The Mind-Shift I Relied on to Lose Weight & Preserve the Loss for 17 1/2 years (to date)

Pearl One

(Heavy sigh.)

It happened again this morning.

There I was, drinking caffeine while reading an online newsletter; minding my own business.

When I began reading about a man who’d lost 70 lbs. The story was focused on the “aha” moment he’d had about his weight and how his “aha” changed his life. All cool, right?

This man did the very strenuous work of losing weight, but at the end of the article declared, “it was easy!”

That’s where the heavy sigh came in.

What is it with our culture that we continue to perpetuate the myth of “easy” weight loss?

The animal doesn’t exist.

My take on the situation? In order to sell weight loss products to the public, the Mad Men of the last century had to take a seriously difficult trek (losing weight after age 50) and turn it on its head by using the magical word “easy.”

And we fell for it.

Bottom line: especially in our food-porn world of today, it’s extremely difficult to lose and preserve. As I was losing the 55 lbs, I started to call the work involved with losing weight “my part-time job.” Just those four words transformed how I engaged with the millions of micro-steps and habits that I had to internalize to lose the weight, and then to preserve the loss for almost 18 years. ♥

Pearl Two

Do you track your food?

If you haven’t — or aren’t consistent — keep in mind that most of us have said in the past, “I’d do anything to lose weight.”

“Except for tracking my food of course.”

Think about it. Thousands of people would rather go on the new diet pills and risk scary side effects (which are, at least for now, truly horrifying), than making a habit of tracking food.

I went to the big guy: the NIH who implemented a study concluding that:

The NIH did a study with “the number of possible tracking days was divided to create the 3 groups of participants: rare trackers (<33% total days tracked), inconsistent trackers (33–66% total days tracked), and consistent trackers (>66% total days tracked). After controlling for initial body mass index, hemoglobin A1c, and gender, only consistent trackers had significant weight loss (−9.99 pounds), following a linear relationship with consistent loss throughout the year.

In addition, the weight loss trend for the rare and inconsistent trackers followed a nonlinear path, with the holidays slowing weight loss and the onset of summer increasing weight loss. These results show the importance of frequent dietary tracking for consistent long-term weight loss success.”

It’s dry reading that says: if you ate the fun-size Snickers then write the fun-size Snickers down. ♥

See how they’re pink and spiral-bound? Make it as easy on yourself as possible.

Pearl Three

From today forward, I’m keeping Pearl 3 for something fun that I want to share with you

Last weekend, I binged a bunch of Seinfeld’s Comediennes in Cars Getting Coffee. Big deal, right? Beautiful cars, funny moments galore. In the past I’d only watched the episodes with the particular comedian I loved and didn’t watch the rest.

This time, however, I watched not caring which comedienne he had coffee with, and later, when I was getting ready for bed thought, “I feel like I’ve just watched two very intelligent people having a casual conversation.” This thought came after watching Jerry and Loren Michaels having coffee. It’s amazing that we can watch two super interesting people – tops in their field – have a real conversation.

I like seeing “how the sausage is made” and it’s so relieving to hear that these “stars” have all the insecurities we have. ♥

Pearl Four

Amazon’s description says it perfectly. “The Garretts take their first and last family vacation in the summer of 1959. They hardly ever leave home, but in some ways, they have never been farther apart. Mercy has trouble resisting the siren call of her aspirations to be a painter, which means less time keeping house for her husband, Robin. Their teenage daughters, steady Alice and boy-crazy Lily, could not have less in common. Their youngest, David, is already intent on escaping his family’s orbit, for reasons none of them understand. Yet, as these lives advance across decades, the Garretts’ influences on one another ripple ineffably but unmistakably through each generation.”

As I read, I kept thinking, “now it’ll get predictable, next blank will happen,” but no, surprisingly, Tyler twists into an entirely different direction I hadn’t anticipated at all. Over and over.

Count on this Book Dessert to sail you away from Freezer-Stocked-in-Ice Cream land. ♥

Pearl Five

“The only thing that’s keeping you from getting what you want is the story you keep telling yourself.” — Tony Robbins ♥

Have a beautiful weekend!

♥, Wendy

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