Category: Deep thoughts

We’ve talked about why our weight may fluctuate from day to day and how this does not reflect fat loss.

• A high-salt meal (or hormonal swings) can lead to water retention
• A high fiber meal (or slow digestion) can increase waste in the system
• Strenuous exercise (or other issues) may lead to inflammation

All of these can cause your weight to fluctuate from day to day, or even week to week.

And here’s the truth: Becoming someone who weighs less doesn’t necessarily mean that we won’t continue to experience these fluctuations.   If your weight fluctuates a good deal now, it will likely continue to.. And that’s OK. 

As you practice more weighless behaviors, your entire range will slowly slide down. So instead of your weekly checkpoints fluctuating from 175 to 180, they start fluctuating between 170 and 175 and then between 165 and 170, and so on. 

So, we may expect that if we’re doing this “right,” our graph will look like this:

But often, they look more like this:

Both have lost approximately the same amount of weight.

The point here is that fluctuation is not a problem–unless we allow it to throw us off our game. Unless we make it an excuse to give up. So if you’re a high flux individual, try to take those weekly ups and downs in stride. As long as that bumpy curve is trending bumpily down. you’re doing fine.

And if it’s not, let’s figure out where your most impactful wins and missed opportunities are lurking.

In the Weighless program, we are not just here to give pep talks or give you something interesting to think about. We are offering tools that can help you create the results you want. But they have to be picked up and used.

So often we see people whose entire effort is comprised of completely passive activities: reading, researching, thinking, planning. All of those things have their place. But you’ve got to actually take some action if you want to see change happen.

If you’re thinking but not doing…

If you’re learning, but not taking action…

If you’re “inspired” but not actually moving…

…then you are sitting on the sidelines of your own life.

The only way to reach your goal is to get on the field. Yes, you might drop the ball or lose yards. But you can’t win (or lose!) by standing on the sidelines

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!

We often talk about the many choices that we get to make each day about whether, what, and how much we want to eat. Becoming more aware of these choices is one of the first thing we work on in the year long Weighless program.  But our members are often confused about this at first.

They think this means self-policing every move.

They think doing it “right” means always doing what they “should.”

But it’s more subtle than that. It’s about noticing how often we actually have an opportunity to make a choice. (Remember: A habit is just a choice we don’t realize we’re making.)

Because when we can tune into the fact that we’re actually making a choice, making a different choice suddenly becomes an option!

So, before I reflexively order/serve/grab/eat something, I take a moment to consider: Am I actually hungry or just responding to a cue? Do I really want this or would something else be more satisfying?

The other big misunderstanding is that your only two choices are Yes and No.   (And that the right choice is always No.)

But these are not your only choices!  Other great choices include:

“Yes, but just half that much, thanks.”

“Yes, but not right now. I think I’ll save that for later.”

“No, I’d actually much prefer ____________ instead.”

And, of course, every once in a while the right choice is: “HELL YES!!”

So, as you continue to tune in to the many choices you get to make every day, try to enjoy the freedom this offers you. See if you can find ways to say Yes more often, but in ways that are more aligned with your goal of weighing less.

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?