Lottery Dieting

If you’re like most people, you could lose a few pounds. This weight loss would result in improved self-confidence, overall health, and increased longevity. So you decide it is time. You make dramatic changes to your eating habits. A raving carb lover does the keto diet. A binge eater stops eating altogether and practices fasting. A meat lover starts an ultra low calorie vegan diet. They all lose a substantial amount of weight, but there is a problem. They are all destined to regain the weight.

Weight loss done through these measures will never be sustainable. Each of these examples displays how ignorant we are to the truth about weight gain. The truth is we gained weight because we had poor habits. Some habits are worse than others. The fact is that weight comes on because we are overeating and possibly are under active as well. Sometimes we get trapped in these poor habits due to emotional/mental stress, ignorance, or lack of care. These poor habits compounded over the last few months to the last few years. You must believe that it is going to take new habit adaptations to remove this unwanted weight over the next few months to the next few years. The problem where most people go wrong is by seeking instant gratification. People want the weight gone yesterday. This lack of patience leads to an unconscious journey of suffering as you starve yourself to live in a different “meat suit”. You believe that this new “meat suit” will solve your problem, not realizing that the most important thing you should have focused on was learning and adopting new habits that support a healthy lifestyle slowly. Let me explain myself using something we all deal with on a daily basis-money.

Would you agree that an extra one million dollars given to you today would make your life easier financially? Who would ever say no? Well according to the National Endowment for Financial Education, about 70 percent of people who win a lottery or receive a large windfall go bankrupt within a few years. This is counter to the belief that more money solves anything. These people were given “new bank accounts” just like the ones who starved and got new “meat suits”. The common thing among both of them is that they didn’t learn the habits to be who they wanted to become long term. A wealthy individual regularly spends much less than they earn. Much like a dieter, they watch their total expenses vs. income and make sure to set some aside. The people who won the lottery didn’t understand the fundamentals of wealth, so they lost it. The people who attempt these radical lottery diets are just suffering until the day they don’t need to anymore. Once they reach their goal weight they splurge like the lottery winner. They begin eating carbs again, remembering how good donuts taste. They go back to binge eating, never solving the root issues that triggered the behavior. They eat meat in excess once more because they’ve deprived themselves. 

So what habits should you adopt if you are looking to improve the way you look, feel, and function? You should think like a fit and healthy person does. Said another way, you should begin to learn how to become someone you are not. Thomas Jefferson says it best “If you want something you’ve never had. You must be willing to do something you’ve never done.” The first step is to see that you are not going to be able to continue doing everything you are currently doing. In a way you are undergoing the transformation of a phoenix. Your current-self must burn away. In the ashes, you can create a wonderful new rebirth of what you do, who you are, how you act, and most importantly what you think of yourself. This new person must be able to do 3 things to be successful. 

1. You should learn new coping mechanisms. Most people eat food because it’s an easy “drug”. The food is pleasurable and it makes you feel good temporarily. You cannot trade this immediate gratification for the sacrifice of your well-being and long term goals. There are many options to choose from and you may have to go through a period of trial and error to see what fits you best. Accept that these coping mechanisms may need revision, the things I used to do to cope are different than what I do now.
2. You should learn how to love yourself. Most people develop a strong sense of self-hatred along the many years of poor eating. They see themselves as something they hate because of all the times they gave into guilty pleasures, and now they regret it due to their poor appearance and health. This will sabotage your progress as you will make mistakes along the way (and if you still have any self-hatred), you will feel guilt, remorse, and rebound. I battled with these emotions when I lost weight the first time as a fourteen year old. It took until about 23 to master my emotions and surrender to the idea of loving myself. I cannot express how much this has changed my life beyond just fitness and health.

3. You should stop focusing on the way that you look. Instead focus on the way you feel. The reason why this is the best practice you could adopt is because it will teach you to be aware of how things affect your body. You will start noticing what happens when you miss a couple hours of sleep. You will see when you eat poorly, you feel awful. You will notice how your digestion feels when eating whole foods versus processed foods. All the signals our body tells us are already there, but we are not aware of them. The way you feel is your individual guide to better health, vitality, and of course aesthetics. However, if you focus on how you look you never become aware of the effect and power your habits have. This leads to rebound and may even lead to early termination of the new habits. All too often I see clients focus on the way they look and then after a week of bad diet they are super hard on themselves. They look just as bad as they did two months ago and they would rather quit than see it through to the end. Never realizing that the way someone looks is just a reflection of their habits.