One of my favorite quotes is from Marcus Aurelius: “Would you have a great empire? Rule over yourself.” I love this so much I have it written on the wall of my office and in a note in my iPhone. These simple two sentences have been one of my greatest motivators during my weight loss journey.
I’m sure the words mean very different things to different people but I want to share with you the impression they have made on me.
At the time I first came upon this quote I was working in a management role. I had a fantastic team and though I was being pulled in a million different directions, I tried hard to set a good example for them. I wanted them to see my hard work, initiative, problem solving and tenacity. When I read this quote I thought, “How can I inspire my team if I can’t inspire myself?”
It starts with me. “Rule over yourself.”
I thought about my marriage. I was encouraging my husband to quit chewing tobacco and this quote hit me hard – how can I expect him to listen to me or be encouraged by me if I’m not living a healthy, disciplined life?
It starts with me. “Rule over yourself.”
I thought about the family I might have one day. How hypocritical I would be to lead my kids in ANY way if I’m unable to lead MYSELF! If I’m not compelled to follow the wisdom of my own mind, how in the world could I expect my children to be?
It starts with me. “Rule over yourself.”
I remember thinking at the time, “I want so many big things. I want to be debt free. I want to lose over 100 pounds. I want to be strong, fit and confident.” I became instantly aware that an unrefutable requirement for all of those things is to become an effective leader of ME.
Does anyone read this quote the same way? It just is so powerful to me – if I’m not able to instruct, lead and inspire myself then I have no business trying to do it for anyone else.
I can’t tell you how many times a day this simple phrase runs through my head. If I’ve told myself I’ll go for an hour leisure walk and I start listing all the reasons I should stop at 40 minutes, I’ll hear in my head “Rule over yourself”. When I’ve finished dinner and I’m tempted to do a kitchen-walkthrough just to see what might look yummy I hear it: “Rule over yourself”. When my alarm goes off in the morning and I consider hitting snooze instead of getting to work, there it is: “Rule over yourself”.
Spend some time looking at the gap between what you expect of others and what you expect of yourself.
Spend some time considering if you are able to reach any of your goals without mastering the art of following your own guidance.
Maybe it’s not these words that fuel you but I’m sure there are others. Find something that reminds you of what is most important and keep it front of mind. Put it on an index card on the dash of your car or write it on the mirror in your bathroom. Encourage yourself daily – there’s no question that you’ll need it!
I am guilty of feeling jealous when I watch weight loss shows like the Biggest Loser. I start to feel a little defensive and edgy as they boast their 10 lb per week weight loss. This angry little tape plays in my head: “Sure, weight loss can’t be all that hard when you have a kitchen stocked with healthy foods, a staff of fitness professionals at your finger tips, no job to worry about and a state of the art gym. Sure, it might be just a tad easier for me if my ONLY priority was eating right and exercising! But I live in the real world! I have a job, I have a life, I do my own shopping and cooking and cleaning!”
Prior to starting my weight loss journey I wasn’t even sure it was possible to balance it all. I was pretty certain that I couldn’t manage my work stress without self-medicating with food. I was convinced that there weren’t enough hours in the day to fit in a workout without sacrificing critically important sleep or down time. I genuinely believed that committing to weight loss would require trading happiness for progress.
I was wrong. In fact, I was TOTALLY wrong.
I found that cutting out junk food made handling work stress far easier. Making time for the gym increased my productivity and gave me MORE free time. Committing to weight loss brought me a happiness and sense of empowerment that I had never experienced. In hindsight, I’m not sure how I balanced life and obesity! That was far more challenging!
There’s no question that committing to lifestyle change will require making some adjustments to your schedule. It’s very possible that those changes might be a little uncomfortable at first. But before you do what I did and start to argue how impossible it will be to balance life and fat loss ask yourself this:how well are you balancing life now? Are you happy with the way things are? Do you love your body? Do you feel fit and healthy?
How do you know that your days won’t actually beeasierwhen you start making lifestyle improvements? How do you know that as you cut out processed foods your energy won’t go through the roof and your improved mood won’t enhance every relationship in your life?
More often than not when we argue that something can’t be done or isn’t possible within our current life structure we’re just making excuses. We’re either afraid of change, avoiding potential failure or simply not ready.
If you’re wondering if you can do this, please remind yourself that this is not an all or nothing process. You don’t need to submit to a total lifestyle overhaul on day one. Take a close look at your lifestyle and identify one or two areas for improvement. Work on one small change each week and keep practicing it until it feels comfortable. As you master each change, take on a little bit more.
Life is always a balancing act. Let’s just stay open to the idea that adopting healthy changes might actually improve and enhance your productivity and mindset.
Here are a couple small changes to think about making as you build momentum:
Stop drinking soda
Walk for 20 minutes each day
Wake up 15 minutes earlier and make breakfast
Turn off the TV and get to bed by 10pm
Commit to including protein at every meal and snack
I was wrong to feel frustrated and envious when watching those weight loss competition shows. You know why? I am so much more likely to be successful at managing my weight in the long run because I’ve managed to incorporate it into my life. I know how to balance eating well and exercising daily with a job, a family and taking care of my house. I know how to make good choices without living in a bubble and having someone else make my decisions for me. I know how to practice moderation, overcome plateaus and motivate myself. THAT is powerful. THAT is balance. That is worth every single change.
I have failed over and over again. I have created plans, set goals and missed them by miles. I’ve beat myself up, told myself off and thrown in the towel hundreds of times. You know what? It has helped me. That’s right:All those repeated failures gave me incredibly powerful information that all came together to allow me to change life.
From all those failures, I have the incredible benefit of knowing what DOESN’T work for me. I don’t have to try A, B and C because I already did and they didn’t work. For example, I know that money is not an incentive for me. You could offer me $300 for every 10 lbs I lose and that won’t be enough to keep me out of the bag of Oreos. I’ll argue with myself that tomorrow I’ll be back on track and I’ll still get that $300 because I’ll be “extra strict” after indulging in the Oreos. I am really good at lying to myself like that. From my failures I learned not to waste my time with incentives that don’t work.The only incentive I need is what I’m truly after: a fit, strong, healthy body.
The whole “super strict” thing? That doesn’t work for me, either. Yeah, I can do it for a few days or even a couple of weeks but I know, from failing a million times, that it’s going to end the same way: with a binge. All that willpower, restriction and deprivation ultimately makes me snap and go into a wild sugar frenzy. From my failures I learned that I need a more moderate approach. I need to build in enough margin to enjoy my favorite things every once in a while.Total deprivation makes me feel like a caged bird and the only thing I can think about is breaking free.
Too much exercise makes me a sugar junky. I messed this one up more times than I can count. A little exercise is good so as much as I can possibly fit into my day must be better, right? Uh, not for me. Never. This goes very wrong very fast. Over the last 20 years I have gone on so many exercises binges. I’d spend hours each day working out. I’d get up early, stay up late and “burn” as many calories as humanly possible. The result? I was ravenously hungry all the time. My cravings were out of control. My ability to resist the hunger and cravings was very limited and my eating would negate any potential benefits from all that working out. From getting that one wrong a few dozen times, I’m now easily able to resist the temptation to workout “more”. One high intensity workout each day is what is best for my body. No need to mess around with anything else.
I can’t predict what the scale will do. Oh my goodness. If you could see my planners and notebooks and spreadsheets over the last several years you’d probably think I’m Rain Man. I spent years obsessed with predicting how much weight I could lose by a certain date. I’d write it out, day by day, what my weight would be on each day and when I’d hit some certain arbitrary goal. It never worked. Weight loss isn’t linear like that. Fortunately, from dealing with frustrating and feelings of failure for years, I know that doesn’t work for me.Now, I embrace consistency. I don’t predict my results. I concentrate on my actions.
Don’t keep trying things that haven’t worked in the past. In fact, become a student of your failures. Are there strategies you keep trying even though they haven’t worked yet? Are there theories you hold despite proving to yourself that they aren’t true? Embrace your failures. They are the keys you need to make this journey a success! Within your failures is just about everything you need to make a total transformation!
Give me just one second while I climb up onto my soap box….
Y’all. We’ve been lied to. For decades. We have the WRONG impression about dietary fat. Like, really, really wrong. Ready for the cliff notes version of the truth?EATING FAT DOES NOT MAKE YOU FAT.In fact, not eating ENOUGH fat might be a big part of the reason you’re gaining fat. No joke. I’m totally serious. I’ve gotta clear this up. These common misconceptions make me so crazy.
It’s really unfortunate that fat on our body is referred to by the same word as dietary fat in foods we eat. That, and a lot of misinformation, has led us to believe that dietary fat leads to an accumulation of body fat.
I’m going to ask you to think about something differently. So, a gram of fat has more calories than a gram of carbohydrate or protein, right? A gram of fat has 9 calories whereas a gram of protein or carbohydrate has only 4. That’s one of the big reasons people think fat is “fattening”. More calories = more weight gain (misleading, but a common thought nonetheless). The problem is that we’re thinking about it alllll wrong. Bear with me while I attempt to clear this up. A calorie isn’t some magical thing that piles up and makes you look fatter. Calories are how we measure the energy potential in food. One more time just because its worth repeating:calories are how we measure the energy potential of a particular food.
So what, right? Basically, dietary fat delivers more than twice as much energy to our bodies than protein or carbohydrate!! That’s a GOOD thing! That means that we can fuel our body for longer on less than we can if we just stuck to protein or carbs.
Research has shown that when you eat a low fat diet you actually increase the activity of certain enzymes that encourage your body to store more fat. On the flip side, ample dietary fat has been shown to increase the activity of enzymes that help you burn stored body fat! How’s that for a twist on what we’ve been taught? Not only that, but a lower fat diet is going to make it much harder to manage your hunger and cravings!
We need fat in our diet if we want to be healthy. Do you realize that your brain is about 60% fat? In addition to being an incredible fuel source and critical component of cognitive health, fats are components of every single cell in your body, they are required for the manufacture of hormones and they are essential for the utilization of many vitamins and antioxidants. If that’s not enough, you need fat for the proper growth and calcification of your bones, they keep your skin soft and supple, they support your immune system and help control your body’s inflammatory response. And that’s just the beginning!
For political and financial reasons we won’t go into (today), ignorance and greed led to the vilification of fat beginning in the 1970s and 80s. The food industry seized the incredible financial opportunity and flooded the market with low-fat and fat-free alternatives. These alternatives were loaded with artificial ingredients and sugar to replace the flavor and mouth feel the fat had been providing.It’s no coincidence that between 1980 and 2008 obesity in adults more than doubled and extreme obesity more than tripled.
We’ve been told to avoid dietary fat and cholesterol to reduce our risk of heart disease. People in positions of authority in medicine and politics have insisted that fat consumption increases the risk of heart disease and dietary cholesterol increases serum cholesterol. We’ve been convinced that dietary fat triggers inflammation and disease. Fat intake is not to blame for any of those things.
So if dietary fat isn’t to blame for heart disease, what is? The short answer is inflammation and oxidation, which are most significantly influenced by insulin (a result of excessive carbohydrate consumption) and cortisol (a result of chronically elevated insulin and physical or emotional stress). I promise, I’ll talk much more about this part another time…
There’s no doubt that there are in fact good fats and bad fats. The bad fats, however, are not saturated fats from animal products. The bad fats are these toxic, plastic fats (trans fats) made in factories and highly unstable fats from crop oils like canola and soybean. They are chemically altered, foreign to our bodies and wreak havoc inside us. They have been linked to just about every disease you can think of. The FDA is now requiring that trans fats be labeled on food products, but there are loopholes. One of the biggest loopholes is that if a product contains 0.5 grams of trans fats per serving it can advertise and label the product as “trans fat free”. That is an issue not only because it’s an outright lie, but also because most people don’t limit themselves to one serving of these foods! They’re designed to make us eat more!
I have SO much more to say on this topic and of course you’re going to hear about it, but this is already getting long and writing this has made me crave bacon (so I’m gonna make some).
But to get you started, a great way to get started is to move away from low fat, chemically altered, processed food choices. When you emphasize whole foods direct from nature you’ll naturally increase your intake of quality, healthy fats. Let go of your fear of butter. Eat a fatty chicken thigh instead of always opting for the super lean breast. Have some bacon, for crying out loud. Add fat. Embrace it. Love it. And while you’re at it, please, please, please lay off the processed garbage!
Let’s start with the not-so-hidden dangerous of processed foods, yeah? THEY AREN’T REAL FOOD. Need we continue? Haha. For real though, let’s think about it for a minute.
An apple comes from an apple tree
A chicken breast from a chicken
A potato grows in the ground
An oreo comes from…..? A factory? No bueno.
Studies have linked consumption of processed foods to obesity as well as various health conditions including heart disease, cancer, ADHD and arthritis. Very few people would probably argue that processed foods are good for you yet these non-food items make up the majority of most Americans’ diets. Get THIS crazy statistic: $0.90 of every food dollar in this country is spent on processed foods. No wonder we’re overweight, tired and sick!!
If you’re looking for lasting fat loss, processed foods have got to go. Here’s what we know: because many crucial nutrients like fiber and healthy fats have been stripped from processed foods, they are easier for your body to digest. That’s not a good thing when it comes to fat loss. What it means is that they spike your blood sugar faster and it plummets almost as quickly. Your body spends less time and energy metabolizing these frankenfoods. This is why you can eat a bag of potato chips and never feel full or scarf down a huge bowl of cereal and be hungry just an hour later. It feels very different to eat a steak or an omelet.
Additionally, because these foods are easier for your body to digest, that means you burn fewer calories during the digestive processed compared to a whole-foods meal. I don’t know about you, but if I’m going to enjoy a nice meal, I’d love to burn off as much of it as possible during the digestive process!
It’s important to also realize that the companies producing processed foods are out for one thing: your money. They want you to crave their food. These companies spend millions of dollars on food and behavioral scientists whose job it is to identify just how to make you crave their food and not be able to stop eating it. They’ve identified combinations of flavors and textures that trigger the reward center in your brain, making their processed food item as addictive as a drug. That’s not an exaggeration, guys. Check out the conclusion from a recent study on Oreos:
“…Oreos activated significantly more neurons than cocaine or morphine. ‘This correlated well with our behavioral results and lends support to the hypothesis that high-fat/ high sugar foods can be thought of as addictive”
The goal of many of these food scientists is to capitalize on what is called “vanishing calorie density” – the way foods with very few nutrients but lots of flavor and texture melt in your mouth and require little effort to digest trigger your brain to think you aren’t really eating any calories. You just keep eating, and eating, and eating….
From a fat loss standpoint, processed foods are your worst nightmare. From a health standpoint, they don’t look much better!
Processed foods, in general, are packed with added sugar, salt and unhealthy fats to improve mouth feel, flavor and extend shelf life. If you made a homemade cookie from minimally processed ingredients, could you put it in your pantry for a year and go back and eat it? Uh, no. Foods aren’t meant to have long shelf lives yet processed foods will often look (and taste!) the same after sitting on a store shelf for years. Here’s what I think: if a food has a long shelf life, it’s probably borrowing from YOURS.
Stripped of nutrients like fiber and omega 3s, these foods have little to no nutritive value. They are certainly nutritionally inferior to whole foods like vegetables, fruits and protein. However, they’re covered with marketing “health” claims! These food companies graffiti the packaging with confusing and often misleading claims like “a great source of fiber!” or “sugar free” or “an excellent source of whole grains”. To a consumer who doesn’t understand the risks of processed foods, they might be tricked into thinking they’re making a healthy choice.
Then there are the ingredients themselves – man-made chemicals, artificial colors and flavors that at the very best are questionable with regard to their impact on our health. Studies have been done on many of the common ingredients found in processed foods and the results are frightening. I’m not an alarmist and I think everything stated above is reason enough to avoid these things, but I do want to draw your attention to a few concerning ingredients and urge you to look at the labels before you buy your next boxed or bagged food-creation.
BHA (butylated hydroxyamisole) – used as a preservative, this also has been linked to cancer
Artificial colors – chances are you’ve heard a lot about risks associated with certain artificial colorants and there really is no question that if you’re looking for optimal health – especially for your children – these need to be avoided. For a good overview of the risks associated with artificial colorants, check out this document.
I could go on for days about all the research that has been done but it boils down to a very simple point: our bodies were created to process real food. These man-made frankenfoods are nutritionally inferior to whole foods, they encourage us to overeat and they may in fact be a significant detriment to our health. Keep it clean – eat whole foods.
