TABLE OF CONTENT
Introduction……………………………...……………………………………………………….1
The Problem with my Mental Approach………………………..……………………………..2
Mental adjustments……………………………………………………………………………..2
Stop watching the scale………………………………………………………………………...4
Your “why”………………………………………………………………………………………..4
Scales are the ENEMY…………………………………………………………………………5
Time - Persistence - Patience – Forgiveness………………………………………………..5
Forgiveness………………………………………………………………………………………7
Forming the vision……………………………………………………………………………….8
Conclusion………………………………………………………………………………….……9
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Introduction
I’ll keep this introduction short and sweet. I’ve struggled with weight loss for a very
long time, and I’ve made every possible mistake you can make when it comes to
weight loss. I would love for you to take advantage of the lessons that I’ve learned. I
will be sharing more of my story with you via email over the next few weeks, so be on
the lookout for that. That being said, I’ve experienced well over 75 unsuccessful
attempts to lose weight over the span of 10 or so years. THE MOST FRUSTRATING
EXPERIENCE OF MY LIFE!! During that time it felt as though nothing worked, and each
attempt I made at weight loss came with failure and a loss of confidence. I tried the
soup diet, the Atkins diets, the egg diet, and even the water diet. You name a diet, I’m
pretty sure I tried it (some of them even 2 or three times). Throughout each attempt and
failure, I couldn’t figure out why I was unable to achieve long-term success for the life
of me; I lifted weights, I ate exactly how these diets suggested, I stayed away from
alcohol, I parked in the back of the parking lot, I took the stairs instead of the elevator, I
stopped eating after 7, I did 45 minutes of cardio 6 days a week, I counted calories, I
skipped meals. I literally tried every action possible to lose this weight and nothing
would work. I mean, I would lose 10 or 20 pounds here and there, which is a very
insignificant amount of weight when you’re goal is to lose 150lbs, but the effects
weren’t long-term. This cycle became repetitive and very unhealthy for me both
physically and mentally. The repeated failures left me in a helpless, depressed state
that ultimately lead me to gain more and more weight as the years went on.
After failing countless times you get a pretty decent understanding of what doesn’t
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work. I couldn’t just give up and eat myself into an early grave; I had to figure out a
different approach.
Why did I keep failing? Here’s why: I was looking for quick fixes. I made drastic
changes to my lifestyle that I couldn’t realistically sustain for longer than a month or
two. I was under eating and over training, and I was following the latest diet trends
instead of properly nourishing my body. All of that being said, the main reason I believe
every single attempt ended in failure was my MINDSET.
My mental approach to weight loss was sabotaging any potential success before I
even got started!
The first step to changing any part of your life is to change your mind. The way you
think will always determine your success.
Focusing on the mental approach is not the usual first step for people who are
embarking on weight loss missions, but it most definitely should be.
The Problem with my Mental Approach
I want to explain all of this to you for two reasons. First and foremost, I’m pretty
sure most of you reading this can relate to my story and I want you to learn from my
experience. Secondly, I want you to know that you are not alone. Millions of people
and I all share these problems with you. I know I tend to isolate myself in my own
misery, but it helps me a great deal to know that I am not the only person experiencing
such difficulty. To get to the point, the problem with my mental approach was:
1. I went on a “diet”
2. I was looking for the quickest/easiest route to achieving my weight loss goals
3. I had very short-term vision
4. I had the “eat less, train more” mentality.
Mental Adjustments
“No more diets.”
The first adjustment we should make when trying to lose weight and keep it off for
good is to get the concept of “going on a diet” as far from our minds as possible. The
word diet is defined as, “the kinds of food that a person, animal, or community
habitually eats”. Somehow, though, the word that once simply translated to “the food
we eat” has turned into a word with (in my opinion) derogatory meaning. The term diet
has become associated with adopting drastic eating habits that are extremely different
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from the ones we currently have. When we go
on a “diet” we set ourselves up for failure from
the very start. Most of the time this means
we’re cutting out vital food groups from our life,
we’re aggressively restricting calories, or we’re
simply not eating in a way that we enjoy! If it
was your first day in the gym, I wouldn’t ask
you to do 500 burpees, but most of us attempt
to do the nutritional equivalent of 500 burpees
on day 1 instead of slowly making changes that
can be realistically sustained.
Habits
Our current body composition is a result of the foods we eat, but let’s break that
down to an even deeper level: Our body composition and health is a direct result of our
eating HABITS. Google defines a habit as, “a settled or regular tendency or practice,
especially one that is hard to give up”. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a healthy eating
HABIT that is hard to give up? Our habits are responsible for what our bodies look like.
Our outer appearance is a direct reflection of our eating, exercise, sleep and thinking
habits. Habits are formed through repetition, and guess what? It took you [Insert age]
years to build the habits you currently have. It took the action of constantly repeating
certain dietary choices in order for these choices to become a part of you, a part of
your subconscious. I say all of this to make a larger point: it is going to take time to
reform and replace these habits. The exact time will vary from person to person. For
me, it took about a year to replace old habits and settle into new habits that aligned
with my goals. The good news is that it can be done! You can form new lifestyle habits
that will not only get you the body of your dreams, but will allow you to maintain that
body for the rest of your life.
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Stop watching the scale
Those 3 little numbers had way too much control
over me physically and mentally. If the scaled didn’t
show me what I was hoping when I stepped on I felt
instantly depressed. This depression would make me
want to eat bad foods to make me feel better; it also
discouraged me from wanting to workout. I figured,
“I’m not losing any weight, so what’s the point?”
There are 2 aspects of this scenario that I want to talk
about: Your “why” and why the scale is your enemy.
Your why
Your “why” is your reason, the driving force behind your actions. Why are you
eating healthy? Why are you exercising? Is it only to lose weight and look good? If so, I
have some bad news for you. Those sort of “why’s” are never enough. These are what
I like to call “surface level why’s.” Why’s that aren’t attached to things with deeply
profound meaning are never enough to keep someone on the path of change.
Developing the habits to lose weight for good and to adopt a healthy lifestyle is a really
challenging process that requires a lot of grit and perseverance.
Here’s a scenario: Say we have 2
people, person A and person B. They both
need to lose 50lbs. They both have busy
schedules, really bad eating habits and no
prior experience in the gym. Person A
wants to lose weight so that she’ll look
good in a bikini, and person B needs to
lose weight to get rid of a life threatening
medical condition. Who do you think is
going to be more successful? Of course
Person B, because their “why” is LIFE. So
changing your why changes EVERYTHING.
Before I get into the details of why
the scale is the enemy, I want to address
this from a larger scaled view (pardon the pun). When I stepped on the scale and saw
that the number hadn’t budged, I would lose all motivation to workout and eat healthy.
My “why” in the past was to look good. My why wasn’t health and wellness, my why
wasn’t to be alive for my children, my why wasn’t to improve my overall quality of life.
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This is why I was discouraged when the scale wouldn’t respond the way I wanted it to.
I was eating healthy foods that were nourishing my body, exercising regularly,
strengthening my heart, increasing my energy levels, and improving my sleep quality.
Little did I know, none of that mattered because the ONLY reason I was doing it was to
lose weight and look good in a tank top. So of course when the scale didn’t reflect
weight loss, I lost my motivation. I was doing it for the wrong reason; my particular
“why” wasn’t enough.
Scales are the ENEMY
The scale don’t know sh&*! There are so many factors that make your traditional
bathroom scale the absolute worst way to monitor your progress. It doesn’t measure
the true wins that I mentioned in the previous paragraph (energy levels, cardiovascular
health, sleep quality). The bathroom scales that most of us use also fail to consider
water retention, muscle gain, and a host of other factors that lend to the silly 3 digit
number.
The best way to monitor your progress, in my opinion, is through measurements
and body fat percentages. There are several tools available to assist with these
particular methods of measurement.
Time - Persistence - Patience – Forgiveness
The desire for instant gratification is a really big reason most of us fail at
achieving long-term success with weight loss. I’m from what is being deemed as “the
microwave generation,” where technology and the speed of life have made us ever so
impatient. We are so used to things happening instantly, and it has skewed our
perception of processes.
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Time
Most of us have at least another 60-70 years of life left to live. What’s the rush?
Nothing truly awe inspiring, incredible, or profoundly impactful happens fast. So why
do we expect something as life changing as weight loss to happen so quickly? We set
ourselves up for failure with unrealistic timelines, corner cutting, and the desire for
change NOW. Weight loss is not a linear process. Some weeks you may lose 3lbs,
some weeks you may lose 5, and then there may be a period of 2 weeks where the
scale doesn’t budge one bit. Or even more terrifying, the scale may actually read a
pound or 2 heavier. This is why persistence is so important.
Persistence
The peaks and valleys of a weight loss journey are inevitable. You have to
develop the mental toughness and long-term vision that will allow you to persist
through the darkness in the valleys.
Yes, you will celebrate and have a rush of excitement and motivation when you
step on the scale after a week of hard work and see that you’ve lost 5 lbs; however,
what about when you step on the scale after doing “everything right” for a week and
the number reads 2 lbs more than last week? There’s no celebration, there’s no rush of
excitement, there’s no replenishing of your motivation. What do you do then? These
are the moments that will define you and will build your character. More importantly,
these are the moments when the vision for your body will have to drive you to be
persistent.
Patience
This might as well be cut down to a word with 4 letters that isn’t allowed to be
said on TV, radio, or in the presence of children. LOL! Patience is such a big issue for
many of us when it comes to weight loss and here’s why I think it is: Yes we are eager
to see the number on the scale drop and to get back to our high school bodies;
however, I think we become more impatient with the process of losing weight because
we are taking measures that are extreme and totally foreign to us. Of course if you eat
in a way that makes you miserable, or inconvenience the flow of your life by going to
the gym 6 days a week for 2 hours a day you are going to want to see an instant return
on that investment.
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Approaching the process of weight loss with the understanding that it’s going to
take a while to achieve your goals will allow you to pace yourself better. You will take a
more realistic approach to your journey that will allow you to stick to it longer, thereby
slowly forming these new lifestyle practices into habits. BINGO!!!!
Forgiveness
I remember times on my weight loss journey when I beat myself up mentally
when things weren’t going the way I wanted them to. I would beat myself up if the
scale didn’t go down, if I slipped up and over ate, or if I didn’t feel 100% in the gym.
My impatience and instant result seeking mentality had a lot to do with my reaction to
these normal, human offenses.
It is 100% certain that you will “mess up”. You will have days where you slip up
and eat that chocolate cake at the company potluck. There will be days where you will
skip the gym simply because you didn’t feel like going. There will be days where you
end up eating pizza at 12am after having a few drinks with friends. You have to forgive
yourself for being human. It’s imperative that you develop a short-term memory and
forgive yourself when you fall short. Keep. It. Going!! I’m not saying that these sorts of
occurrences should happen regularly with the excuse of being human. Yes these
offenses will set you back slightly, but you only set yourself back further by allowing
these occurrences to demoralize you. I remember having a very twisted logic. Take this
scenario for example: Let’s say I was invited to a birthday brunch and I ate 6 red velvet
pancakes with cheese eggs and a side of grits. First, I would have a looming feeling of
guilt that would literally terrorize me. Then I would proceed to not workout that day (or
the next day) because in my head it didn’t make sense to workout if I “messed up” on
“my diet”. This way of thinking couldn’t be any more illogical and downright stupid.
With this way of thinking, one slip up would cause me to skip 2 workouts, which in turn
made me feel like a quitter and caused me to feel ashamed of myself. This would then
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lead to me to eat something (or 5 things) that didn’t align with my goals in an attempt
to feel better, and the downward spiral would continue. I’m pretty sure a lot of people
can identify with this mindset and negative cycle. Forgiveness is a must. Learn from
your mistakes. Short-term memory with your shortcomings, long-term vision with your
goals!
Instead of beating yourself up after eating something that didn’t align with your
goals, assess the situation. Look for the lesson buried in your mistake and adjust. Here
are a few examples of the kinds of questions you can ask yourself when you find
yourself falling off your path: What caused this extreme craving? Do I have enough
balance in my diet? What adjustments can I make to my nutrition plan to prevent me
from feeling deprived of the foods I love? Am I getting enough sleep? Believe it or not,
there may be bio-chemical reasons why you may have had a moment of low will. I’m
not saying that there always is a scientific explanation behind your cravings, just
making you aware that there are more factors that contribute to these “slips up” than
you think.
Forming the vision
Warning: this section may come across as a little unorthodox to the more
concrete thinkers. A big part of my mentality was molded by my faith in the vision I
formed for my body. The vision was very specific and very vivid. I believe the
subconscious mind is the true orchestrator of our lives. The subconscious is where all
of our habits, beliefs and motives reside. I burned this vision into my subconscious so
that my thoughtless actions would bring me closer and closer towards it. (I will do an
entire e-book about the programming of your subconscious; so don’t worry if the
concept is unclear to you after reading this section). I would use before and after
pictures from other people as my wallpaper. I would cut out pictures of men with
similar body types to the one I was aiming for and I would post them on vision boards.
The manifestation of this vision for my body became a mission. And there are few
things more powerful than a person on the right mission for the right reasons.
Don’t buy the foolish dreams they’re selling
The weight loss industry loves to over promise in attempts to get your money.
These companies have made millions of dollars preying on innocent people who are
desperately looking for a solution to their problem. Most weight loss advertisements
include false and misleading claims. Make sure you read these ads with skepticism, as
most will certainly under-deliver. Watch out for ads with claims such as “rapid weight
loss,” “no diet or exercise required,” “eat whatever you want and still lose weight.”
When you spot these red flags, just pass them by.
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So what now?
If you’re reading this I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate you.
Taking the initiative to simply download this e-book and actually read it is a step that
many people don’t take. Most are stuck in that contemplation stage, thinking about
trying to lose weight but have yet to take any action. Taking this step puts you further
ahead than you may think. Here are the main mindset shifts I want you to make:
1. You are no longer “going on a diet.” You are restructuring your eating habits.
Understand that this is a slow process which is going to take several months, or
maybe even years for some of us.
2. You are going to approach your workout plan with the concept of consistency
rather than intensity. It’s far more effective in the long-term for you to commit to
3 days of walking and stick to it forever than to do 6 days of weights and cardio
for 2 months and quit.
3. You are going to get rid of any timelines that you have in your head. It’s good to
set short-term goals, but make sure there are no numbers involved. Make your
goal to fit into your old jeans, to improve your energy levels, or to correct the
pain in your lower back. No more “I want to lose 20lbs in 3 weeks” type of goals.
Conclusion
The weight loss mindset shift is the step before the first step. When you adjust
your mental approach, you put yourself at an advantage. You become a power player
in the weight loss game. It’s the one domino you knock down that causes the rest of
them to fall easily and effortlessly.
Thank you for taking the time to read this information. I hope it helps bring you one
step closer to achieving your fitness goals.
-Robert Brix Glover
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