What Motivated Me to Lose Weight This Week

If you've listened to this podcast you know last year I lost 30 lbs. I looked so much better, felt better, and just about the time I was going to reach my goal, I started reverting back to my old habits. I thought I would coast across the finish line. I listened to 25 Days: A Proven Program to Rewire Your Brain, Stop Weight Gain, and ( http://amzn.to/2wmxC46 ) Finally Crush the Habits You Hate - Forever by Drew Logan (Author), Myatt Murphy (Author). In the book, he talks about how we often approach weight loss the same way we do a test in High School. We cram for the test, and the minute we hand in our paper we wipe away that information. I am also listening (I rarely read, I listen to most of the books) to The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Busines ( http://amzn.to/2y79EGo ) and in that book he explains how you don't get new habits, you replace old habits with new ones. A key point I learned (so far as I'm only into chapter three) is that the old habits are still there. Think of this like a river. Over years the banks of the river and the twist and turns are well defined. If you come along and throw up a dam to re-route the river the old river doesn't cease to exist. There just isn't any water in it. So if you decide to take away the dam, it's very easy for the water to go right back into the old pathway of the river. Think of how hard it was to build the dam, and re-route the river, and think of how easy it would be to have the water to return to its old river path. This is why we have to be very careful when we decide to have "just one" of something. That can be the crack in the dam that starts the whole negative ball in motion. When this happens, we need to look at what is triggering us, and eliminate the trigger, or come up with another solution. I'm not sure who or why, but I started going to Walmart on Friday nights. I live alone, and I guess I figure most people are out starting the weekend, and it would be less crowded. This is a Walmart with groceries, and they have a decent selection so I often go there to stock up so I'm ready for my Sunday night "cook a bunch of stuff for the week" routine. There is a Chipotle and a Dairy Queen right in front of Walmart. One week I had a good week, and my weight was going down. I decided that Chipotle was a better bad choice, and went in and had my chicken tacos with lettuce, cheese, and mild salsa. I had a coke. Stike one for getting a coke. Then after the meal, the chicken always leaves me thirsty (probably due to the spices and salt content). Instead of getting a water, or even worse, a coke, one week I went to Dairy Queen and got an oreo cookie blizzard. The next day the scale didn't go up! WOW! What a positive reward. I started adding Chipotle and dairy queen to my weekly routine. The bad news is, the scale started going the wrong way. Also, the blizzards at Dair Queen started to inch into Chocolate Frosty's at Wendy's. The dam had broken and here I was back at my old habits. In the past, I've chosen to go to a different store to avoid the whole situation. That's kind of a bite off your face to spite your nose situation. I wanted to look at what was the trigger? Was it Walmart and just seeing the Dairy Queen? Maybe. In The Power of Habit ( http://amzn.to/2y79EGo ) , the author mentions that Cinnabon locations in malls are typically not in the food court. Why? Because they want the smell to waft down the hall and entice you so that as soon as you SEE the store, you're already having a craving. What is a healthier solution? There are a few. I could drink water, and after the Chipotle, drink more water to get the spices out of my mouth, or pop a breath mint. If the spices make me crave ice cream, then find a new solution. The obvious option is to NOT go to Chipotle. I could eat a healthy meal at home (the whole point of chipotle is to not go grocery shopping hungry) and then go Grocery shopping. The 25 Days Method ------------------ There is a set of eating plans (high protein, low carb - what a shock). Why I like this idea is you focus on your next meal. Pick your protein, pick your vegetable (or carb). Drink a glass of water. Do it right, and you give yourself 100%. You do this for all your meals and also for your workout, and you score yourself. If you can get 85% or better for the day, you're headed in the right direction. Obviously, 100% is better, but we all know life happens and you can't be perfect all the time. I LOVE the focus on your next meal. Then you start to need something to keep track of things. On odd days (what he calls Primary Days) you each three meals, and two snacks (one snack after breakfast and lunch). On even days you get one snack after lunch. The timing is you are supposed to wait three hours after every meal to have a snack and wait two hours after a snack to have a meal. He keeps telling you how simple it is, and to a point some of it is. The deeper you go, the more you need a tracking sheet. As I listened to this book through hoopla ( https://www.hoopladigital.com/my/hoopla ) (a service tied to your library to allow you to check out audio and books) I don't have access to a PDF resource listed in the book. I even went to the publisher's website listed in the book (where you provide a password for a pdf). The pdf is not listed (BOO!). As an audiobook, this book gets boring as about 50% of the book is him either explaining how the 25 days plans is the best plan, etc. Then he reads a bunch of recipes, and that is followed by someone describing exercises. *Drew Logan breaks it down* into *three steps* Disrupt Existing Behaviours Simple Repetition Make sure you have cues to trigger the positive action. Taking a Cue From Alcoholics Annonymous --------------------------------------- Alcoholics replace their habit of drinking by replacing it with a healthier habit. If they were going to a bar for friendship and to battle loneliness, they now get that from their sponsor. If they were drinking to forget or to cope with something that was bothering them, they now can get help through therapy. Those needs for friendship, or coping with trauma don't go away. They just find a healthier solution. If I were to sit on a couch and talk to a therapist I would probably say I still have not finished the grieving process from my mother's death when I was 24. I became a bit of a workaholic as I realized that we only have so much time on the planet. I want to leave a legacy, and when I feel I'm not making an impact, I stress out a bit. As more of my family members die (I lost a cousin this week due to a motorcycle accident), my mortality smack me in the face. It's kind of stupid, If I think about the death of my older brother (who is healthy as a horse) I stress out. It's stupid as I'm worrying about things I have no control over. I say this to give you the idea of the things that add stress to our lives that in the end there are probably healthier ways to deal with them than running to the fridge. What Motivated Me This Week --------------------------- I spoke at an event a month ago, and I saw some video from the event. I have a classic "Dad Bod." I refuse to let this happen. I am going to be the exception NOT the rule. So I've printed these images out and put them on my fridge. A reminder of what snacking, etc, leads to. I also have one in my car. I'm not looking for a six pack. I just don't want to look like I'm smuggling watermelon under my shirt. I will be speaking at an event in February 2018. My birthday falls on the day of the event. I want to hit my goal weight by my birthday. To do this, I need to lose 1.2 lbs a week. Not a super hard goal (.18 lbs per day), but something I will need to focus on. To help me see if I'm on track, I made a worksheet in Google Sheets (you can use Microsoft Excel) to show if I'm ahead or behind schedule. I even added a chart. In the Logical Losers Weight Loss Club, I show you how to create these spreadsheet (even if you don't know spreadsheets). You can have access to the Logical Losers Patreon/Facebook group for as little as $1 a month. Go to www.logicallosers.com Logical Weight Loss listeners "Get 25% off their first purchase + free shipping + free 30 day trial!" Keep in mind that their prices are already 25- 50% below retail because they cut out the middleman. And now we're offering an extra 25% off their first purchase! Go to thrivemarket.com/LWL