Is it the Dieter’s Mindset?

It is true that there are some tricky nuances to what makes a decision or thought pattern part of the dieter’s mindset or not. It can often be confusing and hard to tell the difference. But here is a handy question you can ask yourself when you are in doubt.

Am I tolerating the behaviour for the time it takes me to reach my goal weight – OR – can I enjoy this habit/lifestyle going forward as someone who weighs less?

One of the biggest differences between what we are doing in the Weighless method and a traditional diet is that the changes we are making are for life. That is why we place so much importance on not relying on willpower or trying to scrounge up motivation.

While a diet relies on you gritting your teeth, digging deep into your willpower, and counting down the days until you can return to “normal” we want you to avoid all of that and instead create a relationship with food and movement that will last forever.

So if you find yourself wondering if you are engaged in dieter thinking, ask yourself if you could do ______ forever. That will likely answer your question.

The Paradox of Distracted Eating

Photo of popcorn and a tv remote

We all do it, from time to time. We grab a bowl of popcorn, sit down in front of the TV, and shovel away. Before we know it, the entire bowl is gone and we don’t really remember eating it let alone how it tasted. And while this seems harmless enough, distracted eating can easily be one of the biggest reasons we gain weight or have trouble losing it. (Truly, I know people who have lost significant amounts of weight by simply banning food from their TV room)

Now, here is where the paradox comes in…

People often tell me that they need to have a book, a mobile device, a podcast, or a tv show playing while they eat because they “get bored” otherwise. 

BUT

People also tell me that they eat (even when they are not hungry) because they are bored and it “helps them pass the time.”

So… which is it?

And then things get complicated further when someone claims to be a “foodie” and can’t help themselves because they just love the taste of food … and yet they eat in the car, at their office desk, or in front of the tv. Is that what a true “foodie” does? Is that how to really enjoy the flavours, aromas and colours?

What I propose is a radical idea of not trying to turn your food into entertainment and also not trying to turn your entertainment into feeding time. If we keep them separate, we can fully enjoy both… even if we are a foodie

If you deliberately give your full attention to what is in front of you, no matter what it is, you will act with intention. And there is never a problem being more deliberate with any of our actions.

Do you inflate your feelings into justifications?

A member of this program (you know who you are) recently posted in the forum that she is doing really well in so many areas (nailing her daily weigh-ins, moving her body more, making healthy food choices) but one area where she struggles is turning to food when she is bored or stressed.

This is a topic that we cover quite a bit in the program and also in the Change Academy podcast (specifically in an episode called Stop Coping So Well) but I had a recent interaction with a close personal friend that I thought may be helpful.

To set the stage, the idea is that we may create (or at least inflate) the feelings that lead us to indulge, or temporarily abandon our goal, out of thin air.

Here is the example I gave:

A friend of mine is doing Dry-January (avoiding alcohol for 31 days) and only 5 days into the month he texted me saying that he “really wanted a drink!” I asked him why. He said, “I just finished a carpentry job in the house and that usually means beer.” I asked him what the project was. And he said (after a long pause), “Well, actually, I just put up two shelves…”

And like that, the craving was gone.

He went on with his day and is still on track with his Dry-January.

The take away from this story is that his brain, looking for a reason to fall back on the old habit, had turned a simple 10-minute job into a “carpentry project” to justify or convince his lower brain to have a beer.

The bigger point is that we do that with other emotions too. Stress, boredom, loneliness, celebration – our sneaky brains blow them up so we have a reason to indulge.

So next time you feel yourself reaching in to your bag of justifications take a minute and consider: am I really that ____________? Or am I inflating this into an excuse (that I will regret later).

Current self vs future self

Have you ever wondered what it is that keeps us stuck at a particular weight, or a particular level of fitness, or a particular amount of money in the bank (etc)? Well, I have. And I have to say that the answer is more surprising and simpler than I had imagined.

It is our habits.

This is how it goes: our behaviours/actions are based on our thoughts, and our thoughts are based on our inputs. Our inputs revolve mainly around our habits, and those habits are perfectly curated to support our current results (body weight, fitness, job, relationships, and so on).

Let me restate that: our current habits are the perfect blueprint to achieve our current life.

So, what do we need to focus on to create a change in our current lot in life? Developing new habits.

Current Self vs Future Self

Most of the habits we engage in on a daily basis are designed to satisfy our current self with little or no regard for our future self (let alone our ideal self). For example:

  • Current self passes the fridge and opens it up to see if there is something delicious in there to much on. Future self wishes that current self would show some self-control.
  • Current self sees that there is some extra money in the chequing account and decides to order-in dinner three nights this week. Future self sure wishes the retirement savings account was a little more robust (and our waist line was a little less robust).
  • Current self hits snooze one more time and rushes into work without doing the morning movement routine. Future self is stiff and lethargic.
  • You get the idea. Current self’s habits are holding future self in stasis which means ideal self is left to hang.

Building the Ideal Self

So, what if we designed our habits to support future self instead of only satisfying current self? Could we break out of a rut? Could we reach our larger life goals? Could we become the ideal self that current self only dreams of and future self laments?

Yes! Yes we can.

Remember that our current habits, behaviours and actions are exactly the ones that we need to repeat in order to continue to be the person we currently are.

So, in the Weighless program, we focus on what we need to do instead to move toward the person we desire to become. How we change those small behaviours, repeat a different set of habits, and (as we say in the program) “become the type of person who _insert_desired_outcome_here_” instead of remaining stuck in our current self.

So, what habits and behaviours does your ideal self engage in? What is holding you back from becoming the type of person who chooses those instead?

What makes it a workout?

In an article I wrote a while ago, I gave a brief history of the gym (or the “health club” as it was known). In my research, I discovered that it was in about 1977 that the majority of the population slowly started to be introduced to the idea that gyms were a place that you could go to “get fit.” But it didn’t really catch on until the 1980s.

I was 6-years-old in 1977 (and honestly didn’t step foot in a gym until the 1990s) and yet, many of you reading this and many of my peers still have the idea that you can’t get fit if you can’t afford, don’t like or don’t have time to get to the gym. Or more recently, don’t have a Peleton, treadmill or visit a yoga studio (real or virtual).

Interesting, eh? It really didn’t take us very long to somehow lose our innate ability to maintain our own fitness without outsourcing it to someone or someplace. And never has this lack of understanding been so pointed and obvious as it was during the pandemic.

Everyone and their dog is currently sharing their workouts on social media, asking people like me to teach some workouts they can do at home, and online workout services are gaining more traction than ever because of this lack of understanding of how to stay fit on our own. And I am not trying to shame anyone. This is a good and natural reaction but …

Give a person a workout video and they are sweaty for a day.
Teach a person how to exercise and they are fit for life. 

So, I want to make it simple for you. Are you ready?

The three criteria that a movement needs to fill in order to qualify as an exercise are:

  1. Raise your heart rate (a little or a lot)
  2. Challenge your muscles (a little or a lot)
  3. Tease your balance, coordination, and mobility (a little or a lot).

That is all.

Here’s an example: let’s say you are carrying the laundry basket up some stairs, how can make that into an exercise?

  • Go up the stairs quicker or two steps at a time,
  • add more weight to the laundry basket,
  • hold the basket in a different way than usual,
  • go up some of the stairs sideways.
  • Boom – you are exercising! And getting the laundry done!

Now you may be thinking, “that sounds too easy, what if I am more fit than that?”

Well, there are three factors that need to increase to create fitness, and they are:

  1. Distance (go farther)
  2. Duration (go longer)
  3. Intensity (go harder)

That is all.

Here’s an example of this: let’s say you have been carrying that same laundry basket up the stairs for a few weeks and it is feeling easy now. Then you could:

  • increase the intensity (by adding more weight to the basket or moving it more while you carry),
  • you could increase the distance (by going up and down the stairs a few times),
  • you could increase the duration (by taking each step slower and more controlled).
  • Boom – you are getting fitter from the same task!

Sure this is overly simplified. There are a lot more factors you can add in (like which body parts you want to develop) and more considerations that are fun to focus on (learning to do a pull-up) but when it comes to doing nothing (because you feel so lost) and doing something simple like this (because let’s face it, we all need to do laundry no matter what) I would choose this every time!

Is that Treat Really a Treat? Really?

At a very early age, society, advertising, and popular culture start instructing which foods are a treat and which aren’t a treat. I remember Saturday morning cartoons glorifying cupcakes, cheeseburgers, doughnuts and candy while vilifying vegetables, fish, liver and cottage cheese. It’s insidious the way they programmed us to believe that a doughnut is a treat and it should be gobbled up the moment it presents itself but we should only eat spinach if we are forced to by an authority figure (mom or a doctor).

But the great thing about becoming an adult is that we have the free will to actually test these societal assumptions and make up our own minds. If – and that is a big IF – we take the time to do so. And that is the key right there.

Here is an experiment: the next time a coworker brings in a box of some type of sugared-dough or other, watch as everyone devours them. Are they even tasting anything? Does anyone savour their treat? Or are they simply reacting to some ancient programming that tells us: sugar + dough = yum.

But does it? Really? Every single time?

It may seem like I am picking on doughnuts here (and I am) because I personally had a revelation a few years ago that most doughnuts actually suck. And on top of that, they give me a bit of a stomach ache and, after the brief sugar rush, make my energy levels plummet for the rest of the day.

After I tested the theory a few more times and decided I was right, I stopped eating the doughnuts that were brought into the office (nearly) every Friday. In fact, I became known as “the guy who doesn’t like doughnuts” around the office. A badge of honour and pride that was envied by many of my coworkers who had decided years ago that they were powerless to resist the sugar-dough combo in any form. It appeared to them that I had some superpower. But in reality, I had just taken time to test the theory that these so-called treats were actually a treat to me.

They weren’t.

And with that new knowledge, I didn’t have to use any willpower, motivation or superpower to say “no thanks” to them. I honestly did not want them or the repercussions they brought with them. And I am not even talking about calories here.

After that, I started testing other so-called treats and sure, a few of them are still on my list (I am a sucker for whipped cream) but many others went the way of the doughnut. And on the flip side, I realized that grabbing a bowl of spinach to eat popcorn-style was something I really enjoyed.

  • Cupcakes – nope.
  • Hard Candy – never.
  • Pie (most fruit) – yup!
  • Brussel Sprouts – yes, please!
  • Cottage Cheese (with ground pepper & diced carrots) – hell yeah!
  • French Fries – hard pass (I know, right?!?)

The Fries thing I actually owe to my partner who pointed out to me one day over a burger and fries “Why do you order fries? You never eat more than a couple. Why don’t you get something you like?” Mind blown! I had equated those words together for so long (burger and fries) that I didn’t even consider that I don’t actually like fries!

The challenge!

I challenge you to take the time to actually taste your food, fully experience it – in the moment and also for the few hours after – and make up your mind for yourself. Treat or not?

You may find that birthday cake holds no allure but a stalk of rhubarb does. Those generic cookies you buy in a box from a little girl in a funky outfit are flavourless and pasty while the cookies made by your mother-in-law are totally worth it. Just because the words “burger and fries” are often said together that doesn’t make them a must-have combo, if you don’t actually enjoy the fries.

What is a treat to you and only you? You independent and discerning individual?

 

Move your body when you can this holiday season

Time is tight during the holidays, and that may mean that you really do not have time to do your regular exercise minute routine.

Usually, I walk 15 minutes to the gym, do 40 minutes of throwing around something fun and heavy, and then walk 15 minutes home again. That is 70 minutes that I definitely will not have while I am prepping for holiday festivities and trying to maintain my status of “super cool uncle.”

But that does not mean I will throw in the towel and skip my movement practice altogether. I will simply do what I can with the time I have.

Here are a few things I plan to do and that you can also try.

  1. Turn errands and chores into exercise. This can be as easy to do as walking to the store with a couple of bags and a backpack to pick up the holiday meal ingredients or last-minute presents. Or it can be more involved, like adding some extra challenges to shovelling the walk. Personally, I like to alternate which hand I use on the shovel and also challenge myself to see how far I can throw the snow.
  2. Do some short movement breaks throughout the day when you have a few minutes. Burpees, jumping jacks, squat jumps and other full-body movements are great activities to pepper in when you don’t have much time but want to get your heart rate up. The key is to choose multi-joint and full-body movements to maximize the impact these short bursts of movement will have. If nothing else, get up 7 minutes early and do the Scientific 7-Minute Workout before you even say good morning to anyone.
  3. Turn outdoor fun into fitness. There are many great outdoor activities available to us at this time of year—and many of them can be turned into a real workout with a slight variation. For example: sledding. Sure you could watch the young ones go up and down the hill while you take pictures on your phone, but how about taking it to the next level by joining in and running up the hill each time instead of doing the traditional trudge. For bonus points, invite some kids to add some weight to your toboggan by giving them a ride up the hill. Use your imagination and make it fun!

When time is tight, focus on doing what you can, when you can, with as much of your body as you can. That is much MUCH better than doing nothing and crossing your fingers while waiting for Jan 1 to roll around.

Menopause and the Middle-Age Spread

Although we have members spanning a wide demographic range,, one well-represented group is perimenopausal and menopausal women. As a result, a common question that pops up is whether or not the “middle-age spread” is inevitable.

But, as we are learning, just because something is common, doesn’t mean it is inevitable.

I recently interviewed Dr. Tamsin Lewis on the Get-Fit Guy podcast. Dr. Tam is both an Ironman athlete and a Medical Doctor as well as being a middle-aged woman herself. So she understands the body both medically and athletically.

When I asked Dr. Tam if this middle-age spread is indeed inevitable, she replied: “I don’t think anything in life is inevitable, is it? Apart from death and taxes. Menopausal weight gain is certainly common, but that doesn’t mean it is inevitable or even normal.”

“Theoretically, [during menopause], your body does become more prone to storing weight around the middle.” and that is why she advises the patients that she works with to make some changes to their diet, how they exercise, and perhaps even look into hormonal supplementation.

Dr. Tam’s specific recommendations, all of which align perfectly with the Weighless philosophy and practices, include:

  • Reducing simple carbs to control blood sugar and fat storage,
  • increasing protein to maintain muscle mass and even build some more,
  • focusing more exercise effort on strength training, especially of the larger muscle groups,
  • choosing activities you enjoy and find de-stressing.

You can listen to the complete interview here.

In the Weighless Program, we are learning to question common assumptions and dissect “conventional wisdom.” We also experiment with changes in exercise and diet to learn how our bodies respond, rather than accept a one-size-fits-all solution–or throw our hands in the air in defeat.

Ageing happens, there is no doubt – but that doesn’t mean we have to go down without a fight!