Your Guide To Weight Loss
Hi,
My name is Devin, and I am a fitness professional.
I also love to eat, drink great beer from
Wrong Crowd Brewing Company
, and enjoy delicious food from my favorite restaurants in West Chester, PA like
Kildare’s Irish Pub
and at the end of the day enjoy things that don’t fit perfectly into a weight loss diet.
Just like so many people throughout this lockdown, I gained weight.
I gained 10lb to be exact, and that’s on top of the additional 10lb that I gained in the year prior.
On January 3rd (After the holidays truly felt like they were finished), I decided to drop the weight and Since then I’ve lost the first 10lb, and I want to tell you how I did it.
This will not be a meal plan or to tell you exactly how many calories you need to eat… For that, you’ll need to
schedule a meeting with us in person
since everyone has VASTLY different needs, and any generic plan will ultimately fail you…
This is a guide to the principles that I’ve followed that have allowed me to eat some of my favorite foods, drink the beer, and enjoy life while still losing weight.
Ready? Lets dive in.
1. “Expect turbulence”
Imagine going on your first airplane flight, being nervous (because you’re in the SKY!) and nobody telling you about the common occurrence of Turbulence.
You’re flying through the air and the plane starts shaking and drinks fall to the ground… I imagine you’d freak the heck out. Right?
That’s why every time you’re on a plane, the pilot will ALWAYS let you know that you can expect some bumps along the way.
This is me telling you that you should expect some bumps along the way. If you know that going into it, you won’t freak the hell out when you see your weight bump up on the scale!
During this process, I weigh myself everyday. This isn’t how everyone should do it, but it helps me, and it usually looks like this…
-1lb, -1lb, -1lb, +2lb, -1lb, +3lb, -2lb, +1lb, -3lb
You can expect your weight to fluctuate every single day! Due to stress, sleep, sodium, how hard you workout and many other factors… Your weight will fluctuate.
The key here is to track overall trends, and NOT put any stake into your daily weight. If you stick to you plan, the weight WILL come off.
2. Hunger is a liar.
For years we’ve been told to eat when you feel hungry. I’m here to tell you that this is only good advice for a small amount of people.
For the most part, I imagine if you’ve gained weight it’s because you ate when you were hungry, and you were hungry a lot! The problem is that a lot of us that gained weight have distorted hunger hormones, and we’ve over-eaten for so long that we are conditioned to feel hungry often.
The feeling of hunger is not triggered by your body’s need for nutrition. We live in a world of overconsumption, and there’s no shortage of calories around us.
The feeling of hunger is typically triggered by our own conditioning. Just like pavlov’s dog, there are certain “triggers” in our environment like sights, sounds and emotions that make use feel hungry- Even if we’ve already eaten too much.
If you eat ice cream while watching TV on the couch enough times, every time you watch TV on the couch you’re going to feel hungry for ice cream. This is just one example of hunger tricking you.
The key to breaking through Hunger cravings is to understand your daily caloric needs, and know exactly when you’ve reached them… Taking a second to remind yourself “Yes, I feel hunger but I know that my body doesn’t need to eat… This is my mind playing tricks on me” can go a long way in staying on track.
3. No Shame.
Shame is a key to the cycle of overeating.
The way our minds work is actually very primitive… We want to feel good, and whatever has made us feel good in the past is what our minds will urge us to do first.
A lot of us have been raised in families where food was used for comfort and it reminds us of happy times.
Here’s how the mind can trick us into overeating using Shame.
You:
I’m stressed about work
Brain:
The last time you were stressed, you ate ice cream in bed and you forgot about all that stress and felt great. You should do that!
**Eats ice cream in bed**
You:
UGH! Now I feel horrible, I blew my diet and I’m going to lose all the progress I made… This feels terrible!
Brain:
Well, the last time you felt bad we ate ice Cream in bed and it made you feel happy for a few minutes… You should do that!
**Eats more ice cream in bed**
You:
UGH! I did it again!!
….And the cycle continues. The cycle goes like this… You feel stress–> your mind remedies it with previous negative behavior –> You feel shame/stress about that negative behavior –> your mind tries to remedy THAT stress with all it knows, which is that same negative behavior…
The key is to remove the shame, and move on.
When we can do that, it looks like this:
You:
I’m stressed about work!
Brain:
The last time you were stressed, you ate ice cream in bed and you forgot about all that stress and felt great. You should do that!
**Eats ice cream in bed**
You:
Well, that actually made me feel good in the moment. But tomorrow morning I’m back on track with my diet. Slip ups happen, time to move on.
Brain:
Cool!
Expect turbulence in your diet- Not only in the scale, but in your behaviors and remind yourself that it’s all built into your plan.
…These are the guiding principles I’ve used for weight loss success in the past, as well as currently.
If you live in West Chester, PA and are looking for a proven weight loss program then click the button below to learn about our 21 Day Rapid Weight Loss program!
