Welcome back!

I came across an interesting study the other day which was done by the National Weight Control Registry.

Over 5000 participants were surveyed and on average they lost 30kg (67lbs) and kept it off for 5.5 years…

Most of the people who participated used both diet AND exercise to lose and keep body fat off. The three core behaviours that were used to keep weight off are

• eat breakfast (preferably high protein to get the furnace burning)
• weigh yourself daily (self monitoring and mindfulness)
• exercise daily (equipment is kept close at hand and easily visible

What does this mean for you when you have reached your target weight?

Well you have to examine your own behaviour. For example, if you want to eat healthy, buy healthy. If the high carb high fat “foods” are not in the fridge or pantry, then they are less likely to be eaten.

Be mindful of what causes certain eating behaviours… Then plan to avoid those situations or if that is impossible, have an alternative strategy.

Have a plan for when you fall off the wagon (and you will). Instead of beating yourself up and bingeing, just accept you slipped up, examine the circumstances of the slipup, LEARN and move on.

An example is if you go out to a restaurant. Plan in advance what you’d like to eat and then when you get there, stick to it. You can congratulate yourself afterwards.

Conduct lots of mini experiments to discover what works for YOU… Rather than rely on one all or nothing strategy, play with different exercise techniques, shopping patterns, food availability in the home, recipes etc. until you find what suits you and your long term goals best.

Make it into a plan you can follow, being mindfully aware of what you are doing.

You have to search for behaviours, not outcomes. Most experts disguise an outcome as a behaviour, thereby frustrating millions of dieters in the process. You know what you want to achieve, now you have to learn what to DO…

Just a few key behaviours can drive huge change in your life. Keep an eye out for them, because if you can concentrate on just a few, you will achieve sucess rather than scattering efforts. If you can discover what other people are doing when they experience the same problems as you, find out what they do to get a successful outcome and model their behaviour. Test and measure.

You will make mistakes - pre plan recovery behaviours to get you back on track. You will have problems but now you will not sink into despair and give up.

Rather you will learn and move forward.

The NWCR survey discovered that the key difference between those who failed at long term weight loss and those who succeeded was simple - the ability to be CONSISTENT in positive behaviour changes OVER TIME.

Remember, it took years and years for most people to gain the body fat that is causing them grief. It can take years to get rid of it, years to rejig exercise and lifestyle behaviours so they become lifelong habits. Don’t get sucked in by those who would have you believe there is a miracle cure or instant fix.

There isn’t - plan for the long haul and you will reap the health benefits, chief among them being lower stress levels because you are not trying to achieve an impossible outcome. Now you know better…

And the NWCR study showed weight loss maintenance becomes easier over time. AND if you can keep it off for 2-5 years, you probably have a permanent fix. Now isn’t that something to look forward to?

Live long. Live free.

Rick

P.S. As always comments are welcome - good, bad or indifferent…

You might be a bit confused by some of the latest buzz words in the diet industry “glycemic index” and “glycemic load”.

I hate the word diet by the way - it always connotes a temporary negative “starvation” situation followed by a resumption of “normal” eating a bit later on.

Anyway one of the things we strive for here at FitnessByPhone is good education based on latest research and science so here is the explanation …

It is well known that hormone balance is the key to optimal health and that imbalances can be caused by what you eat. For instance a plate of white rice will very quickly raise your insulin levels to a higher than normal level, in an attempt to normalise your blood sugar levels.

Other hormones are released in excess because of this imbalance in insulin, and one result is result extra fat is added to your middle, plus an increasing chance of diabetes too over the long haul because your cells get resistant to all the excess insulin floating around.

So how does this relate to the terms glycemic index and glycemic load?

Well the glycemic index is an indicator of the liklihood of an abnormal increase in blood sugar. So high GI foods are likely to lift insulin production higher than normal to stabilise the sugar they dump into your blood stream.

However, the speed at which this happens is even more important. Thus the glycemic load.

The higher the glycemic load of foods, the faster insulin is produced. So you can have foods with a high GI overall, but they have a low Glycemic load, and so insulin is produced at a slower rate to cope. It is still higher than optimal, but there is not the undue load on your pancreas to release the hormone as fast as possible.

Whereas the food with a similar GI but the glycemic load is maybe 4 times as high is going to ask the pancrease to produce insulin four times faster (more or less).

If you eat these types of high glycemic load foods, the yoyo effect on your hormone levels is going to create stress, burn out your pancreas long term, make you fat, create diabetes and cause lots of other nasty little problems.

However if you learn to control your glycemic load with the right foods, even if they are sometimes high GI foods, then you will stabilise your hormones and reduce the liklihood of problems as you age, or indeed reverse problems you may have right now.

The best plan of course is to eat foods that are low in both GI and glycemic load.

Simple.

Live long. Live well.

Rick Rakauskas

Whilst using Twitter one of the folks I was following asked for support in this little challenge.

Can you do 100 straight pushups? I can’t (yet), but it is a good example of the type of incremental training you will get at Fitnessbyphone, no matter what your current fitness level is.

I am doing it, so how about you? It’s only 100 pushups.

Live long. Live well.

Rick Rakauskas

Most of us lose our mind when it comes to weight loss.

I want to discuss a simple method of using our mind instead to ensure weight loss success.

I bought a course many years ago from a bloke named Stuart Lichtmann which opened my eyes to the way our minds work, and how we can trick them into producing positive results.

I recently rediscovered it, because I saw this video and it pricked my conscience a bit. This bloke was fat, then thin and has gained back. And is now on the way back to being thinner again. And he gives a lot of good reasons why his life as a fat bloke sucks.

You will empathise if you are or ever have been in the same situation whether you are a baby boomer man or woman …

So anyway, I went and dug up my old affiliate site and code and put the site up here. The book is really badly named (maybe I should create different graphics) , but the psychology it forces you to use on yourself is brilliant. What’s more it works, and applies in ANY area of life and the success you want to achieve, including business.

Sign up for the free course and do the exercises before you buy it. I guarantee you will never regret it.

Like everything in life, tools are only good if you use them.

Live long. Live well.