 pounds every single week in a measured fashion. You're not going to lose it in a measured fashion no matter how well you stick to your plan.  You might lose 2 pounds one week.  You might even lose three pounds in a week.  Then, you might lose 1 pound the next week.

Some weeks you might lose zero and there are weeks you even gain.  These weeks are the most frustrating and we all have these kinds of weeks where we feel like we're doing everything right and the scale doesn't give us what we want.

Keep track of the weekly weigh-ins but take a look at the month and see the overall trend. You might have gained a 1/2 pound one of the weeks but take note if you lost 4 pounds overall for the month. If the month is trending downwards, you are in the right place.  

2. Nobody is perfect 100% of the time.

Sure, there are a few people that are perfect.  I haven't seen them but I'm sure they're out there.  There are also a few people who can eat 3000 calories a day and have a perfect figure and that's just the way it goes. Just because you went out drinking and ate all the bread, stuffed your face with pasta, and had 2 desserts, and then woke up and had a cheese omelet the next day does not mean you have failed.

Everyone does this.

We all make a committment and we all slip up.  Just like Vince Lombardi says, it's not if you fall, it's if you get back up. You fell. So what? Learn what will work for you to get back on track. You can fall and still be on a successful weight loss track by simply making the decision to get back there.

3. You've been doing everything right and you're not losing anything. (aka The Dreaded Plateau)

We rarely see members who don't hit a plateau in the weight loss process. Some can last for a few weeks. I was on one for an entire year!

It's so easy to say to yourself, "I'm doing everything right so this is where my weight should be."  That might be true, but it might not be true. It wasn't for me. Once I changed my approach and made the decision to be thinner, no matter how long that would take, I dropped the weight. I increased the nutrients. I changed my exercise approach. I kept the principles of optimism by Martin Seligman in mind. Plateaus do not mean you are done. They are usually a sign that you need to make a change. Do you have the courage to figure it out and keep on going?

Keep in mind that a real weight loss track of ordinary fluctuations are boring to watch. The double digit weekly losses you see have to be created somehow, which is why it's television. Sometimes the loss is real and lasting. Many times, the weight loss results are usually over once the 6 week "sprint" has come to an end.

Real life is more like a marathon, some miles are effortless, some are excruciating and the only way you really fail is if you quit.

Jackie

How To Stop The Pain While Running?

I am constantly hearing about how painful running is.  It's been one of the most popular threads in our community for months.  Even in US magazine this month, Kate Gosselin was quoted as saying, "I run every day.  It's painful".  

I find most people think that pain is synonmous with running and believe if you're going to run, you're going to have to be disciplined and deal with the pain.

This is simply not true. 

You can be in pain if you feel that makes you feel better about yourself and makes you a true runner.  But you don't have to be.  You can run a mile, 3 miles even a 10k, even a marathon without pain.

I watch people do this all the time on PEERtrainer.  What is the secret?  They follow a different philosophy shared by Stu Mittleman and other athletes, even 6 time Ironman Champion Mark Allen.

Stu ran 1000 miles in 10 days.  That's every day, for 10 days straight.  He ran 100 miles a day.  Just to give you a sense of what the Hawaii Ironman is:  from the wikipedia entry:

"The Hawai Ironman consisting of a 2.4-mile (3.86 km) swim, a 112-mile (180.25 km) bike and a marathon (26 miles 385 yards, 42.195 km) run, raced in that order and without a break. Most Ironman events have a strict time limit of 17 hours to complete the race, where the Ironman race starts at 7 AM, the mandatory swim cut off for the 2.4 mile swim is 2 hours 20 minutes, the bike cut off time is 5:30 PM, and all finishers must complete their marathon by midnight."

 

Mark Allen won this event 6 times.  He did it by following the principles of Dr. Phil Maffetone.  Stu incorporated these same principles and explains them so succinctly in "Slow Burn: Burn Fat Faster By Exercising Slower".  This book by Phil Maffetone is in my library as well.  You don't have to grind it out.  You don't have to be in pain.  Unless of course you insist on it.   But then, it becomes your choice. 

You can get both books used for a total of $10.  Small price to pay to get rid of the pain.

• Slow Burn: Burn Fat Faster By Exercising Slower

• The Maffetone Method

Let me know if you get them.

Jackie

 

 

 

Is Coconut Bad For You Because It Contains Saturated Fat?

On the new PEERtrainer Facebook page recently somebody posted something to the effect of "Your vegetable soup recipe is great, but I took out the coconut milk because my friend the cardiologist says that the saturated fat in coconut is bad for you."

We had been thinking about this question for a few days. Then today a box arrived in the mail with 6 books from Dr. Jonny Bowden. He is someone that we have gotten to know recently, and have begun to dig into his work. What we have found so far is someone who has taken all the "health stuff" and made it very understandable.

Anyway, we were flipping through one of the books, titled "The 150 Healthiest Foods On Earth." And one page 107 there was a section on Coconut, that answered this exact question! Bowden writes:

"I really looked forward to writing this section, because I felt that it would give me a chance to right one of the greatest nutritional misconceptions of all time: the idea that coconut, because it contains saturated fat, is bad for you."

Summary of Dr. Jonny Bowden's insights on coconut:

• Coconut and coconut oil are superfoods. Coconut is one of the most healthy, amazing things you can ingest.
• People in Asia and the Pacific Islands whose diets are high in coconut oil have low levels of chronic disease- cancer, heart disease etc. 
• The fat in coconut is actually good for you. The book explains the science in detail, but the basic idea is that the fatty acids in coconut are easier to metabolize, and are different from the fatty acids in other forms of saturated fat. 

These fatty acids are called Medium Chain Triglycerides or MCT's. From Wikipedia:

"Some studies have shown that MCTs can help in the process of excess calorie burning, and thus weight loss. However, close to half of the calories in one's diet would have to be from the MCTs themselves. Therefore, consuming medium-chain triglycerides in a regular diet may or may not be beneficial to weight loss; studies are still being conducted" 

Anyway, the bottom line here is that we now have a greater level of understanding now of WHY our soup recipe has been such a hit. Most of the calories in the soup come from the coconut milk, which might explain why so many people have found that it helped them lose weight.

And we have also found a great book, one that that we will be referring to again and again.  Also- if you are interested in our recipes, please keep reading this post for information on how to be sent new recipes from PEERtrainer that meet our criteria of being easy, tasty, cheap, nutrient dense, fill you up, give you energy....

Here Is One:

Spicy Thai Curry Recipe

 

Calories in Coconut Milk

Do You Feel As If You Are Truly Capable Of Losing Weight?

This is something we emailed out Sunday, May 2nd: We are working on a "mission statement" at PEERtrainer, and in the process trying to hone in on "the thing we do best." It is a tough question to answer because we do a lot of things in response to the needs of different people.

From Habib's perspective the thing we do best is simply foster communication and conversation. Ideally we ask questions in a way that really gets you thinking.

Joshua Wayne is focused on the coaching aspect of PEERtrainer, and his response was very interesting. We had asked him "what is the single thing we do best with the coaching program and what have been the results?"

As an exercise this Sunday, read his response, and then think for a few moments about the question asked in the subject of this email:

"One of the key things we have set out to accomplish, from my perspective, is helping people feel like they are in control of their relationship to food so they can get where they want to go.

Feeling out of control is one of the worst feelings in life. Desperately wanting something, like to lose weight, and not feeling capable of getting there is a terrible feeling. Feeling like you'll always be overwhelmed by your lousy habits and that you'll never really be in control of them. Feeling like no matter how hard you try, and no matter how many times you try, that your negative emotions will ultimately derail you. These feelings build and build and build which leads to hopelessness.

So one of our main goals was to help people get back in control. One of the key ways we do that is to teach them to start being easy on themselves - not beating themselves up endlessly. People add insult to injury when they beat themselves up after they "screw up" on their diet. We see that many people have this "perfectionist"streak and we start to break that up by teaching them to be patient with themselves.

Simultaneously we're giving them REALLY good diet info. Not fad type stuff - in fact exactly the opposite. We help them lay the foundation for healthy, sustainable lifestyle change.

We also really embed this whole program smack dab in the middle of their lives too. This is crucial. We're not forcing them to create an alternate reality in their life where they can get healthy. They have to be able to do it in the middle of the crazy day with job, boss, kids, husband/wife because that's their reality and that's where they live.

If they have to attend to all that stuff, AND THEN have to go and carve out time for 3 elaborate meals per day (plus all the shopping and prep) so they can eat pistacio- crusted tilapia with carmelized onion asparagus consomme for dinner it's just not going to happen. Same with the exercise piece. It has to be centrally located in their life.

Not an alternate reality where they have to now squeeze 5 trips to the gym into their life.

Building on that, they have to be able to deal with: work dinners out, frenemies sabotaging them, the "crappy" food inertia of their family when they go home to visit. All that comes up and you have to have a "tool-kit" to deal with it. We give them that tool-kit.

Lastly, we provide consistent support. We're there for 12 weeks, at least a couple times a week. Sometimes with an email saying hi and a friendly reminder to look at the bright side, sometimes with a video or an article and of course the weekly calls.

Everyone needs consistency to make things happen, whether it's building a business, making a relationship work well or losing weight. We provide that consistent support which helps people internalize this optimism and get back to that place of self-control.

Fostering self-control is the key."

I thought that this was a very helpful observation for us, and a great question to ask everyone. This "Tip Of The Day" list that you are reading right now is designed to communicate with you and get you thinking.

And if you are one of those people looking to get in control, I would highly encourage you to try the first month of the Point Of No Return, and let Joshua work some of his magic. We often find ourselves "soft-selling" his work, but as we go through all the feedback from people who finish the program we see that he is very good at accomplishing his objective.

This isn't the kind of situation where we are promising this crazy quick weight loss. This is the complete opposite of all that. Joshua helps you take a step back, and helps you examine all of your assumptions.

At the core it is really about your relationship to yourself. So often at PEERtrainer we soft pedal what we do. But this is something we are doing well, and for many people it is the most important thing in their life that they can be working on.

When we help people to make better decisions for the rest of their life, the ripple effect that has is powerful. Frankly, if you are struggling with food and then do the work to gain control, there is almost nothing in life you cannot successfully tackle. The belief that you develop in yourself will be the new fuel that you can use in all parts of your life.

-Jackie 

P.S. One more thing I want to add here. Joshua wrote a book about emotional eating based entirely on what he saw in the PEERtrainer community, and we turned it into a downloadable digital guide. We sell it for $27, but we thought it made sense to offer it free to people who have opened this email and read the whole message for the next two days or so. If you are still reading this particular email, we have said something that has resonated with you.

Even if you decide to opt out of the program during the $1 month one trial period, Joshua's guide to emotional eating is yours to keep. The book is 175 pages, so there is a LOT in there to digest. Lots of ideas.

When you sign up via this link for the program, you will be sent the book in three days. There is a lot we throw at you, and we want to make sure you get acclimated.

http://www.peertrainer.com/coaching

An All Natural Diet Pill For Those Looking For A Quick Fix or A Diet Jumpstart

I get asked all the time about diet pills, and when I tell people that what we do is "the opposite of a diet pill" they are usually disappointed. However, there is hope for those looking for a quick fix.  Click to play:

http://blog.peertrainer.com/tip_of_the_day/2009/12/pureed-peertrainer-energy-soup-recipe.html

How To Boost Your Energy To Combat Fatigue, Exhaustion and Just Want To Move!!

As part of our new PEERtrainer Pursuit Of Excellence Program we are creating content to guide people to specific steps they can take to boost their energy. Many people have lost weight and now want to start running. Others want the energy to tone up. Others simply want energy to them them through the day.

This article covers two of the first ideas in the program and we build from there:

How To Train Your Body To Burn Fat And Improve Your Energy

Slow Burn: Burn Fat By Exercising Slower

We have recently had a couple conversations with Stu Mittleman, a fascinating person who I first met a decade ago at a Tony Robbins seminar. Stu is a well-known Ultramarathoner. He once held the US record for the 100 mile run. And he ran 500 miles in six days.

But most importantly, he has developed an approach to training for running that anyone can adopt. And it will most likely help you enjoy exercise more and burn more fat in the process. I am now telling everyone in the Tip Of The Day program to get a copy of this book. Stu is one of those people whose work we feel is extremely important, and this book ought to be in your library!

For those of you who run, maybe train for races this book will be of great benefit. We will be hearing a lot more from Stu, but please click on this link and add this book to your Amazon cart right now: