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 Be More Powerfully In Control Of Your Choices By Living Without Apology

We were recently sent the following question:

"I feel like I'm always apologizing for everything. I apologize when I order a salad instead of a cheeseburger by always saying, well I have a big event coming up, so I really need to watch what I’m eating".

I see other people do this as well. They "apologize" for their order with this: "I'm ordering a salad with grilled chicken because you should see what I ate last night! Margaritas, chips and salsa - I must have eaten three bowls of chips alone!" Why say anything?

It's everyone's dream to live without apology but no matter how many quotes we see, we take a step in that direction and we get hit so hard with a snarky comment that we go back to making excuses and "living with apology". How do you start to have the confidence - what is the first step to living life without apology?"

Joshua Wayne has created a detailed response to this question. Here is his answer:

http://www.peertrainer.com/how_to_live_without_apology.aspx

Should I Read Eat To Live or Eat For Health? And How The Nutrition Prescription Fits Into The Mix

This video goes over Dr. Fuhrman's three main works, and summarizes each.

1. Eat To Live- This book is ten years old, has changed people lives and gone through 17 printings. Little too advanced for beginners, and it is really a good book to read after Eat For Health. We suggest buying both. (Available at drfuhrman.com) This book is also now available in most Whole Foods.

2. Eat For Health- Newer book that has better success at the amount of people who succeed. It is easier to start and has a greater focus on the emotional aspects of weight loss (Available at drfuhrman.com)

3. The Nutrition Prescription- years in the making, enables people to take a computerized assessment and determines what your risk of getting certain diseases based on what you are eating. Identifies your individual risk factors. (available through Eat Right America)

Easy Way To Eat Healthy: How To Prepare A Filling Healthy Meal In 2 Minutes

This is a VERY short video where I show you the containers that I keep in my fridge, and what I keep in the containers. For me it is an ideal way to make sure I have EASY access to food during my very busy week. I have started to soak and cook my own beans. It is cheaper and a lot tastier. Just soak them over night and then cook them in the morning while you are getting ready for work, kids to school or whatever. 

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

"Why Am I Not Losing Weight??"

Hi There-

 

We have been sharing some older articles from Joshua Wayne recently where he shares some of his "mind secrets." Please keep the feedback coming- we know we are really connecting with this.

 

Today we pleased to tell you about a new article that we have from him that we just published on the site. We hope you enjoy it:

 

http://www.peertrainer.com/why_you_are_not_losing_weight.aspx

 

 

We also just uploaded a new video from the series I did with Dr. Joel Fuhrman. In this video he starts to answer the question: "is is better to eat raw or cooked vegetables?"

 

This is an increasingly common question, and as usual Dr. Fuhrman has a unique insight into this subject because of the deep amount of research and study he has done in the field of nutrition.

 

Just below the video is part of an article he wrote where he goes into much greater depth about the raw vs cooked debate. Very interesting:

 

http://blog.peertrainer.com/health/2010/03/is-it-better-to-eat-raw-vegetables-or-cooked-vegetables-dr-joel-fuhrman-gives-his-perspective.html

 

 

-Jackie

 

 PS- we continue to get a lot of feedback and insight from the articles we have been focusing on. This blog post contains an email we got from a reader with a very good tip on how to indentify and fight the foods that sabotage your efforts:

 

http://blog.peertrainer.com/tip_of_the_day/2010/03/interesting-strategy-to-combat-weight-loss-sabotaging-foods.html

 

 

 

How To Keep The Weight Off?

We recently wrote an article as a team on how to keep the weight off that you have lost and some strategies to help regaining it. Here is the link to the full article as well as a summary below:

How To Keep The Weight Off

1. Jackie's one suggestion that she always sees help people is just commit to one good day. No matter what the situation if you really just hunker down and look at what is in front of you for the next several hours and the rest of the day, great things can happen.

2. Joshua suggested you really think about your decision to lose weight. Have you truly decided? Here is his take from a psychological perspective:

"It's helpful to understand that the suffix of DECIDE is C-I-D-E...same as homicide, suicide, genocide.  'Cide' means to kill off.  So when you DECIDE, you are killing off other options you are killing off:

- The possibility of remaining overweight

- Old notions of who you were as an overweight

- The old habits that held you back from living at the weight you want.

- Your self-sabotage and belief that you don't deserve it or can't have it."

3. Habib focused a lot on the composition of the diet. From his perspective, long term diet, fitness and health are all the same thing. You need to eat a diet very high in fruits and vegetables and this helps you lose weight and help your body keep in shape for greater activity. He was been writing about how to prevent and treat muscle soreness from his own personal experience training for a marathon. If you eat enough vegetables and fruit and run, that alone helps to overcome the big meals and the binges. Your body becomes used to different habits and it will be much easier to get back on track after you have really committed to exercise and high fruit and vegetable intake.