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

 

 

 

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

Is Your Addiction To Normality Killing You?

Hi There-

This is something Habib has wanted to write for a while.....

One of the most important things to understand from the current health care debate (that political and industry insiders are engaged in among themselves) is that no matter what the eventual outcome, people are going to need to have to take responsibility for their health.

We have come to a point where it is no longer a good idea to improve your eating. It is an absolute requirement.

It does not matter whether it is the government, employers or individuals who end up carrying the load. We have built a food delivery system and consumption habits that lead to the highest rates of heart disease, cancer and diabetes in the world.

Diabetes alone is larger than the entire US tech industry. You stack Intel, Microsoft, Cisco and Apple up.

Diabetes is bigger.

What most of us think of as “normal” is killing us.

Not only is it killing us, but it seems that we now think of pain and struggle as somehow “normal”. We get the most incredible emails from people, describing to us the sheer agony of the reality of their lives. People are in pain, they feel hopeless and they have for years. And they are in this pain because they have done what everyone else has done.

This pain hurts, it sucks and is totally preventable.

But the change required to prevent these inevitable outcomes (for most) is hard. If most people are doing things one way, it stands to reason that that it takes a deal of effort to do things differently. We continually see that the people with the greatest willingness to go in a different direction have no idea where to turn.

If you have been around PEERtrainer for a while you know we present people that we get to know. People like Stu Mittleman and Joel Fuhrman are now friends of ours, in the same way that the guys I did keg stands in college with are. They are part of the posse.

And we share their ideas because they help guide people to the behaviors and mindsets that will help avoid the diseases that commonly trap the average American engaged in the relentless pursuit of normality.

So what I am going to do here is bullet out some of the key ideas that Dr. Joel Fuhrman puts forth to help people. I have a copy of Eat For Health open on my desk as I write this, and I am going to list out 25 of the key concepts. In no particular order. My thinking is that it takes a long time to process change. As Jackie says over and over, “repetition is the mother of skill.”

1. Greens are king. Green vegetables get the majority of their calories from protein. You need to eat them every day.
2. When you consume greens in the form of soup you retain the nutrients and you can make them taste any way you want. No excuses here- tasty, easy, cheap etc. (Blend with a Cuisinart Smart Stick to make it super easy)
3. Fresh fruits fight cancer. We have a natural sweet tooth designed to direct us to those foods most critical for our survival.
4. Pasta and bread, while cheap and filling are associated with heart disease, diabetes and obesity.
5. Veggies are great but you have to cook, pulverize or blend to get at the health promoting goodies that is locked inside the cell walls. Blended vegetable soup is better than salad for this reason. You can’t chew every plant cell.
6. Not all foods are created equally. Dr. Fuhrman has built an entire food classification system called MANDI that you can learn more about.
7. True hunger is much different than the hunger we commonly experience. We are hungry because we eat the wrong foods. This is not something that can be solved in any pill. It is solved in your grocery store and your kitchen.
8. When you are no longer hungry all the time you are healthy.
9. Cheese and butter are evil. Tasty, but evil.
10. The more high nutrient food (greens esp) you eat on a daily basis, the higher your quality of life.
11. Binge eating is largely a byproduct of toxic hunger. We are literally “addicted to food.”
12. Eat a bowl of vegetable-bean soup daily
13. Eat a pound of fruit and a pound of vegetables a day. (Stu would dissent on the fruit part- he is of the school that fruit is too high in sugar and raises acid levels in the body)
14. You can change your tastes. Americans in particular have a “brute force palate.” You will appreciate the subtlety of food over time.
15. Healthy food does not taste bad.
16. Heart disease is not the inevitable consepuence of aging.
17. Food addiction is a real thing, and a new mode of eating will solve this problem
18. Frequent small meals do NOT aid weight control long term.
19. It is not your genes. The numbers disprove this common assertion.
20. It takes a lot more than milk and yogurt to build healthy bones. The truth is much more complex.
21. You have to get inside your head to make these changes. A list like this is not enough.
22. 85 Percent of Americans will die from heart disease, cancer or diabetes.
23. 90 Percent will get high blood pressure
24. Cardiovascular disease is responsible for 40 percent of US deaths annually
25. You can prevent most diseases through a high nutrient diet.

Sounds easy enough? The problem that we see is that people have a hard time putting these ideas into practice. They also often lack the ability to map the consequences of their current diet to future risk.

Most of us think we eat better than we do. Much better. So if you have found the motivation to jump right into to a new diet and buck the trend of the relentless disbelief that “normal is killing us” then congrats.

Others of us need a much more specific plan and guidelines in the place of simple suggestions. Recently Joel and his team launched a new program called “The Nutrition Prescription” which is an online version of an office visit with him. After you take this survey, you are presented with the specific odds of getting diseases like heart disease, diabetes and cancer.

We have seen that this test “scares people straight” and also has the interesting effect of providing ammunition for the people who are often hellbent on disrupting your desire to change. We see that when people say, “hey I have to order the soup and salad- doctors orders”- this shuts people up. If you are at a party or out to dinner or dealing with your parents or friends and you say “right now the odds of me getting heart disease is 65%”- they have to basically keep quiet.

Of course they are dying to make a snide comment. But because a doctor has spoken, the conversation is over. Many of you have bought copies of Eat For Health and Eat To Live. We highly recommend Joel’s work, and have for years. The response has been powerful and consistent. If you are interested in his new program or you have not yet picked up one of his books, you can check out the following link:

Get A Virtual Office Visit With Dr. Fuhrman, Trial Offer

We could not endorse his work more strongly. This is true health care reform from my perspective.

Habib Wicks, PEERtrainer Co-Founder

Conversation With Matt Hoover, Winner of Biggest Loser Season Two

We had a chance to interview Matt Hoover who many of you know as the winner of season two of "The Biggest Loser." It ended up being a pretty interesting interview, especially from the perspective of keeping weight off, what happens after the weight loss. He talks about his upcoming Iron Man competition in Hawaii and his training for the 2012 Olympics. He was a member of 4 national championship wrestling teams in college, so the guy is a pretty amazing athlete.

We spoke for about an hour, so if you want to listen to the entire interview map out some time ahead of time. This is the link to the interview. It is pretty cool.

Matt mentioned in the call that he uses hypnosis as one of the tools to help keep the weight off. He uses the CDs from Roberta Temes, who we have known for a few years and who has written some articles for PEERtrainer in the past. We asked him to follow up on this subject, something we are increasingly interested in, because it works really well. But it is something that most of us have not tried. Here is his take on it:

"To be honest I wasn't quite sure what to expect.  I had used hypnosis when I was competing in wrestling.  It helped me tremendously in sports but wasn't sure what would happen with weight loss. When I got Dr. Roberta CD's I did a session immediately.  

I didn't really feel different, but  I quickly noticed that many of the cravings I had, especially for Taco Bell were gone.  I didn't even think about it anymore. The biggest thing I notice was how rather than crave diet pop, I began to want water.  The sessions helped me to realize that I didn't have to be on a diet, I could program myself to crave healthy foods in moderation. In the past I would eat until I was full, even if it was healthy food.  

Now I eat until I am satisfied and I don't have to "force" myself to remamber to eat.  I just do it. I used the CD's nearly everyday when I first got them, now I use them a couple of times a month to remind myself of the tools I now have. Recently I used them before I left for vacation to help keep myself in the right state of mind to be consistent during a time when many people fall off track.  I use them anytime I am traveling, usually on the plane.  I have found that to be a great time to relax and get myself ready for my upcoming stay, wherever that may be. 

I am really lucky because my wife really supports my use of the program.  She will say when she thinks I need a session.  She has seen tremendous progress since I started the program and knows that it helps me to stay on track. I have lost 30 pounds so far and have reset my goal to get even leaner using Dr. Roberta's CD's. I love the CD's and have recommended them to everyone I know who is dealing with weight issues.  I know that with the success I have had that others will achieve their goals as well with the use of the tools I have learned from Dr. Roberta. These discs truly have helped me to develop a healthy mind set when it comes to my relationship with food and I fully expect to have continued success on my new weight loss journey with the knowledge I have gained from Dr. Roberta Temes."

We were first introduced to Roberta I think in 2006, and we need to circle back with her. We have recommended this product in the Tip Of The Day program, and it is nice to see a "celebrity" endorse something like this. Sort of a nice validation of something we had seen work. You can get the CD set through the Hypnosis Network. 

Btw, I personally use hypnosis for other areas of my life. Different products from different companies, but the bottom line is that these things really work. Be open to it!

"Strength For My Mind And Spirit"

We just got a very profound email from one of the members of the PEERtrainer community, and I thought it would be helpful to share some of the comments. It is an excellent articulation of the value of our Point Of No Return concept, and helps to show that we are able to deliver on the central premise with both our Tip of The Day And Point Of No Return Program:

"The things I am learning from the 'tip of the day' and also the 'point of no return intensive' is what makes me think that this will be the time that matters....the time I can reach my goals. I realize that there will be no more "times" after this because over the past 2.5 months my whole life has started to change."

This is really the whole point. Most of us have been through things like Weight Watchers, NutriSystem, South Beach. We own copies of Dr. Oz's books. We have Oprah Magazine sitting in our bathrooms and living rooms. Yet we don't make the progress we desire and we don't become the person we want to become.

We built the PEERtrainer coaching program with this problem in mind, and engaged with a talented therapist who is familiar with both the mind- and the spirit. And the email contained a great recognition of that, that we help move people to a different way of thinking about themselves which can trigger immense personal change:

"I knew how to get an awesome workout....I knew how to eat to lose weight....what I needed all these years is the strength for my mind and my spirit....all the tips and exercises and thoughts that I am totally addicted to now! Health and weight loss is not just a physical journey and I am so happy that I finally realize this."

This was one of the best emails we have ever received at PEERtrainer, and are very grateful for it.

NutriSystem For Men: Review Of The Diet, What Foods You Eat, Who This Works For and Cost

NutriSystem can be a very effective weight loss tool for busy and active men. Many men simply are not into group support environments, and many do not have the time to do the work necessary to craft their own diet programs, even with great assistance. The core service they provide is convenience, and the core benefit is that this approach works for many people.

If you are 25 pounds or more overweight and have not yet made real progress, you need to do something. The most important thing is that you learn that you can lose weight, and that you get accustomed to this process. On PEERtrainer we have seen that many men have used NutriSystem to lose weight, especially those first 20 pounds. If you need to lose weight they offer a free diet analysis to show you how a plan like this would work for you.

NutriSystem has been very successful in reaching out to guys through ads like the one with Dan Marino below. A whole range of very active and physical guys have found this approach helpful. They send you the food and you follow the plan. I think the most important thing is that they don't make you go through "brain drain"- not being overwhelmed is a critical part of succeeding on a diet.

How Is NutriSystem For Men Different From The Regular NutriSystem Program?

 

A key difference is simply in the calories allowed. Men eat roughly 1500 calories on the diet and women are allowed 1200. The other difference is simply focus. It takes into account that a lot of guys eat hearty meals, like to feel full and basically don't want to eat tofu. But they balance these hearty foods with healthy stuff like salad and broccoli. This blended combination seems to work.

 

What Are The Fundamentals Of The Diet?

 

They are aiming for a healthy diet that balances protein, carbs and fat. This is similar to the basics of the The Zone Diet, but the exact percentages differ. What is important for men in particular is that they feel full and have energy. There is a reason that athletes have found success with NutriSystem.

The diet is also designed to be low in the general bad stuff like sodium and bad fats. They encourage whole grains and fiber, and have a strong focus on portion size and social support. If you start playing around with their online tools you have the option of joining their community for free. They also encourage you to eat fruits and vegetables with the packaged meals, and if you have read the work of Dr. Joel Fuhrman you understand clearly the association if fruits and vegetables to long term weight loss.

 

And What Foods Do You Eat On This Diet?

They have a really big menu of options, and when you sign up online you can go through all sorts of choices of foods for breakfast, lunch, dinner, dessert. Lots of grains, cereals and oats for breakfast. If you look at the menu it is foods you are familiar with. Same thing with lunch, things like Tex-Mex rice and Spicy Oriental Noodles with vegetables. For dinner offerings include Beef, Beans and Rice with BBQ sauce, pizza, lasagna, chili. All foods you would normally eat.

New NutriSystem Select Program

If you want to add more fruits and vegetables to the foods that are delivered the company just launched the NutriSystem Select program where fresh frozen foods are delivered to your house. This program expands the food choices and also improves the overall health profile of the food. We would observe that going with the Select option is the best one for long term health and long term weight loss success.

How Much Does NutriSystem For Men Cost?

The cost is roughly $11 a day or $300 a month. Many people say they actually save money doing this approach. And with the money you save, you can spend extra on fresh fruits and vegetables. The company has also introduced the NutriSystem Flex program where you can do the diet 5 days a week with two Flex days. This program is $230 a month for men.

NutriSystem For Men Coupons:

We have a list of NutriSystem coupons here. The company is currently offering $100 off the first four weeks or month of food, which is a nice incentive to get started.

What Support Does The Company Provide?

NutriSystem has begun to focus a lot on providing support and teaching people a lot of the fundamentals of weight loss. Their efforts are in an attempt to provide some of the things that are at the core of Weight Watchers. But there are no in person meetings, so this is very different in some respects. When you sign up you will start getting helpful emails telling you exactly what you need to do.

Will NutriSystem Help You Lose Weight Long Term?

With any diet approach you need to do a lot of work yourself to develop the proper habits and mindset. The best thing about NutriSystem is that they easily help you get on track if that is what you need. And it is a cost neutral thing for many people. Weight Watchers has a proven track record for men as well. If you lose a lot of weight following NutriSystem, you might want to join Weight Watchers after to help focus on the long term adjustments and habit development. 

All these tools work well if you use them the right way in the proper context. It is like tools to build a house- you need a hammer for this, a saw for that etc. This is at the core of the work we do with the PEERtrainer Tip Of The Day. We encourage you to find the mix of tools you need at different stages of your life and to not use just one diet approach. Your body is your house and you need all sorts of tools to build and maintain it. 

View The Full Meal Plan On The NutriSystem Website

Tips On Making NutriSystem A Healthy Diet Approach:

-Augment the meals with large servings of spinach, broccoli, romaine lettuce

-Make sure to start mixing in fruit for your breakfast

-Every week find a way to eat a vegetable in a cheap and easy way.

It is easy to criticize diets like NutriSystem. Some people say that it does not teach you to make proper food choices, or that the food is not as healthy as it could be. That is a fine criticism after you have lost a nice chunk of weight. But if you have not been able to make better or healthier food choices, the you need to do whatever it takes to help you lose weight. You need to know that this is a long process and you will need to learn many tools in addition to NutriSystem.

The questions of what is an ideal diet can be addressed once you have started the process of losing weight. And there are many men who have found success using NutriSystem. 

What If I Don't Like The Food?

They offer a 30 day guarantee, and you can just stop. They have been criticized in the past for food that does not taste good or tastes bland, and they seem to be working to address this issue. As we get more feedback we will update this post. One thing to point out is that they are selling $700 million worth of their meals each year, which means there are a lot of people doing this. They offer a pretty compelling value proposition- you don't spend much more than you already would and it is convenient.

Continue The Discussion In The PEERtrainer Community

Man Who Lost 80 Pounds Using Weight Watchers- Got Some Detail On His Experience

Ok- I mentioned a few days ago that a friend knew a guy who lost 80 pounds on Weight Watchers and that we were going to get his story. We got it and here are the questions we asked. I also have some thoughts, and they are not so PC and totally generalizing, but I think probably true. Questions in bold, answers short and sweet.

 

1) Did he do the meetings or just do ww online? -- went to meetings 

 

2) Who recommended the diet to him -- wife 

 

3) Did he find the online tools helpful -- somewhat, the tools were not conveniently available 

 

4) how did he perceive the cost vs the result -- I thought the cost was reasonable but that may be because the result was good 

 

5) How hard was it and how long did it take? -- not too hard; my eating habits were so poor that small changes made a big difference. it took about 8 months 

 

6) Has he made permanent changes in his diet and how hard is he finding it to keep it off? --Yes changes are permanent. I pay a lot of attention to what I eat and what is in what I eat. Never did that before. Keeping it off has not been difficult. But I still have more to lose.

 

So this really got me thinking on something totally controversial, but I have to say it. 

 

Controversial Comment #1--Men are from Mars, Women Are From Venus.  Men are more logical and women are more emotional. As you see in these comments there is no major drama in his story. It is very simple- he was overweight because his "habits were so poor." Weight Watchers said- ok, try these new habits. He did. Problem solved. 

 

This is brings me to Controversial Comment #2-- this guy had no excuses and took total responsibility. His weight was nobody's fault but his, it was not a result of some external force. There was no going on about he gained weight because of things being hard at work or really any excuse at all.

 

If you are a guy and need to lose weight, think about the controversial comments. Can you follow directions? Do you understand the concept that you are responsible for your actions? Can you follow through and persist with a plan?

 

You might be like the guy who could only lose weight on Nutrisystem, where they just sent you the food. No shame in that. Just think about what kind of person you are right now. As you become the person you want to be, then your diet will change. You will incorporate concepts of The Zone Diet. Lots of professional athletes do btw. You will get to know Joel Fuhrman and embark on a path of nutritional excellence.

Maybe you will even make so much progress that you will run a marathon.

But.....If you are a guy and you need to lose weight and you can follow directions, you'll find it easier than you think to lose weight. You need to make some distinctions and make some choices that seem hard at first, but will get easier. Frankly, most guys are used to making some hard choices.

At PEERtrainer we have created a very simple guide and system that helps you make some of these changes. It is called the "Cheat System" and it is something you download for free. 

Here is an email from a guy we were just sent. What is interesting is that he first downloaded it and dismissed the advice. Then he went back in, started to do it it and is having success:

"I looked at your system a few weeks ago when it first came out and the second I saw the left side column, I dismissed it. Even though I had already on my own been dramatically increasing the salad and vegetable intake. I was losing weight, it was very simple, but the daily diet was very rigid and had certain rules that if broken meant no weight loss for a day or two. This had worked once before very well but the boredom finally took its toll.

With much respect for Peertrainer, I took another look and realized everything I was doing already fit the cheat system, just not the best choices, so I took a leap of faith. It took 3 or 4 days to educate myself and turn my wife's kitchen into a farmer's market (which I though was very cool). I also learned how to chop, use a rice cooker (quinoa), craft salads from lots of fun green stuff, steam vegetables, use all those funny little cans of spices in addition to salt and pepper, etc.

I'm having a great time... never knew who bought all that stuff in the vegetable department except apples and oranges. Finally, I put it all together and now feel like I know what I'm doing. Weight loss is back on track. 

I am so glad I decided to download the Peertrainer Cheat system and glad I was able to get beyond my traditional thinking.

Good luck and thanks for doing what you're doing.

P.S. I was recently in the San Francisco Bay area and needed to go to the store and not knowing the area wound up in a large Asian market. I knew it was different because half the store was devoted to greens and vegetables. The customers, mostly Asian, were all thin-active looking people and most were buying greens. Now I understand why."

Why This Email Is So Interesting

One thing that this email shows is that this guy thought he was doing the right thing. When he opened up his mind to a new idea, he found some success. At PEERtrainer over the years, we have observed that when people are more flexible in general, good things happen. If you are doing the same thing and not getting a different result, obviously you need to do something differently.

The second interesting thing is that he cites oranges and apples as the produce he was familiar with, and is now familiar with the full range of vegetables. After you sign up for the Cheat System, we also follow up with some awesome recipes from time to time. A recent one is "Asian Fusion Chicken Salad." Delicious!

Finally, what an interesting comment about the visit to the Asian market. As part of our "PC" culture we are sort of taught to not acknowledge our differences. Or at least not actively point out ways in which we are different. (It seems like comedians are the only ones who are "allowed" to talk about this.)

 

I have also created a video for this:

 

"PEERtrainer Made Me A Marathoner"

We love the stories that come in and when I saw this shot, and read "PT made me a marathoner.  Thanks!" I asked him to be in the rotating deck of pictures on our home page.

 "Vildragon", a PEERtrainer since August of 2007,  writes status updates about his marathons and they're such a shot of energy in my day.  Reading about someone who is pushing themselves to a new physical place gives me a lot of ideas about how I can do the same. 

Congratulations Vildragon and here's to you doing well at your next marathon this weekend!

Weight Watchers Momentum For Men: How This Compares To Atkins and South Beach

Habib and I were having dinner with another couple a few nights ago, and the subject turned to the friends husband's new diet. He had recently lost 25 pounds on a low carb, Atkins type diet that his doctor had prescribed for him. 

He was looking a lot better, and he mentioned that he had done this before on the South Beach diet. His comment on the South Beach diet was that "it works if you do exactly what they tell you to do." But it obviously was not something he could sustain long term, and he now found himself on a new diet that was low in carbs, and featured a good deal of meat as well as some shakes.

But he had a lot of questions for me and really wanted to know my take. I try to not give advice per se, but to present information in a way that people can make good decisions for themselves. He sort of knew he was potentially on another short term path, where he would lose weight and then start to gain it back. 

So I mentioned to him our observations about Weight Watchers and how we see the long term success many have in the PEERtrainer community. We see South Beach as an excellent short term thing that will work, but with Weight Watchers there is a lot more focus on long term behavior change.

After sharing this observation with him he immediately mentioned that he had a male co-worker who had recently lost 80 pounds. He mentioned it because they had been watching a company video from a year ago, and this guy had lost so much weight that he was now unrecognizable.

So we are reaching out to this guy and try and get his story. We are focusing a lot on men's weight loss in the Tip Of The Day email coaching series and are also developing a program that focuses on the emotional, night eating and binge component of eating for men.

This conversation was interesting also because of Weight Watchers Momentum Program, which is the latest update of their program. Both the in-person and online versions of the program have been updated to provide even more of a focus on long term and healthy change. If you are one of those guys who yo-yo's, you might want to try their online program. The cost is roughly $5 a week which includes the signup fee. That is the price of a nice beer at a bar.

Many guys like the structure that the online version of Momentum can provide and are also comfortable with the computer. So if you feel stuck just sign up for the online component to start. Maybe do the meetings as a second step. Whatever works for you. And if you do join and are a subscriber to the Tip Of The Day please please let me know how it goes. I would love to blog about this. If you are a try before you buy person, you can also do a series of free assessments on the Weight Watchers site. Otherwise just click on the orange button below which takes you to the online version for men. 

Experience With Weight Watchers For Men, Is Online or In Person More Effective?

I am also starting a thread in the community about Men's success with WW. I am especially interested in how the program improves results with their new refresh. Also if Weight Watchers is not for you or you have tried it in the past, maybe it might make sense to take a crack at South Beach for a period of time. The success you have there might help with your transition period to a healthier, long term diet.

Everything You Need To Know About Weight Watchers

Readers of the PEERtrainer Tip Of The Day, this blog, listeners to our coaching programs know that we are fans of Weight Watchers, and generally advocate it as part of a broad toolset of stuff that just works. It is important though to not get into this mindset of "I am on this diet" or "I am on that diet". Just try and be open to mixing and matching what works for you. Because we have a deep and focused community on the site, we have accumulated lots of interesting bits of information.

This post will serve as a central place where we will gather important information about the program, as an "FAQ" for the program. It will be updated and if you see something, please feel free to post it in the comments section.

The Weight Watchers Momentum Program

This is the latest update of the program. Old concepts of Core and Flex are renamed although ideas stay the same. The Filling Foods List has some healthier versions and the general tone seems to be towards healthy foods. The basics of counting points, staying accountable and getting support at meetings remains the same. You need to sign up to get the details of this new program.

Here are some relevant discussions from our community:

What Do You Learn At A Weight Watchers Meeting?

This was the best response from that thread so far:

"You can learn a lot.

- How to estimate portions when you can't measure

- How to plan for specially occasions

- How to choose more healthy options

- How not to deprive yourself, but instead control yourself

- Great recipes

- Tips for cooking lighter

- Strategies for changing your behaviors to be more healthy

Most of all, you'll learn how to plan and make better choices that you can live with instead f depriving yourself of everything you love."

Weight Watchers, To Join Or Not To Join?

Here is one great comment from that thread:

"I just joined. So far i really am liking the plan. You are held accountable and you do weigh in every week (only one person sees it) and when you attain certain small goals the group recognizes those and asks you what worked for you and if anything you do may help the group to achieve their goals. I have found this part pretty motivational.

Also, I guess you could eat junk if you wanted to but if you did you certainly wouldnt be able to eat too much of it and still stay within their "diet" However I do enjoy the point system because I can eat healhty and eat a lot of food, but I can also have a SMALL treat and it is still ok and i am still on the plan and it does not make me discouraged."

Can Someone Explain Weight Watchers Activity Points?

"I've been using WW points for a long time and here is how I calculate the activity points: I weigh about 180 at the moment ...

if I'm working hard and sweating - I earn a point for every 15-20 minutes or 100- 150 calories if the machine I'm using calculates calories.

So if I work out on the elliptical for 30 minutes - 1 pt ... 45 minutes - 2 pts ... 60-75 minutes 3 pts

If I'm being active but not necessarily working up a big sweat - I calculate 1 pt per half-full hour. So if I'm out walking with my kids for half an hour - 1 pt but if I go out for the day with them and walk all over a park or an event with them for hours on end - I calculate 1 pt per hour I was out and on my feet. "

How Do You Calculate The Weight Watchers Points You Need:

"Thought this was helpful - new way to calculate your points for weight watachers.

Weight Watchers Updated: Your personal daily points target- use this formula

1. Are you

female?- score 2

Male?- score 8

A nursing mom?- score 12

2. How old are you?

17-26- score 4

27-37- score 3

38-47- score 2

48-58- score 1

over 58- score 0

3.What do you weigh?

Enter the first two digits of your weight in pounds.

(for example, if you weight 199, you will add 19 to your score)

4. How tall are you?

Under 5’1- score 0

5’1-5’10- score 1

Over 5’10- score 2

5. How do you spend most of your day?

Sitting down? score 0

Occasionally sitting? score 2

Walking most of the time? score 4

Doing physically hard work most of the time? score 6

Now add them all together and that’s your daily total. It might be higher for some. My WW coordinator said if this is the case, take the difference between your new and old and divide it in half and then add that much to your previous total." 

I would note that this is a very very rough guide and they have changed the program so much (for the better from the looks of it) that you really need to go to the meetings or join online. It is not longer just a thing of counting some points and learning some values. There is much more to it. We have more here on the recent changes.

Can Someone Explain The Pros and Cons Of The Weight Watchers Points System?

Tips For Success In Weight Watchers

This thread has a nice balance of reviews and experiences- some great, some not so great.

The Cost Of Weight Watchers

You can save 25% if you sign up for 3 months and you need to go to their site to get the current prices. This banner takes you to pricing for the new Momentum Program

Diet Fusion- A Practical Approach To Long Term Weight Loss

I got an email last night from a subscriber to our Tip Of The Day weight loss coaching/training newsletter. The person asked for some general tips on what to eat now that they have decided to lose weight. We really refer out to the experts as much as we can, but I introduced her to something we call "Diet Fusion." This is something we talk about in the Point of No Return as well, I think in week three. But here is what I said to her in response to her specific question:

"This gives me a great opportunity to get a little more clear and focused on one of the key "organizing themes" of our overall coaching program.

First of all, you need to see your doctor for specific advice. That is not just boilerplate- we mean that. And you will see some videos coming from a great doctor who will be explaining the role they have in this process, and also what a great doctor should be doing. Not all doctors are great, but finding one is well worth the effort.

 

Now, one of the key themes we talk about in the overall PEERtrainer coaching/training program is an approach I have termed "Diet Fusion". Diet Fusion is customization, finding what works for you, depending on your life stage. If there is one thing we have learned, it is that having only one diet for fitness regimen works for very few people. This is a list of some of the diets we have seen work:

 

-Fat Smash Diet, this is something we see to help kickstart a diet. Very popular, very effective in the short term, very easy to fall off track. But it is a good shock introduction to better nutrition, and does take a page or two from Joel Fuhrman's work.

 

-South Beach Diet- another diet we have seen help people drop a quick 5 pounds. It works well especially if you are in metabolic risk. But this should be done in combination with WW points and a high nutrient diet like Eat To Live.

 

-Weight Watchers- we have seen really help people get a handle on portion control. They have also completely revamped their core diet with the introduction of the Weight Watchers Momentum Program.

 

-Joel Fuhrman's Eat To Live/Eat For Health- The most important idea of his is that intense amounts of greens help you lose weight, and that not all foods are created equal. He has designed a point scoring system to guide you to the best foods. He is probably the primary innovator in weight loss today, with people like Weight Watchers now following his lead.

Again the idea here is really find what works for you. Here is also a list of some very general principles, things we have seen work, and ideas put forth that we have seen help people on PEERtrainer get off the yo-yo cycle.

 

1. Nutrient Density- What this means very generally is eating a diet very high in fruits, vegetables, nuts and beans with a specific focus on greens. We see this work over and over again when it comes to successfully losing weight.

 

One of the things we continually focus on in our program is tips and ways to practically, cheaply and easily get high amounts of plant based foods in the diet each day. And making them taste good. And uncover the myths we tend to cling to that prevent us from seeing these as easy choices.

 

If you want to learn more about the work of Dr Joel Fuhrman you can read what we have written about his new book "Eat For Health". We tend to reference tips from him, simply because we see the specific effect his ideas have on people in the PEERtrainer community. We also like to link out to specific experts in different fields, to really make sure our readers and clients are exposed to as many ideas as possible. The core idea of Diet Fusion is customization, and the more good ideas you have, the more tools in your toolbox. We want to keep filling up your toolbox with things we see work.

 

There are many other doctors out there as well who are all focusing on the idea of pointing people towards diets that totally rebalance what we assume to be a "proper diet." The reality is that a growing number of people are really challenging our widely held assumptions. Dr. Bradley Willcox for example is another who is focusing on examining the habits of people in Japan who regularly live to 100, do not gain weight when they age and who tend to not get disease at anywhere near the rate Americans do.

 

It is important to point this out because what worked for you when you were 25 and single might not work now that you have a husband who you are eating with every night. Maybe you are a 70 year old man who is still eating with the diet assumptions you had in 1955. If what you are doing is not working you really need to be open to a real examinations of your assumptions. That is Diet Fusion.

 

2. Weight Watchers Points- this is another proven tool in our "Diet Fusion" approach. No matter how well you eat at home- fruit with every breakfast, salad as an entree, low levels of overall "animal protein" intake, spinach at every possible point- you are going to continually get out of your comfort zone. You will go out to restaurants, go to parties, be at the mall, on the road. You will be in situations where the option of nutritional excellence is not available to you. 

 

So you have to be able very easy figure out how many points are in a bagel, and how to eat 10 point meals when you are out. A great way to do this is quickly to google "Weight Watchers Points Calculator" and start learning to add in calories, fat and fiber. Or go to a meeting or brush off your Points if you tried WW in the past and it did not work for you. This is much better than just plain calorie counting because the points system makes you look for high fiber, low calorie foods. Which incidently tend to be plant based. "Fiber" is the stuff in plants. 

 

I have even recorded a short video that explains my own process of how I thought I was making the right choices, until I really mastered portion control.

 

3. Focus On The Transition- this is another very key point in the "Diet Fusion" approach. Restrictive diets fail because they are often all or nothing approaches. You are not going to go from eating cheeseburgers and bacon, egg and cheese bagels to spinach and fruit in a week. It is going to take time and take some work. So give yourself time and realize you cannot fail at this. View each day and each meal as an opportunity to make incremental progress. Something as small as deciding to eat a plate of veggies at a party instead of what the waiters bring around is a win- and should be celebrated.

 

4. Focus On The Volume Of Food When You Have A Chance To Eat Well. We tend to think of dieting as simply limiting calories. This is an incomplete approach for many, especially for the long run. How many times have you started a diet and then fell off?

 

You sort of have to do portion control, which is why Points are so important. But you have to feel full, not feel hungry. A truly healthy diet probably will not leave you cranky and hungry all the time. A large salad, that only has a tablespoon of olive oil in it, some lemon juice and garlic for flavor, with beans to make you feel full, tons of vegetables- can an ideal thing. You get a lot of plant based nutrients, but you also feel full. You can also feel full eating a lot less.

 

This is something that we have seen work and is something that has worked for me. Here is something that I do at home all the time- I take a two dollar bag of frozen organic spinach and a one dollar can of organic black beans. I throw it in a frying pan and heat it up. Maybe a touch of olive oil, throw some garlic in there, maybe some curry spice for flavor. Serve it with some rice. Fast, easy, cheap. I eat it, my husband eats it, my kids eat it. In fact, my husband cooks this so often that our daughter refers to them as "daddy beans". And for guys, the volume aspect is particularly important, if you are familiar with what I call "insane man hunger."   I am using this as an example of how to think about the volume aspect of it.

 

Maybe you are out at the Cheesecake Factory for example. They serve HUGE portions of foods. But they also serve huge salads. Make that work for you. Order the salad, as for dressing on the side. Better yet, ask for 4 lemon wedges. Maybe get some steak or chicken on top of the salad. There are all sorts of options. (Their menu is like a book). Squeeze the lemon wedges on the salad, maybe some pepper (try to avoid the salt), a tiny tiny amount of whatever dressing they have. And wham- you have something that fills you up and will help you lose weight. 

 

And make sure to keep the cheese and butter out of it. Cheese and butter are diet killers because of the hidden calories. Restaurants for some reason put cheese and butter in everything. Get in the habit of asking for butter and cheese free dishes. Interestingly some of the higher end restaurant chains in the US have removed butter from the menu. Seasons 52, a very good restaurant chain in the Southeast US have no butter in their dishes. Each dish is designed to be less than 500 calories as well. So this seems to be a trend.

 

5. Rethink Your Notion Of Hunger. One thing that Dr. Fuhrman teaches, and I just saw this talked about in the PEERtrainer community, is the idea of "true hunger". What this simply means is that real hunger is something you feel in your throat and mouth. It is not a panicky feeling, it is your mouth watering. If you are between meals and feel like you have to snack on something, reach for a piece of fruit, or a Lara bar or Kind bar. Nut bars are great diet tools. Very practical things you can keep with you.

 

Overall, this idea of "Diet Fusion" is really finding what works for you, and making it a practical habit. Diets fail when we feel hungry, they fail when we don't correctly control our portions, and they fail when we feel like we can't do them. How often have you felt that "losing weight is just not possible", or that "gaining weight is just something that happens when we get older." It truly does not have to be this way.

 

So instead of simply restricting calories, focus on a gradual transition to more plant based stuff. And this does not mean that you be a vegetarian- although some people do that for many reasons. I don't. But I keep reading more and more research that indicates that you don't want more than 10% of your diet to be animal based. Again, this is very general and there is a lot of conflicting information out there. You have to find what works for you. 

 

The hardest part of all of this is developing these good habits in the face of overwhelming societal pressure. Maybe you are a mom struggling to feed healthy foods to your kids. Then the grandparents come to town and their version of love is force feeding them cheeseburgers. Maybe you are a guy who works in a stressful environment, job and the only choices seem to be sweets in the vending machine. Or you go to a restaurant and want to make some good habits, only to feel subtle but strong pressure from the waiter or waitress. One thing we focus on in our intensive coaching/training program is literally training you, ingraining in you a set of habits that help you get what you want. We do this with the help of a trained psychotherapist, because it is that hard!!

 

I will close this note with a simple idea- everyone talks about the importance of a "balanced diet". But what if you body is out of balance? Hitting the salads hard, and keeping the fat out of them, might be a great way to get back into balance.

Update: People have loved this basic concept over the years, and have found it "liberating." One thing people have said though is "ok, I get the basic idea. Now tell me exactly what to do." People wanted an eating plan to help put this advice into practice. So we developed a very simple to follow list of foods to focus on and foods to move away from. We call this the "Cheat System." It works incredibly well. It is free to download from this page.

 

Share Your Feedback In The PEERtrainer Community!

5 Things To Focus On In The First Week Of Your Diet

This is an article from the PEERtrainer Weight Loss Framework, which is a guide to some of the best ideas that we have found that address the fundamentals of long term weight loss. The Framework is a page that you can bookmark and it is especially useful for people starting out on a diet or weight loss path.

1. The Goal

We talk a lot in this guide, in our Tip of The Day email program, in our coaching calls the importance of goal setting and planning. It is so fundamental and you have heard this a zillion times, but it is precisely these things that you need to do to succeed. Like on a trip, you need to know where you are going, where your destination is.

Losing weight is no different. Setting a specific goal that is really yours is important. Not what anyone tells you, but what you really want at the core, what is in your heart. I think it was Thoreau who said that "people do not attain what they do not aim for." So no matter what stage you are on in your journey, take a moment and actually take out a pen or pencil and right down a goal you really want. Or better yet, one that you expect to attain.

2. The Why

Using another real life example, to do anything you need a reason to do it. Without a reason you are not going to do it. You are not going to follow through on a diet just because you think you are supposed to, or it is January 1 or whatever. You have to find a reason and is has to be a priority. It has to be something you deeply value and is the top priority. This reason, this burning desire, will help to fuel your motivation. When you get off track, which you will, this goal and this reason becomes this force that you gravitate towards, and that picks you back up.

3. The How

You also need to know how to get where you want to go, and you need a route, a map or some sort of itinerary. You need to know how get from point A to point B. You can do this on your own, but it is so much easier when you do it with others. Imagine going out in the wilderness without a map? Going to a party, you need the same mindset- you need to be prepared beforehand, you need a ruleset that you will stick to. You need to be able to cope with the "food wilderness."

This brings us to support and guidance which is one of our core organizing themes and ideas. Why do millions of people pay each week to travel to a room to weigh themselves and hear a pep talk? Because it works and is valuable. One thing we talk about at PEERtrainer is the idea of "diet fusion", of blending different approaches together. My own "diet fusion" is to use the Weight Watchers Points system and combine it with a very high nutrient diet like the one advocated by Joel Fuhrman. I think on week three of the bootcamp calls I go into this specific idea.

Once you have done the fundamental work of goal setting, expectation setting, finding your reasons you really need to figure out how to stick to it, to get the support to keep you on track. You can join a PEERtrainer group, make sure you are getting the daily emails, or join a coaching program that will help to customize your path for you. There are all sorts of things you can set up for yourself to help bolster your own self motivation and discipline. If you have heard the PEERtrainer bootcamp calls, you know how motivating they can be.

4. The Measurement

Develop a weekly plan to stay accountable. Do you hate the scale? That's fine. Maybe one day you will make friends with it. In the meantime, find a different way to chart your progress. Maybe buy a measuring tape and take your measurements weekly. Maybe you have a pair of jeans that you can try on weekly. Find something that works for you, whether it's an old pair of jeans that you try on once a week, a measuring tape, a scale, your partners eyes, whatever it is and measure your progress.

5. The Follow Through

It's important for you to see progress so that you'll have a reason to stick with your plan. You're not sprinting; you're running a marathon. If you don't see the miles tick off as you get closer to the finish line, how are you going to know that what you're doing is working? Logging your goals, your progress, and your daily habits will show you what is working and most importantly, give you the confidence to keep up your good work. Your first week on PEERtrainer is critical if you have never logged before. Once you develop the habit, other positive and healthy habits will start to happen.

Next: Get A Support System

Share on Facebook

Create A Favorite Music Playlist That Is Ready To Go At All Times

One of the biggest obstacles we see is that people don't have their ideal music ready to go.  If you're dreading the thought of getting off the couch, one of your favorite songs can give you instant energy and make you want more.  It's the single best way to change your mood and make you motivated to just DO something.  

Invest in the time to organize your favorite music in one playlist.  If you're intimidated by the ipod (mp3 players), find the nearest teenager/20 something to help you.  It has never been easier to get all the music you love in one place, in an easy to play format as it is now.  Mp3 players can be purchased for $20 dollars and you have your energy to go.

Reconnect With A Sport/Exercise You Loved When You Were Younger.

What did you like to do when you were younger?  Maybe it was dancing or kick ball.  Maybe it was frisbee or basketball, or maybe doge ball!  You can recreate all of these sports even without Coach Dan and get some great bursts of cardio in. 

Go pick up a frisbee and get out on your front lawn.  If you have children, they will be begging to play every day. 

Get a pair of 25 pound weights and keep them in your bedroom to do mini-lifting sessions anytime.  You'll build up to a routine in a short time.

Have a lifestyle where you can't get to a club to dance (or maybe you simply don't want to!)  Blast your favorite music on your ipod or computer right in your living room and dance.  Even if it's for 5 minutes you'll feel that same rush.

If you played basketball, football, swam, soccer, whatever it is, there is a local organization or gym or community gathering of the sport. If you simply didn't like sports or activity when you were younger, this is the best time to pick up something you've always wanted to do. 

Coaches and trainers love that you are brand new because they don't need to retrain you from bad habits.  Tennis is a great example of this:  it's much easier to teach someone to swing with the raquet down low if they've never done it, vs teaching someone who has been swinging a certain way for 15 years. 

Don't be intimidated - people will love to teach you whatever sport you've dreamed about.

Why I Love Weight Watchers

When I first started taking losing weight seriously, I actually thought I was dieting. I was passing up on cheesecake but not losing weight. And if you are not losing weight, you need more information.

Weight Watchers is excellent for portion control. When I learned the points system, what I saw I was eating about twice what I needed to lose weight. Helps to reset my mind of what a portion really is. Once you learn the points system, you just know it. Becomes something very natural. They have also just released an important update on their program called the Weight Watchers Momentum Program and I highly recommend you take a look at what we have written and learned so far.

You can also apply it to other diets like Fat Smash, The Zone, South Beach or Eat for Health.

Things To Keep In Your Freezer and Fridge

This is another video I put together to show you the kinds of staples I like to keep in my freezer and fridge. I have multiple objectives here.

1. Foods that fill me up and help me lose weight

2. Things that I can give the kids easily and quickly that are also good for them

3. Foods that are nutrient dense and help my family get as many micronutrients as they can.

I only featured five foods- another staple of our fridge is Bolthouse Farms Vedge Juice. It tastes great, is packed with micronutrients and phytochemicals and makes it really easy for members of my family to consume high doses of nutrients, quickly.

Easy and Healthy Low WW Point and Calorie Snack Idea

We were just in a Whole Foods with the kids, and we met a woman who was giving out samples of a new line of almond butter and peanut butter called Justin's Nut Butter. It is a new company started by someone named Justin. As it turned out, his mom was the woman giving out the samples. Nice mom!

There are a lot of makers of various nut butters, and we buy the Whole Foods brand cashew butter regularly. It tastes great and it is cheap. But what struck us about Justin's Nut Butter is that they make 100 calorie squeeze packs that are flavored with things like organic maple sugar and organic honey. So they taste really good, and it is sometimes hard to get peanut butter to taste good without a ton of jelly.

The Maple Almond Butter was particularly good. (Almond butter is relatively high in calcium, so for people who are allergic to dairy and are looking for added sources of calcium, Almonds and almond butter are something to always keep in mind.)

I always tell people to always have healthy snacks handy, to prepare ahead of time for emergencies. These little packs seem like a great idea to keep in your desk or purse or glove compartment. If you can get your hands on an apple or a banana, squeeze one of these packs on the apple or banana and you have a great healthy snack. It will give you energy, you know exactly what the portion is, you get the benefit of an organic product, you get a piece of fruit in.

I think Justin's mom mentioned that each pack was about .59 cents. Add that to the cost of a banana or an apple and you have a pretty cheap snack as well. People always want to know how to eat healthy for cheap and eat organic for cheap. If you know where to look you can always find things that fit this requirement.

Getting a portion controlled product that tastes great and is super healthy can be one of those nice small wins I always talk about. So next time you are in Whole Foods or near one, get some of Justin's squeeze packs and add them to your emergency food stash. It is also a way to support a small business owner and kudos to the people at Whole Foods who brought Justin and his products in.

I also broke out my copy of Joel Fuhrman's Eat For Health to look up what he thinks about nut products. He pointed out that you don't want to overeat them, but that there are studies that show an inverse relationship between nut consumption and body weight, and that nuts and seeds help suppress the appetite. 

Making sure to add an apple or a banana to the mix in the snack makes it taste great. Fruit in the morning for energy and then fruit with a little nut butter in the afternoon to help keep you full and energized is a great strategy. The squeeze packs themselves are 2 Weight Watchers points even with the added oil and fruit is minimal points impact. So this could be one of those things that you incorporate on a regular basis.

I'll keep an eye out for things like this, and if you see something, let me know in the comments section or email me if you are getting the Tip Of The Day newsletter

How To Get Started Or Restarted On A Diet

We continually are looking for ideas that work and also are looking to communicate those ideas. This post features an experiment with the You Tube video format. This clip was shot for the Tip Of The Day free coaching series. I'd love to know what you think of the clip, the format, because we want to present these in the way that you like. 

Do you like the informality- do you want it more formal? Does it resonate? Is it too long or too short? What other clips would you like to see. Feel free to email me if you get the Tip Of The Day Newsletter, or you can comment on the You Tube clip itself or on this blog post. As you know, we tend to respond to most of our email quickly. The feedback and interaction helps us all.

The idea or "Tip Of The Day" is that whether you are getting started or restarted on your diet, you might want to think about finding the one thing that is getting you off track, and just focus on that one thing. There are two other key ideas presented, that we think will really help you start your diet or get back on track:

Books That Have Personally Impacted Me

Books can be tedious, especially diet and health books.  I'm more of a fan of doing than reading.  I've learned a lot more about myself just through general logging of my food and thoughts than most books but that said, I don't know everything, right!?

I have a general set of guides to refer back to and learn from when I get down or I need ideas. More importantly, if I'm in a plateau or have been off track and could use the reminders, I have them on hand without much effort.   This set changes depending on my life stage so you'll see it morph over time but here is my current set and the amazon/affiliate link:

Eight Weeks to Optimal Health: Dr. Andrew Weil
This was my first "bible" into the world of health and fitness.  I still refer back to it often and I get inspired by his weekly tasks of buying flowers and experiencing forgiveness

Eat To Live/Eat For Health:  Dr. Joel Fuhrman:  His "prescription" of intense greens changed my husband's health.   They have this really neat MANDI scoring guide, a quick guide to help you understand foods and their nutrient content at a glance.  The link goes to a special PEERtrainer discount.

Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom: Dr. Christiane Northrup
I read this years before she went on Oprah and I experienced my early 30's in a much different way than many of my friends just based on her writings.  Highly recommend this specific book

The 7 Habits of Highly Successful People Stephen R. Covey 
This book dives into discipline which I believe is the cornerstone of health and fitness.  I'm not especially passionate about his writing style but the content is a must read.

Health Magazine:
This health and diet lifestyle mags is the one that I most relate to - it isn't about how to get the body to get a guy or nicely posed pictures of fitness routines.  The editorial perspective is a bit more focused on health and diet information

How To Lose 100 Pounds, Safely

We just had a long time PEERtrainer member email us about some comments in a thread in the community. We all need to work to keep them clean, so if you see something, say something. We keep the forums anonymous because people sometimes express some painful or embarrassing things. And we want people to feel like they can express themselves in a positive way.

Interestingly, the thread in question had to do with wondering if one can lose 100 pounds in a year in a healthy way. This is a very interesting question and discussion among people who were on the path to lose 100 pounds. So we had to clean it up a little. But it brought up a very interesting question, something that we are thinking about here internally.

When we started PEERtrainer, we came to this with a "diet neutral" philosophy, meaning we just wanted to provide a place for people to follow through on what they already knew, and were already working on. Over time we started to see different things working, some things not working.

So we started to develop some observations, maybe some opinions. We started to write some articles, basically sharing what we saw working. The Fat Smash Diet was one of these things, we saw people talk about it, form groups and teams about it. We started to see people eat lots of fruits and vegetables, much more than was commonly recommended by the run of the mill nutritionists out there. So we wrote about it and started to feature it on the PEERtrainer site.

And it was helping people lose weight, we were seeing this. We were then introduced to Dr Joel Fuhrman by a business colleague and friend of ours. This person had helped start Oxford Health Plans, and had a real passion for health. And passion in a real way that got our attention. He had served as Chairman of the company during some hard times (ended up engineering a $6 billion deal with United Health Care).

In this role he had a birdseye view of how screwed up our whole health care system is, with a total focus on acute care, and a major lack of focus on prevention. Anyway, he gave us a copy of Eat To Live, and introduced us to Joel. And what we found was a person with a record of excellence in helping people lose major amounts of weight, safely.

If you get a copy of Eat To Live or his newer book, Eat For Health (click here to read our take on it) you will see comments from his friend, Dr Mehmet Oz. So you can see that Joel has made some very good friends over the years of his work.

Which brings me back to the original question. And I think the answer to the question to losing 100 pounds is of course a complex one, but that it involves going on a diet that radically increases vegetables, fruits, raw foods, blended foods. And it involves exploring the ideas that Ian Smith, Joel Fuhrman are putting forth. The greens, veggies etc have to go to 80%. There is also this great clip on YouTube that I will dig up (or somebody please post) of a guy who went on a raw food diet and did a timelapse of himself.

So be open to these new ideas and approaches. And this is also permanent weight loss. When you change your diet- over time- to do mainly plant based foods, you are going to lose weight. There will be no more of this starving yourself and eating 100 calorie snack pack kind of deals. In fact, a sure way to know that you are going to gain the weight back is if you are eating 100 calorie snack packs each day.

Now if you are just beginning the journey, these snack packs are a great way to get portion control under your belt and transition. But over time they have to go, along with all the other fake foods. What our business friend taught us was that people might be thin but they are not healthy eating these foods. 

We tend to shy away from the "health" aspect of weight, because who wants to be lectured. But know that diets advocated by people like Joel also help people massively improve their health profile.

If You Need To Lose 100 Pounds, Where Do You Start?

One thing we like to do on PEERtrainer is focus on different needs. Needing to lose ten pounds for a woman needs a different approach than a guy needing to lose 45 pounds. What I want to do with this article is focus on some steps people can take if they need to lose 100 pounds or more. Here are some ideas and site resources in no order. My only advice is tackle one at a time. 

1. You might want to start thinking about what you gain by being at your weight. This might sound odd, and have published an article on this entitled "What Is Beneath The Weight?"

2. Do a little digging and see how "ready" you are to commit to the weight loss process. PEERtrainer has developed a quick "Coaching Quiz" that will help you understand what your odds are of losing weight based on your current mindset. 

If you want to take some baby steps and have some ideas pushed to you as you get ready, please feel free to join our PEERtrainer Tip Of The Day coaching newsletter. If you go to the page you can learn a little more about this free program. 

3. Talk to your doctor and learn what diets and diet approaches doctors recommend. It also helps to learn what approaches are not recommended and why. But developing a relationship with your doctor, or finding a very compassionate one is an excellent start. If you had a bad experience with doctors, don't be turned off. There are many many doctors out there who care deeply.

 

4. Know that weight loss is possible. Do not get talked into thinking that bypass surgery is the only route for you if you have not made the progress that you want. Fruits and vegetables are very powerful, especially greens. They can be magic.

 

5. Weight Watchers is a great program to learn portion control. No matter what, you need to master the Weight Watchers points system so that you learn to how to make good decisions each day. They also give you three free online assessments which allow you quickly assess if you are ready to lose weight and what some of the specific health risks are.

 

6. PEERtrainer offers a free "Weightloss Bootcamp"- it is a series of 4 free calls that go over some proven approaches.

 

7. Really think about the impact the people around you on a daily basis have, and work over time to build a broad support network. Know that people you never expected are there to help you with an array of services- some free, some paid. But there are fundamental approaches that work, and will change how you think about everything.

Common Questions:

-Can I Lose 100 Pounds In 100 Days?

 

People write about this, and the Biggest Loser mentality has made extreme weight loss fashionable. But those people are under intense medical supervision. You can absolutely lose 100 pounds, but it is going to take a consistent effort and a real focus on the negative influences of those around you.

-What If I Really Don't Want To Lose Weight?

This is very common and one of the things Joshua Wayne talks about in the weight loss bootcamp is the idea of "secondary gain" where you get a benefit of a certain behavior. There are all sorts of situations where fat is actually the solution for people, rather than the problem. This is mental of course, which is why a psychotherapy approach to weight loss is needed along with an MD and a solid diet like Eat For Health or Weight Watchers. This is the focus of the PEERtrainer Coaching/Training Intensive.

What If I Really Like To Eat?

There is really nothing wrong with enjoying food. And you would be surprised how MUCH you can eat of certain foods. This blog post discusses recipes to help you lose weight. They really work!

Nutritional Tips For Physically Active Men

I get some great questions and great feedback in my "Tip of The Day" newsletter, and some of the emails that I respond to end up being tips themselves! In this post, I was asked by a 44 year old, physically active man, what nutrition advice I had. This is very general advice, and what I did was just try to give him one thing to focus on, one big idea. In this Tip Of The Day series we focus a lot on that, and we have some opinions on the subject.

We tend to really be open minded, but the #1 thing to communicate on the nutrition front is that you have to focus on greens each day- spinach, broccoli, brussels sprouts. And you have to eat this stuff in quantity. Most guys (the ones I know) have no problem drinking a ton of beer, eating a huge steak- so they should also have no problem eating a ton of greens.

This can also be easy and cheap. For example- go to the grocery store, buy a one pound bag of frozen spinach. $1.75 approx. Buy 4. Throw them in the freezer. At dinner time fire up a frying pan, sautee them in 5 minutes. Flavor it- maybe with some garlic sauteed in a couple spoonfuls of olive oil. Make it easy, but just do it.

What if you are out at a restaurant? Lets take a real world example- you go to PF Changs at the local mall or some other restaurant. The first thing you do is order a Large side of spinach. It is $5. $3 for the small. Add a side of brown rice and you basically have a meal. Another way to get the greens in is to always order a salad and get in the habit of buying salad bags.

The idea is you start to focus on making this a habit of yours. Black beans are also a great source of protein- they are cheap and easy to make. Get in the habit of buying them in cans- usually less than buck even for the organic ones at Whole Foods. If you do physical work, you probably get what I call "insane man hunger", and maybe after a tough day you grab some beers, some taco bell, Wendy's etc. Go easy on it, but know even here you have options to Always order a salad, and make sure you get your daily greens in.

Nutrition overall is complex and there is much that the experts don't know. But one idea that is rock solid is the idea of "nutrient density" which loosely translated means a PILE of fruits and veggies each day. Study after study shows how fruits and vegetables are very good for you. Again, not to be patronizing, but if you are a guy you know how to go overboard on stuff. Make that work for you.

Go overboard on the fruits and veggies and salads. The health implications are also huge. As you begin to consume massive amounts of greens, you health will likely improve, your energy will likely improve, even your mood perhaps!"

For other guys reading this and who have the same questions, approaches we see working include The Fat Smash Diet, Eat To Live and Skinny Bitch. Basically every new diet approach out there focuses on fruits and vegetables heavily. But the real question is not what to do, it is how!!

And if you find this post helpful in some way, you can have more tips sent to you each day with our "Tip Of The Day" newsletter

Great Advice From A 72 Year Old Man On Losing Weight

I just got this great email and I wanted to share it with you all:

Dear Jackie:

Thanks for creating this unique and beneficial website. I enjoy 
reading your postings and am a listener to your recently-launched
telephone conversations. I'm 72 years old, male, and a third of the 
way through a long-term (4 months) commitment to lose 15 lbs through a 
diet and exercise program of my own devising. PEERtrainer helps.

Dieting is tough, as you well know. It demands equal measures of 
patience, persistence, and common sense. There are dietary 
requirements (nutrition, portion size, frequency of meals) and 
exercise requirements ( cardio and weight training, stretching). 
Nothing can be rushed, and expectations must be kept in check. 
Plateaus are common and seem to last forever. Yet gradually, a pound 
at a time, interim goals will be met and written logs will confirm 
incremental gains in physical conditioning. I have more to say about 
goals below.

What motivated me to lose weight (this time: I've been here before) 
was disgust at the sight of the stranger looking back at me from 
behind the mirror of my medicine cabinet, and a desire to be healthy 
enough to enjoy the remaining decades of my life. My poor habits are 
changing. I'm paying attention to (but not obsessing over) the amount 
and quality of the food I eat and exercising 4-5 days a week. I've 
fought off discouragement after stepping on the scale and discovering 
to my horror that I'd gained a pound since the last weigh-in, and I've 
stopped weighing myself every day. To date, I've dropped 5 pounds.

Thursday night, you said that goal-setting is an important component 
of any successful weight-loss program, citing the example of fitting 
again into a favorite pair of jeans. I agree that goals are 
important , and the everyday example you offered was one we can all 
easily relate to. However, the reading I've done on the subject over 
the years has taught me that the "rewards" associated with dieting 
successfully and maintaining a healthy lifestyle are huge. In the 
context of the service that PEERtrainer is providing, it seems to me 
that "goals" and "rewards" are almost interchangeable.

My list of goals/rewards includes "lowers," lessers," "betters" and 
"greaters." Examples:

  lower body fat percentage, cholesterol, blood pressure, and resting 
heart rate;
  less physical pain and emotional anxiety  
  better breathing, skin tone, and sleeping: and
  greater concentration, flexibility, balance, confidence, strength and 
endurance, libido, and patience.

The beauty part of these improvements is that they all flow naturally 
from eating well, exercising regularly, and keeping one's weight 
down. One needn't concentrate on them; they just happen.

Advice For The Guys, How To Help Your Guys

By now you have gotten a good sense that the approach we take with PEERtrainer and with this daily newsletter is very much based in the fundamentals.

 

We advocate group support, daily journaling, we think Weight Watchers is great, we tell you to use your doctor to help you, show you the power of massive fruit and veggie intake.

 

But once you know that stuff, how do you actually do this on a daily basis? How do you interact with your friends? How do you interact with your spouse or partner?

 

Today I want to talk about guy specific stuff. I have a husband and a son. I know guys are different. I don't care if that is not PC or whatever, that's just how it is.

 

One simple thing I want you to focus on (and if you are a guy do this yourself), is the tendency of guys to eat whatever is in front of them. They don't eat emotionally, they are not conflicted about it. They just eat.

 

So make this work for you. Cut up fruits and veggies and leave them out. They will get eaten. Cut up apples or pineapple and leave it in the fridge. At 2 am they will magically disappear.

 

You also want to make sure to not nag, not say anything. Don't withhold the other stuff they love. Don't force them on a health kick. Just gently ease them into grazing on the good stuff.

 

Guys hate being hungry. Make that work for you.

 

Jackie