Since writing this blog post a few weeks back I have had a few people email me asking me how I got to the point I am today and how I’m staying there. I sent several emails back but quickly realised it’d be easier to summarise in a blog post.
If you are interested, there is a pile of info below.
If you aren’t interested, read it anyway.
You might find some of it resonates with you – it may even be some help during those New Year’s moments you are bound to have in about 2 weeks time. (go on, you know you will…)
Step 1: Decide to make friends with yourself.
The only way you are going to make these changes is to work WITH yourself. Too many times I see people decide they are useless, resolve to go on a diet and embark on a nasty battle of wills and testing of limits until they finally break down and return to old ways feeling defeated.
If you treat your body as your enemy it will repel you.
You have to accept your body as your friend and work with it as a team to achieve results. Don’t tell yourself how useless you are every step of the way. Praise yourself even on days you feel unworthy of the praise. Find something positive to say “Good on you” for, even if it’s for stopping ¼ way into that bag of chips instead of eating the whole thing. Work with yourself to feed, nourish and improve. You will see your body respond favourably. Listen to your body. React to its needs. Walk the self-improvement journey together.
Example: Subject A (ok, me, in the old days) .. goes on a diet, counting calories spread throughout the day. A few days in, and sick of being starving by 11am each morning, I start to feel defeated and tell myself how useless I am for not handling the diet. Eventually I give in. I decide I’m useless; I can’t handle the challenge and will always be something less than I want to be.
(You know you are nodding along with this, right?)
A better outcome: Finding a solution for the hunger that turns up at the same time each day. It might mean eating an 11am lunch and having 2 smaller snacks during the afternoon for example. Everybody’s body works differently. Obviously I need more fuel earlier in the day.
Listen to yourself; work with your body to find solutions to challenges before self-doubt and self-hatred creep in.
Step 2: Pick your battles.
Once I decided to improve myself, once I joined forces with my body on this journey I looked at every option I had for improvement.
I was going to eat well, lose weight and get fit. The thought crossed my mind that perhaps I should be giving up caffeine too. It’s not good for me and I drink a few cans of diet coke a day, the sweetener isn’t good for me either. The old, stubborn “We are going to do this come hell or high water” Nic that hated herself and her useless attempts to succeed every other time might have decided to give it up.
The new “friends with my body, let’s do this together“ Nic consulted with herself and decided the whole world would be a better place if the diet coke wasn’t omitted. In fact, the sweet bubbles after lunch were one of the things I really looked forward to. Pick your battles.
Don’t make it hard because you think it has to be.
Step 3: Understand your food groups.
I once belonged to a popular weight loss system that uses points to lose weight. In fact I was so successful at the system that I got to my goal weight about 15 times.
I also put all the weight back in in-between. My downfall was counting points without considering the food groups. I could eat 10 rice crackers for 1 point. I got 18 points a day. I could eat 180 rice crackers a day if I wanted! I’d be feeding myself carbohydrates only though, which are only good for instant energy and there’d be no protein entering my body. No protein means there was nothing to repair, build and feed my body. Points systems do work if managed correctly, but for it to be successful long term you must understand the following:
Carbohydrates=instant energy, like the petrol you put in a car any extra you eat and do not burn off will be stored as fat.
Protein = the motor. Protein will work to build and repair and recover.
Eat the food group you need relevant to the activities you do and the body’s needs. Sure, I lost weight on my mostly-carbs-but-limited-calorie diet, but no one can eat 180 rice crackers a day forever, my muscles started to drop away and as soon as I changed my eating, my body saw the extra calories and grabbed them to try and rebuild muscle again, putting on weight because God-forbid I might return to the limited calorie carbs one day.
Step 4: Eat 5x per day and make each meal count, make it your new normal.
Starvation will make you lose weight short term. It will make you put on weight long term.
Eating 5 meals a day, in the correct and balanced way, will make you lose weight.
There is no goal you reach where you change this. This is forever.
Breakfast, snack, lunch, snack, dinner. Have protein in each meal. That can be as easy as including lite yoghurt with your breakfast and eating 12 almonds as well as that piece of fruit at snack time. Work constantly to repair, recover and build muscle via protein while fuelling your body adequately at the right time of day via carbs. This means breakfast and lunch are your bigger meals. Dinner should be a small meal and include very little carbs…it goes against everything our Mum’s taught us but get used to it – it’ll help in the long run.
(My whole family eats fairly healthy these days, this day the kids were given a Powerade by the organisers of this event… given that they had just run/walked 8km, their little bodies could easily burn off the carbs inside the normally out-of-bounds drink – it’s all about giving your body what it needs at the right time)
Step 5: Don’t fall into the “I’ve eaten something bad today, I might as well be really bad” trap.
No, no, no. That’s not how it works. Aim to eat healthy and balanced as much as you can. If the occasional treat sneaks in, don’t tell yourself off and then continue on by sabotaging the rest of the day/week/month.. (you are working WITH your body, not against it, remember?) – cut yourself a break. Pat yourself on the back for recognising perhaps that wasn’t the best option and carry on with the healthy eating.
The feeling of self-control and confidence that you can overcome is enormous when this is done. Everyone makes unhealthy eating choices sometimes. It’s normal. It’s more of a reason to make the next meal a good one. Don’t sweat the bad – move on to the good without thinking any more about it.
Step 6: Find the foods you love and make them available.
I’ve found amazing ways to make the foods I love still available.
Jelly tip icecream. Raspberry Jelly and vanilla icecream… heaven on a stick.
My substitute? Lite Vanilla yoghurt with Raspberry Weight Watchers jelly crystals stirred through – tried it? Oh. My. Lord. Try making it and putting it in the freezer for 15 minutes. Even better.
Real Butter Chicken? Love it. Can I eat piles of it?
Not if I want to still fit these jeans next month.
My substitute: A whole pile of chicken strips cooked with some frozen baby beans thrown in. Two level Tablespoons Lite Butter Chicken sauce stirred through, it’s not enough to soak the whole meal in flavour, but it’s enough. A supermarket bought Pappadum cooked in the microwave. Served in a bowl with cut tomato. No rice (don’t need it!). Break up that Pappadum and scoop big scoops of the gorgeous chicken in – YUM! I lost weight eating this. Really I did. High protein, very low carbs, a little bit of fat but not enough to worry considering the lack of carbs. First and foremost though, I was eating something I love.
Think carefully about how to keep that feel-good factor alive.
Jellytip and butter chicken. Hell yes. I can eat that.
Step 7: Surround yourself with people that can laugh, cry and keep pushing you.
Friends will be supportive. At first. Not all will carry on the support, especially as they start seeing you do crazy things like give up the carbo-loaded takeaways for that chicken drumstick you pull out of your handbag, start posting self-motivational pictures all over facebook or get up at 5.30am for that walk that will set your metabolism racing for the day.
It’s Ok. I can understand why they think I’m crazy, so I have that OTHER set of friends. The ones that will tell me to harden up if I start to feel like giving up, the ones that will invite me to join in challenges to keep me motivated, the ones that will pull me along because they are headed in the same direction.
My personal support group has ranged from a great set of people met at the gym, to a fitness group I joined a few months ago, to an online forum. Whether you want to just eat cleaner, train meaner or go all out and lose 50kg by next Christmas, you need moral support. Find a forum, a group, a local fitness session – just make it people that are walking in the same direction.
A journey is always easier when the crowd is all walking the same way you are.
(The Pukekohe MotivateMeNZ Spring Shake-up group… a social thing as much as a fitness thing, and yes, I’m using the fence to hold myself up…)
Step 8: At the end of the day it comes down to no one but you
Make it something you are doing for yourself. How many times have you heard this, (gag), but it’s true. Think about what you’ve done in the past, drop all self-hatred and doubt. Decide to work WITH yourself and not against yourself. Tell yourself you are strong, even when you don’t feel it. Surround yourself with people that understand the journey you are on. Start believing, adjusting and walk with a healthier, fitter attitude.
You’ll be amazed at the results you can achieve.
Edited to add: I’ve already had people emailing and asking me where I get my support from. I don’t believe in treadmills at home or walking alone day after day. Self-motivation is so hard to dig up without support and you want clean eating and any fitness plans to become part of every day. This stuff is as natural to me as brushing my teeth – I don’t even think about it now.
I belong to a gym and make sure I say hello to those around me, I have developed good friendships there. I run or walk alone but on days I don’t have much energy, I ask my Mum or hubby to come along. We start chatting and all of a sudden we’ve gone 7km.
I join the local Shake-Ups (4x per year, all over New Zealand). I adore the ladies I do these with, we all turn up as unmotivated as each other and all leave feeling completely shattered but satisfied we are doing something awesome. I also belong to www.motivatemenz.co.nz . Motivate Me is a NZ based support group where everyone is doing their own thing but we all have the same general goals. The facebook forum is extremely active, recipes are shared, goals are discussed, challenges are issued and praise flows.
This kind of thing is always easier with people beside you.
