It’s a warm, sunny day here on Long Island, and with last night’s games washed away with a completely flooded field, I’m antsy to get shit done today! In a couple of hours, I’ll be heading out for 5–6 hours’ worth of client appointments before turning in for the night. This intentional schedule change of pushing my appointments to the afternoon and early evening has really helped me to sleep better, as I tend to get anxious when I know I have an early AM session.
I’ve done this thing since I was a kid where if I had something early to wake up for, I was always up AT LEAST half an hour before my alarm went off, wired and nervous that it wouldn’t actually go off… Sometimes, I’d even wake up in a sweat thinking that I’d set the wrong time! Of course, in the entirety of my life (which is now at nearly 29 years), I’ve only ever forgotten to set my alarm ONCE, and inaccurately set it just a handful of times!! By not having anything scheduled prior to noon, I’m able to let my body wake itself up naturally, and put myself first way ahead of any prescheduled appointments :-)
Now, if I could just figure out how to do that for Tuesdays, the only day where I have to wake up at a specific time (and it ain’t a pleasant one :-/)…
Anyway, today I’d like to discuss how to keep yourself motivated on your weight loss journey. When I first meet with new clients, they seem to think that in order to lose weight, they have to eat grilled chicken and broccoli at every meal, and do insane amounts of exercise! This is incredibly misguided, and can lead to some serious falling off the wagon!!
Just think about it for a second from personal experience: If you set a weight loss goal of, say, 25 lbs, and you were eating the same 1–2 meals per day and dragging yourself to a gym to perform workouts you had no interest in doing, how does that motivate you to continue? On a day where things really go awry in both your work and your personal lives, you’ll probably skimp on your restrictions, which will result in AT LEAST a 24 hour binge of junk food and inactivity.
For me, back when I was commuting for four hours per day, working a full day, and starving myself prior to working out on fumes in the evening, there were WEEKS where I’d fly off the rails because I couldn’t take the constant restrictions anymore. My office would sometimes order the staff lunch, which would consist of pizza and other delectable local Italian fare. The result was me going to town on massive quantities of crap! This would then cascade into uncontrolled bingeing for the next 3–7 days, which obviously wouldn’t do me or my goals any good.
What I found worked best for me (and for most of my clients) is to have a VARIETY of foods and fitness at your disposal! This way, if you were getting bored of a certain meal or of a certain type of workout, you could change it up and move on to another…
Take food, for example: I go through these phases where I’ll eat some scrambled eggs, bacon and avocado for breakfast. Often, this will be my breakfast every day for MONTHS! However, after a while, I’ll get bored of this breakfast, and will then have to change things up!!
Fortunately, I’ve never been a pancake or a waffle kind of guy, so these were never breakfasts that appealed to me. I was, however, a big sugary cereal fiend, feasting on non-nutritious junk like Frosted Flakes, Fruit Loops and Fruity Pebbles. When the eggs would get old and I’d want to move on to something else, I found a HEALTHY cereal recipe that wouldn’t overload me with sugar and toxic chemicals, and I’d switch to that until I get sick of it.
You can find that recipe, as well as 71 others spanning breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks, appetizers and desserts by checking out my Healthy Recipe Book at www.weightlossbypete.com/healthyrecipes.
On the fitness side, I’ve been adamant about changing things up. As you probably know by now, I’m an avid softball player, and typically play 2–3 days per week during my free time. During the other days, I’ll mix it up by performing interval training workouts, by running, and by even practicing yoga. I literally don’t have a pre-determined weekly plan: I’ll wake up, see what I feel like doing, and I’ll do THAT!
Now, you probably have much different tastes in food and in fitness than I do… That’s perfectly fine! Figure out what those are, and use those as a kind of rolodex for making healthier choices. In the long run, that’s how you establish consistency, and that’s how you get to the promised land!
Until tomorrow :-)
Sincerely,
Pete Weintraub
P.S. If you feel you need more help on the nutritional side, then you’re definitely going to want to invest in my Food Guide and Healthy Recipe Book!
The Food Guide lays out the three phases of nutrition I use with my Permanent Weight Loss clients. Phase 1 gets you in the habit of making healthier choices, while Phase 2 really cleans up the frequency with which you eat healthier. Phase 3 is a strict macronutrient breakdown that will help expedite the process of weight loss, all while improving your health and making your body a well-oiled machine!
My Healthy Recipe Book includes 72 recipes spanning breakfast,lunch, dinner, snacks, appetizers and desserts. I’m constantly adding to it, but these recipes are easy to make, simple and enable you to have your cake and eat it, too!
Normally, I sell each of these books for $10 a piece, but because I’m feeling generous today, you can get BOTH for just $13.99! :-)
To get your copies, please go to www.weightlossbypete.com/foodguiderecipes.