Yesterday we tackled what you needed to do physically to get through the STA. Today, we are going to talk about it emotionally. I am not going to go into too much detail because I would rather cover this more comprehensively at another time but you will get the gist of where I am going and it will give you a few things to think about in the mean time.

Scenario #1 Having to lose weight again within one year of a 10 to 15 pound weight loss.
Pro: This should not be earth shattering in terms of losing the weight again. It is very doable.
Con: You will have to work harder than you did the first time and that is always a bummer.

Things to consider:

1. The weight comes off easier the further you are from the date when you stopped dieting. If you entered into maintenance in April and gained the weight back over the summer, you should not have a hard time come December or January if you follow the guidelines I outlined.
2. The older you are, the harder it is and the longer it takes. Each time may look different so be ready to “re-learn” your body all over again.
3. The way you gained it makes a difference as well. A slow creep is easier to take off than a 2 week bender that happened a month after you entered maintenance.

I find that this is the least debilitating situations out of the four groups. Typically, this did not come about as a “grand revealing” so you don’t have to do the “grand veiling” 6 months later. Most of us who take off ten pounds, just take off ten pounds and there isn’t much fanfare about it. Maybe someone notices and compliments us here and there, but if it took a while, it most likely didn’t cause a commotion. Where the problem comes with this group is that they keep losing the same 10 pounds over and over and over again. This brings on a sense of failure, futility, frustration and guilt that can start to take on a life of its own and also become habitual. I can honestly say that some of us would not know what to do with ourselves if we didn’t have “10 pounds to lose” but if that is the case then I would seriously beseech you to look at the underlying feelings that are causing that craziness.

Scenario #2 Having to lose weight again within two years of a 20 plus pound weight loss.
Pro: If you are closer to the two year mark there is hope.
Con: You will most likely be forced to go extreme to take off the weight if you are impatient–which pretty much describes most of us women.
Things to consider:

1. You lost a good amount of weight and you will not get it off the second time without a fight.
2. Before trying to lose the weight, get all of your ducks in a row in terms of eating and having a rhythm. This means trying to regulate your eating right where you are. Don’t restrict calories, just clean up the diet. Give your body some time to get into a healthy rhythm before putting it through the rigors of dieting again. Usually, when we get off track our normalcy goes with it. Restore that for at least a month before starting on yesterday’s guidelines.
3. If you gained back 20 some odd pounds in less than a year, then it will take an act of nature to get it off again in a year without some sort of extreme measure. Can you do it in 2 years? Yes, you can. But less than one year is going to cost you.

This is a hard one to get through emotionally. Twenty pounds is noticeable and you feel naked before friends and family. What is the hardest, though, are the declarations you most likely made to yourself and others that now you have to live down. Things like “I will never go back to my size { } ever again” or “You just have to make healthy choices” and so on. Insert whatever glib statement you want but many who lose that amount tend to become overnight nutrition counselors to everyone else so when they fall…they fall hard. My weight in last 2.5 years has fluctuated more than the Dow Jones off a bad Tweet. I went for 5.5 years without being able to lose a pound to fixing some major hormonal issues that caused me to drop weight in five seconds flat. So yes, I could now lose weight but I, also, could gain it back faster than I have ever seen before and the roller coaster ride that I went on trying to find a balance was not fun. I have a very different body post apocalypse and I have learned much in terms of the emotions that go with not being able to control your body’s response to things. It will be really tough to go through this if you had much to say about your weight loss to others. To the degree that you were vocal will be the amount that you will struggle on the rebound. If you were quiet, though, your second journey will only be physically hard and only slightly emotionally laborious. Sounds exciting.

Scenario #3 Having to lose weight again after a 12 week hardcore diet countdown of any kind losing ANY amount of weight.
Pros: You haven’t had the new weight long enough to become too emotionally attached.
Cons: If you lost it that fast, EVERYONE knows and is now focusing their attention on you and you feel as naked as a baby’s bum on a changing table.
Things to consider:

1. You have to give yourself at least a 4 week break before you can try to lose weight again. If you dropped into a 15-20 pound weight loss over a 12 week hardcore restrictive diet, you most likely rebounded HARD—meaning almost overnight–when you gained the weight back. This is THE hardest weight to ever take off. Your body is tired from dieting and you are SO over it by this time. Hormonally you need to stabilize before expecting your body to respond.
2. You must drop your cardio immediately and stop dieting. The guidelines are essential—follow them.
3. This was to be expected and I am not sure there was much you could have done to prevent it. It is…the nature of the beast. Knowing that, do not beat yourself up over it because it only wastes time and you don’t have any to waste.
4. You will not rebound this hard the next time you diet. Your body will get used to the dieting and you will be that much wiser the next time around. Trust me on this one.

See my series called Failing Forward to see how this goes down emotionally.

Scenario #4 Having to continue to lose weight when you have a sizable weight loss goal of 30 pounds or more.
Pros: If you have been doing this incrementally and nothing extreme, you just need a refeed here and there and you’re good to go.
Cons: It is a long haul and you need a good team behind you and that’s not always available.
Things to consider:

1. You have to be the master of change: diet, workout, perspective, etc.
2. Cut your cals last. Since you have a long way to go, a cut too deep too soon = plateau.
3. You will lose on the scale, in the mirror and in bodyfat. Do not declare a plateau until all 3 of those have stopped moving.

You need a professional team of rah rah shish coom bah’ers on your staff. They need to stoke you like a coal fire in a steam engine train. There is nothing more to this. If you have to lose more than 30 pounds, you know what I am talking about. Put your nose to the grind, ignore all the people who feel like they are your “Jillian Michaels” for the moment and just keep it moving. Make sure you have a sanity check in your life from someone who knows what they’re talking about and just ride out the storm. Cool? Because the only thing that is going to take you down is taking your eyes off of the road. Looking out the window will cause a crash. Keep your eyes focused on the road.

Oh my, ladies.  Well I’ve lost about five pounds just getting worked up this week over this.  Whew!  Thank you for the workout! Haha!  Next series is a short one…Look for it on Tuesday…Cool?  Woop woop!!

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Today can best be described as ‘rolling commentary’. For those of you who have ever had a conversation like this with me all I can say is, “Thank you for still staying in touch with me.”

Shell Shock
I remember the first time I realized I couldn’t lose weight right away and that where I was, was where I was going to stay. I am not sure that there are words to describe that feeling. Shell shocked was about the only words I can find for you. But you will run the gamut in terms of feelings when you realize that the golden scepter of weight loss has been removed from your life.

Your first reaction will be to put everything back into action again. In other words, go back to the diet you were doing, the same amount of cardio, the same supplements and so on. My reaction?

It’s not going to work. In fact, you will feel like a hamster on a wheel because you are going to be working really hard but getting nowhere. You will go weeks without any weight loss and you will end up exhausted before anything else. If you don’t get really desperate and think about a fat burner, liposuction or gastric bypass,then you will most likely cut your cals down to just sniffing your food and boost your cardio up to endurance training levels.  That’s a surefire way to enter in no-man’s land–fast.

Flim Flammed
Once that doesn’t work, you’ll turn the internet. You will read somewhere that you are not eating enough or that you dieted so long that you are now in “starvation mode” and what your body really needs is calories. But you’re too scared to just increase your cals so you find one of those really “book smart” gurus out there to help you. He tells you that yes, you need to eat more and puts you on a high calorie diet and says, “Don’t worry. This will get your metabolism going so you can take off the weight again.” My thoughts on this?

DON’T DO IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Is he reputable? I’m sure he is.
Is he brilliant and beyond reproach? I don’t doubt it.
Is he right? Technically.
So what’s the problem? HE’S A MALE!!!!! And he is leaving out the most important thing you need to know: YOU ARE GOING TO GET FATTER BEFORE YOU GET THINNER!!!!! That may not seem like a big deal to a random passerby but I have not met ONE of you who are willing to take one for the team like that! Guys don’t care about the things that we care about. I would rather have someone do a cavity search on me with studded gloves before I’d EVER willingly gain a pound! Am I driven by my body? NO! You all know that—especially so if you’ve met me in person—but I’ll be darned if you send me ten steps back to go twelve steps forward! It takes a LOT to lose weight. Heck, I was gonna say it takes a village for a minute there because it almost seems like that but do not ever, I mean ever assume that that weight is going to come off just because some really knowledgeable guy says so!!!!! Let’s look at why:

1. You know you didn’t tell him all the reasons why you are where you are. To be thoroughly truthful, you probably haven’t told yourself either!
2. You know you are not stable minded when you weigh more than you want to weigh. You will only half follow what he says so you’ll only get half of what he promised.
3. You know he can’t really *make* it come off and since he is giving you that assessment off the bogus information you gave him in the first place, you are playing Russian roulette. Get out now.

So let’s say for afro’s sake that you didn’t go up anymore weight because that just didn’t sit right with you. What do you do? And when you *do* do it, what does it really look like while going through it?
1. Open up your diet but do NOT increase your cals, yet. Whatever you took out to get there, put back in immediately. This includes but is not limited to dairy, wheat, eggs, starch, fat, taste, enjoyment, fun, crunch, salt and anything else that makes you smile when you think about it. Stop eating Styrofoam lying to yourself saying that this is ok. Girl, please! It’s most likely why you fell off the wagon so fast in the first place.
2. Make sure you have a way of tracking your intake that is reliable. I get it…tracking is not fun. It is time consuming and laborious but so is dragging around an extra 15 pounds in your back pocket. Suck it up and get over it (the harshest thing you will ever see come off my keyboard. Sorry, but please do it.) You did not have to do it to get here, but you will have to do it to get out of here. You must know what you are taking in every day. Eyeballing is not going to work the second time around.
3. Start first with a refeed. Do not ever increase your cals for a sustained amount of time but definitely eat a ginormous amount of food for 3 days or so to at least signal your body that you are about to do something. Just coasting into a diet is not going to work and I cannot tell you how many times we try to get away with this. Crazy. What constitutes a lot of food? Around 2300 to 2500 CLEAN cals for 3 days. Doesn’t sound like a lot? Try it. You’ll hate food by day 3 because that’s a lot of food.
4. Whatever way you dieted before, do something completely different this time around. If you were lots of protein and greens before with no starch, you’ll be moderate protein, some green veggies and some colorful ones, too, with a bit of starch here and there. It cannot look the exact same as before. YOU MUST CHANGE IT to get the scale to move.
5. Start with the cals you started with the first time you dieted assuming you were dropping them as you were dieting. This puts you in a caloric surplus but not so much that you balloon up like a tic on a dog.  Do not…I repeat…do NOT gain a ton of weight back thinking it will just “come off”.  You better make friends with that weight at that point.  Start talking to it.  Cuz it’ll be with you for a while! Just sayin’.
6. Leave cardio where it is. Don’t touch it. Whatever you’re doing now is fine. This is a diet issue.
7. Make lifting more like cardio. Stop the splits because you are wasting your time. Get to moving the big muscle movers and for Pete’s sake, increase the amount that you lift.  Or…hire a trainer who will work you hard during this time.  The point here is you must sweat, work hard and lift heavy and most of us are not motivated enough to thoroughly change our workouts like that.
8. Wrap your mind around the fact that this isn’t Kansas anymore, Toto. Gone are the days of 1 to 2 pounds per week. What you will most likely see is:

• Non linear weight loss. You’ll go 3 weeks without losing one pound and then suddenly drop 2 out of nowhere.
• You will get smaller before you get lighter. Don’t ask me why I have no idea but this is fact.
• You will feel like everyone in the world is talking about you. This is not true. Only a few are talking about you and you most likely talked about them so all is balanced in the world again.
• You will not be as hungry. This is a tough one because there is a fine line between stuffing yourself and shorting yourself.  My first instinct is to tell you to eat but if you have to unbutton your pants like it was Thanksgiving everyday, something’s up and I’d pull back.

9. BE PATIENT! If it took you 8 weeks to lose it the first time, it will take you 12 weeks the second time. You will have to put in about 1.5 times the effort to get what you got before.

Wow. I actually tore up some of the fabric on the chair in my office and it is now securely tucked away in my butt thanks to my anal sphincter. I think I’m gonna go for a walk now and let off some steam. Scare the neighbors a little. Hahaha!!

Wrapping it up tomorrow! Woop woop!

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I’m not sayin’ I’m upset or anything but I’m definitely spitting while talking today!

(On side note, I used to wear my hair like this but what a beast of a hairstyle to keep up! UGH!)

You are not general public. Period. Do not forget that as I go through this series because I have to constantly remind women of this who venture into the land of clean eating. Once you get to a certain body fat (I will qualify this in a later post), none of the diet rules pertain to you anymore; you have now entered into the clean zone. Why do I bother to say this? Because much of what I am going to say is going to seem counterintuitive to what you know is out there or it is going to seem like I am making it up because I have nothing better to do with my laptop keyboard. Another reason is that there is very little research on this—if any at all—because no one studies the lean community. (When’s the last time you saw a study that said, “Lean Girl Struggles to Lose 10 Pounds to Get Back to Pubescent Weight”? Don’t wait around for it.) Studies are done on the obese (and by companies who want to push a product or an agenda) and you cannot extrapolate their results to you because they live in *excess* and you live in a constant famine. Hormonally, you are a very different woman and depending on how much you lost, your body may not be happy about it.

The number one question rolling through our minds is always ‘how did this happen?’ Although the answer is quite obvious, as you lift your face out of a bag of Lindt chocolate truffles, it really isn’t that clear cut. First, you never ate Lindt truffles before you lost the weight so now why the obsession? Second, it’s more than the fact that you like them—you’d sell your first child on the black market for them–and if you don’t have kids, you’ll sell a niece or a nephew because it is all about the [insert food here] right now! Where did that intensity come from? Third, you are not pounding them down in outrageous amounts. Yes, it is more than you should be having but it’s only once a week or even less so why the extreme weight gain? And lastly, why aren’t you doing anything about it? Why is it that the more you try to stop, the more you eat?

Before I can get into the details of what it looks like the STA (second time around), it is imperative that we define just who we are talking about for this series. Yesterday I gave you 4 possible scenarios as to what constitutes the STA, today we are going to tackle scenario #3. Let’s assume that you have just done a 12 to 16 week diet. You lost anywhere between 12 to 15 pounds. You lost it either easily or quickly—or both. Let’s also assume that you ended at a weight that you have not been at for a long, long time. And that you threw out all your clothes at the larger size because you swear you “will never be there again”. OY! Now that we have all that established I ask again…what happened?

1. You lost too much too soon. Honestly, saying it that way is sort of inaccurate because what really matters is not how fast you lost it but how extreme you had to go to lose it but for this blog post, it’ll do. Losing that much weight that fast causes your body to go into “oh heck no” mode and it begins to fight you but not like it does if this was for an event, this is a different fight. It is more akin to a scale creep than a scale leap. Because you are not losing this for a show or an event, your cortisol levels will not be sky high since you are not anticipating anything. Therefore, you notice that although you crave sweets, it is not an all consuming vacuum like it once had been but the fight to stay at that weight is there and you feel it. Your body wants to go back to where it was and that desire of your body depends on how long you were there.
2. You didn’t own the weight. This picks up where I just left off: you have to be at that weight for at least 3 months before you can truly say that that is now your new weight. And let me be even more real here: you really have to be at that weight for at least 6 to 9 months before you can breathe a sigh of relief. This does not, by any means, mean that you have to keep up with the level of dieting that you were doing to get there but it does mean that you need to be extra vigilant for a while.
3. You bounced out of diet mode instead of easing out. I see this a lot. It was an inconvenience in the first place to diet, it is an even bigger inconvenience to keep it going. Making the time for the gym, keeping up with the dieting, being a nuisance at events that you had to go to. When it was all said and done, you couldn’t wait to be “normal”! Not to mention, life got hectic so you had to cut a few days here and there off of your normal gym time as well as a few weddings happened and so on. You woke up one day and just said fahghettaboudit. And you did.
4. You didn’t deal with the issue that made you gain in the first place. I’ll admit…this is a tough one without first adding a qualifier. Let’s assume that you have dieted before and this “new you” has happened in your lifetime already. In fact, over the course of 5 years, it has happened a few times but this time is the best you have ever looked. In light of this, we can honestly say that you haven’t dealt with the issue that keeps causing you to self sabotage and gain the weight back. Dieting is exhausting and every time you gain the weight back, you care less and less about doing it again. Not only that, but you begin to “live” in diet mode and that is debilitating.
5. You live in diet mode. You should have seen this one coming just from the way I ended that last sentence. At some point this gets old. We never know when it is going to hit but when it does, watch out! This is sheer rebellion, ladies. “I am tired of being on a diet”. However, you are not on a diet any more but your mind is! You perpetually live in restriction. Even if all you are doing is eating clean, in your mind you’re on a diet. So many of us have ritualistically embraced the concept of eating clean: Tupperware, cooking ahead, no processed food and so on because we joined the clean community in hopes of changing our physiques. But over time, we need to shift from this being a means to an end to this being a way of living in our minds, hearts and actions. I guarantee you that most of you believe that you have because you have lived this life for so long but I am telling you just from talking to you that you have not. You have “accepted” the ritual as your reality but deep down, you long for the old way of living of eating [name your food of choice here] and make do with the new way of living. This is why when you are left on your own in front of a buffet for five minutes, you cut up like a clown at a Big Apple Circus premier. We will talk more about this.
6. You really don’t care. What?! Did I just say that you really don’t care after you paraded yourself around the gym like a float from the Macy’s Day Parade? Yup. I did. And look me in the eyes and tell me differently…I dare you. Hairy eyeball ‘n’ all. Talk about a real let down dropping 12 pounds, looking awesome, loving the way you feel and realizing that your significant other is still a pain in the butt, your siblings are all still dysfunctional, your job is still demanding and you still don’t have a pot to pee in or a window to throw it out of. Why flippin’ bother? You thought it would solve all your problems. Now you’re the star of Facebook but you still have to collate all the pages of the 2013 Budget Review at your firm. Fun.

Those are 3 technical mistakes and 3 emotional mistakes that we make that cause us to go from glory to gory in all of a few months. Next up is what it looks like when you are actually dieting because it is very different from what you expect and it can drive you bananas (although I hope not on a no starch day because that wouldn’t be cool.

See you tomorrow! Woop woop!

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Who wishes they were in my basement with me when this guy showed up?  He was HUGE. And he made loud clicking noises.  Ewww. Now this is a beast.  YUCK!  Thank goodness for hubby and the 6 pound med ball he dropped on it!  But then it stunk up the house for at least a day. Blech!

Clean living sounds like the most simplest of things to do; that all you have to do is stop eating processed food and voila—you are all set. Your body comes in line, your happiness is all set, your bills are paid…I mean seriously, look at the ads for living the clean lifestyle. You would think this is America’s best kept secret. On the one hand, it is. I would not go back to the way I used to eat before 2002 if you paid me. But on the other hand, I wish people told me back in the day about food cravings, mood swings, texture issues, loathing protein, loving protein, loathing green veggies, craving green veggies, metabolic chaos, hormonal troubles and the topic I’m covering this series: losing weight “the second time around”. There is so much more to eating clean than is ever talked about and I pray to cover every little dirty secret of the industry if I possibly can because most of you think you are nuts, when really, you are experiencing clean eating.

I am sure that I speak for many of us when I say nothing is more upsetting than the big diet countdown that leads to a fabulous loss of weight—at least 10 pounds or more—only to be dampened by a not-so-fabulous gain of weight less than a year later. So please allow me to set up the scene:

• You are not out of shape by any means, but you feel as if you could lose at least 10 pounds without looking like a crack fiend.
• You go to your gym at least 5 days a week and missing a workout is rarer than a Sasquatch sighting.
• Not only are you the mayor of your gym, but the front desk staff checks in with you if they do anything like change the TV settings or enact a new gym policy.
• You show up to family functions and everyone knows that you’re the “healthy one”. They ask you things like, “Does this meet your approval? I got it just for you.”
• It is not like you truly know that your girlfriends are jealous, per se, but you definitely can tell that they are secretly rooting for you to gain a pound or two and certainly don’t want you to lose more.

This is your life before you even lose any weight so what do you do? You get your act together and lose 15 pounds off of an already good looking body. It wasn’t easy. You fought for it tooth and nail but you did it. This may have been your introduction to true clean eating or maybe you have been eating clean for a while and simply got your head out of your butt and made it happen. Regardless of which one that it was, you got it together in such a way that now you look amazing and just about everyone on the planet (or so it feels) notices. This, ladies, is the beauty.

Everyone had something to say about it:

• Gym goers named a piece of cardio after you because you look so good.
• Your mother “just knows” you’re doing drugs. How could you be so skinny?
• Your girlfriends now give you attitude over anything that you say. Somehow it’s all about you. (Although…they may be right!)
• Your partner may or may not be onboard depending on whether he’s all about “skinny” or “meat on the bones”.
• The mailman asked if you if you lost weight! I mean seriously!

For a few months you are walking on air. As far as you’re concerned, life has never been so good and you can’t remember a time when you didn’t feel insecure about your weight. This is great…kind of… While you were busy losing weight, life was unhappily going on around you and somewhere in your euphoria you woke up and noticed. Your boss was laid off and now you and your co-workers are picking up the slack; your mother got ill—nothing life threatening, but now you are taking care of her and her affairs; you and yours truly are suddenly fighting and you have no desire to hang out with your girlfriends right now. It has only been 5 months since you lost 13 pounds but somewhere in all of this hoopla, you have gained back 10 of it. You’re actually not sure if it is a full ten or not because you are afraid to step on the scale. And you can’t really tell in your clothes because you immediately went back to the baggy pants just in case someone notices. Your gym buddies can’t really help you because now you don’t want to go back to the gym. Now what? Do you crawl under a rug and disappear? Do you change gyms? Of course not! You simply lose that weight again. If you just get right back on to cardio and fire that ole’ menu up again, you’ll be back down to your diet weight right away. Right? Wrong!! This, ladies, is the beast!

The most hardcore eye opener you will ever have is that you cannot lose weight the ‘second time around’ without either taking an organ out to make the scale drop or selling your soul to the cardio demon just to take off an ounce. It is the most helpless you will ever feel when you have to diet the second time around. So what defines “second time around”?

Having to lose weight again within one year of a 10 to 15 pound weight loss.
Having to lose weight again within two years of a 20 plus pound weight loss.
Having to lose weight again after a 12 week hardcore diet countdown of any kind losing ANY amount of weight.
Having to continue to lose weight when you have a sizable weight loss goal of 30 pounds or more.

If you have any of those scenarios in place right now, this is the series for you. We need to talk about 4 things:

• What got you here in the first place.
• What it looks like losing again because it is very different than the first time.
• How to get past the emotions you go through looking “fabulous” one day to looking…well…like what you used to the next.
• The rules and guidelines of dieting the second time around.

I am not sure I am going to go in that order, but I do know I will cover all four of those topics. This is a big deal because how you handle this determines whether you keep your metabolism healthy or not. Most girls get themselves in trouble here and almost all girls think that they have “metabolic damage” when they are stuck here which is pure nonsense. Trust me when I say, when you have true metabolic damage, you have far more indicators than gaining back a few pounds. You typically have an apocalyptic event on your hands.

Hang tight for more. See you here tomorrow! Woop woop!

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Prideful

– satisfaction or pleasure taken in one’s own success or achievements.  Not a bad thing for sure until it drives us to hurt ourselves, destroy our true sense of worth or worst of them all:  hurt others.

The “I Know This Works” Diet

What is a good example of this diet? Whatever diet you did when you think you looked the best.

Why do we think we do this? “Oh, this is the only thing that ‘works’ for me.”

Why do we really do it? Because we think, “Oh, this is the only thing that ‘works’ for me.”

If you are two months into a weight loss plateau and you will not change what you are doing simply because ‘this is what got me to where I wanted to be in the first place’, then I am talking to you.  Taking starches out of your diet does not give you instant weight loss, ceasing all cheating does not make your body shape up overnight and splitting your meals into 5 meals from 4 meals does not put you on the fast track to the cover of a magazine.  There is so much more to physique trans4mation than ‘the last thing you did that worked’ and you are cheating yourself out of a new experience simply because ‘you know this works’.   There are three things going on here:

1)      Arrogance: No one knows your body better than you do, as far as you are concerned, and you know what you are doing because you do it for other people. Maybe so but every coach should have a coach, just like every doctor has a doctor.  Get over yourself and learn something new (this said by the former ‘most arrogant nutritionist in the field’) so that you can at least get off that weight loss plateau and before you do something harmful in desperation later.

2)      Fear: The last time I tried something new I gained 10 pounds and fought like a dog to get it off again.  No thank you.   I know this works and I’m sticking to it. I hear you loud and clear here and NO ONE knows this fear quite like me…BUT…it is still a cop out.  Your body does not change because of what you are doing; it changes because of the *change* in what you are doing.  If you do not change, it does not either.

3)      Pride: I actually do not want to change because then I would have to tell someone what is really going on with me and I’ll open up my closet full of Jurassic Park bones. Listen, after reading this site, you have to realize that we all have closets full of pterodactyl bones and it is A-Ok over here.  Feel free to mingle with us loonies.

The Celebrity Diet

What is the origin of this diet? Facebook:  Following the diet of the latest and greatest fitness model.

Why do we think we do this? Typically we start this because we are new to the industry, in love with {insert name here}, naïve enough to believe that they do what they print in the magazines and it is going to work for us.

Why do we really do it? We want to prove to ourselves that we can hang with the best of them even though up until then the only thing we’ve ever “denied” ourselves was humility.

Almost all of us have the same story in terms of our paltry beginnings:  we were always the best at {insert here}/very athletic/very smart/the obedient one/the dare devil who got good grades/worked 2 jobs/started a social campaign to save the whales/discovered America so when we graduated college we were looking for a way to stay athletic/top of the heap/challenged beyond belief because we over achieve at breathing and denying ourselves food and lifting until we pop a hemorrhoid seemed like the best way to do it.  I know, I was like that, too, so this is a common one for all of us in the way beginning:  we find the best looking fitness model/competitor with the most stringent diet and we just follow it.  We may follow their whole diet, the fact that they will not eat {insert here}, how many days out of the week they lift or what have you.  But what is the most notable thing about us doing this diet is that *we* think it is hard and that somehow there is something glorious about us because we can hang with such and such and do what such and such is doing.  Eventually we grow out of this but some of us are still doing it, not by following a person, but by following the *culture on a whole*.

Following the things your favorite fitness model puts on her Facebook is like eating the display dish at your favorite deli counter: both scary and dangerous all at the same time.  Not only is she not telling you the whole truth and nothing but the truth, but she is most likely sponsored by someone to tell you all that she did and she is not disclosing that to you.  I am saying this unequivocally right now that this is not about anyone in particular nor am I pointing a finger at fitness models or competitors.  This is about you—and just you.   The internet is a scary place to be when you feel “less than”, when you are vulnerable or when you just gained 3 pounds for no particular reason so you are reaching for straws.   Seeing her Facebook page is like an ex-alcoholic walking into a 24 hour lounge with open bar.  Even if you don’t want to participate, the draw is too much for you to resist when you are down and out.  Think about who you are allowing your mind to be filled with everyday and ask yourself, “Are they helping me or hindering me?  Do I feel good about myself when I am done looking or do I start a barrage of negative self talk right after seeing her bum hoisted up on the bathroom sink with her thong in full view?”

When we stalked them as a particular person, it was easy to spot later on that we had an issue and had to stop.  But when we stalk them all as a culture, it is less obvious and we may not see the things that we are doing that are hurting us.  She diets for a season and a reason, you diet so that your physique is pleasin’—it is not the same.  To hold yourself to that standard of discipline week in and week out is unrealistic and to compare yourself to her is mind numbing.  I totally get it, though, she *looks* like where you want to be but trust me, even if you hardened up your butt cheeks to the point of cement like status, you are still married to the same man, living in the same house, going to the same job and eating the same food.  This is a dangerous diet to be doing.  Knock it off.

The “I Am Superior” Diet

What is a good example of this diet? Dr. Mercola, PhD based diet programs, The Program

Why do we think we do this? We are being mindful of our metabolism; we are nurturing our thyroid; we are on top of our hormones, all cancer and food intolerances.

Why do we really do it? We are showing off.  Plain and simple.  Look at me, I am doing this elite diet by this PhD guy and his intelligence has now wafted on to me somehow.  I am leaner and smarter all at the same time.

We have to be really careful, ladies, we are different.  We diet harder, we workout harder and we achieve more in the day than the average doobie.  Some of us get up at the crack of dawn and do in one hour what many may not do in a month.  Those around us get “it”: we’re driven.  But let me let you in on a secret:  you will not always be.  And when your drive fades or the reason behind your drive shifts, you will be left with a shell of who you used to be and a whole lotta people celebrating your crash because you spent a good amount of your time letting them know how superior you were when you were fit and in shape.

We do not mean to do it, but we do.  We make our families feel bad, our co-workers insecure and our significant others feel like schleps and in all honesty, that is their problem to deal with for sure.  However, we do not help by the way we do things:  making our Facebook pages a place to lecture people on their bad habits, spouting off information that sounds super intelligent but does not help a soul, showing up to the gym in our latest LuLu outfit complete with our program from our ‘top coach’ or being the one at the party who has to set everyone straight on the latest food findings.  There are other little things that we do that may seem more innocuous like never letting anyone ever see you eat something bad, never allowing people to see you “up a few pounds” because you will not go to the gym until you are “back to normal”, never admitting to a friend that you cheat even though your fingers are orange from the bag of Cheetos in the car or basically not ever being “real” with anyone.   All of these things scream, “Look at me.  I look good, I diet harder, I am more disciplined and I am smarter than you.”

What makes this diet so hideous is we did not choose the diet or the online coach because we needed them, we chose them because there was someone we knew who we “didn’t think was up to par” doing the same diet/using the same coach as us and we immediately thought, “I need to up the ante.”  Our fuel for changing and seeking this person out was simply that he/she is at the elite level and we wanted to be associated with them lest the nubie dieters get the idea that they are on the same level of us as dieting and working out.  At this point, we are probably just graduating from the The Celebrity Diet and we need to distance ourselves from the crowd of those “who do” from those “who think they do” so we hire the intelligent guy, keep it hush hush, stop talking about our workouts and food because now it is proprietary (because he’s the only one who knows about oatmeal) and we begin to insulate ourselves from everyone else because…well…we think we are more special.  Wow…did I just say that?  I did.  And it hurts my heart to know it is true.  We can insert whatever we want in there, too, because it is not just dieting.  It can be gyms, trainers, exercises, food brands and so on.  There is an undercurrent of snobbery with us and like I said above, people are waiting in the rafters for us to fail and we eventually do.

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Yesterday I introduced the three most popular conditions that I hear about when it comes to tummy issues and I did it in a very “basic information” sort of way.   You can find a ton of info out there about them but most of the information is very general in that all the sites sort of say the same thing.  Any time someone wants to tell me to “eat better” as a way to fix the issue, I tend to tune them out because we, on a whole, have already solved that problem.  This then sends me on a hunt as to what may also be the issue or what may be the alternate remedy.  The other thing is that I am not really interested in solving the problem with an Over The Counter drug simply because if we are working this hard to eat clean and exercise, an OTC seems out of place in our lives.  We tend to want a natural remedy that reflects our more natural type of lifestyle.  This brings me to today’s post.  I am not about to give you a host of remedies, I think that would not be cool; But I am going to show you how detailed you can be about what you are going through and that it really benefits you to be in tune with your symptoms.

If you ever have the pleasure (I say that with a giggle) to speak with me, you will find that you cannot say something to me in passing and I just let it go.  I have been told that I am a dog with a bone, worse than someone’s mother, a pitbull and so on when it comes to your health and what you think is nothing is typically something.  There’s also no such thing as TMI in my book.  Please…keep that in mind.  I will ask you ALL kinds of questions if I think that there is something fishy going on.  I always say this, and I do mean this, I am not a doctor.  What I am is an air traffic controller and I am here to keep you from ignoring the big pink elephant in the room.

This is why I am about to provide the following two lists for you, because if you could, you would just ignore what your body is telling you and just keep trying to lose weight.  But here is another thing I always say, ‘only healthy people can lose weight.’  If you are backed up or leaking like a cracked pipe, you can forget changing your body composition.  Your body has priorities and healing is number 1.  Not weight loss.    You may think the occasional bout of constipation, diarrhea, gas or bloating is no big deal, but maybe you’ll think differently if you know it comes with other symptoms.   The following two lists are different ways each of the 2 conditions can manifest in your body.  Each bullet point is its own manifestation.  You should only have one bullet point.  If you have more than one, get to a doc even faster.  The lists come from Prescription for Natural Cures by James Balch MD, Mark Stengler MD and Robin Balch ND, 2004.

Constipation

• Going days without going and when you finally do it’s hard and dry.  You also have sudden, noticeable memory issues.
• No desire to go at all and when you do it’s hard and dry.  This comes with great thirst, irritability and you may have a headache.
• Chronic constipation with chills and clammy hands.  You may also feel overwhelmed.
• Constipation with bloating and bad gas.  Cravings for sweets are out of control and symptoms are worse in late afternoon.  You feel better when you drink something warm.
• Constipation with a strong craving for salt and water.  You may be depressed and also light sensitive.
• Having an urgent feeling to go but can’t.  You may be irritable and/or feel overstressed.
• Constipation with PMS or menopause.  Could be chilly, irritable and having a really hard time going when you do.
• Can go but it is work!  Not coming out without a fight.  May have chills also and you are generally lean.
• Back and forth between constipation and diarrhea.  May have strong thirst for freezing cold drinks.

Diarrhea

• Comes with rumbling and gurgling in the tummy followed by an explosion.  Could be discolored and mucus filled.
• Comes with anticipation of a stressful event or eating way too much sugar.
• Diarrhea and vomiting together.  You may be anxious, restless and chilly.  There may be blood in stool.  This could be food poisoning if the first time happening.
• Comes with extreme exhaustion and weakness.
• Comes with nausea.
• Painful diarrhea that’s accompanied by extreme sweating and spasms of the intestines.
• May just be watery but not fully diarrhea.  Typically smells foul.  You may be anxious and crave cold drinks.
• May happen after eating greasy foods or certain fruits.  You feel better in open air than in a warm room.
• Burning, explosive diarrhea that smells like rotten eggs.  You have extreme thirst for cold drinks.

There you have it.  The TMI list of all TMI lists.  But I want to tell you how necessary something like this is.  Many times we discount the thing we’re going through as it’s all the same thing and it is not.  So when your doctor, or someone psychotically detail oriented like myself, asks you questions  you may not understand why.  Or when you slap a general remedy on it but it doesn’t seem to help.  Each one of these has a different cause and a different natural remedy.  It is imperative to pay attention to your digestive system because just like your period, it is an infamous Town Crier ready to tattle on you at the drop of a hat.

We’re moving on.  Yes.  There is more TMI to be exposed.  We’re a hot bed for conditions.  Woop woop!

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I go to the gym Monday through Friday right after I drop my kids off at school.  (For those of you who are wondering, I finally started coming to a stop for my kids to get out of the car.  No more pushing them out as I drive by.   It’s been working well for us.  Thanks for your concern.;)  It’s a basic gym, nothing extraordinary about it and I go at that odd time of the morning where it’s the end of the early morning rush but before the mommy time starts so it’s never crowded.  Every day that I am at the gym there is a woman on the Arc Trainer—her special Arc Trainer—covered in about 2 gallons of sweat and I used to always think, ‘Work it girl!’ when I saw her doing cardio.  Then one day I got on next to her and she was covered in sweat while the display of her machine said 7 minutes.  I immediately thought, “Holy crap.  What setting could you possibly have that on if you are that sweaty after 7 minutes?!  I need to get a hook up from sister-girl on how to juice the Arc Trainer for everything it has.”  Then I got on again about a week or two later when her display read about 50 min or so (I know I wrote about this before on some post but I can’t find it right now) and while I was doing my cardio it looped at 60 min and started counting from 1 again.  What the…?  What is THAT about?  Who in this day and age has that much time to do that much cardio all week long?  Holy ticking time, Batman!

So today I just happen to be there before she was and she came in and put her stuff on the machine before going to the lockers to put her stuff away.  What she used to “hold her spot” was 7 pieces of gum neatly lined up on the machine—meanwhile she was chewing away on some already before setting up shop.  Holy intestinal fortitude!  I got the runs just knowing she was going to chew all that in that short of time.  Well short time for 7 pieces of gum, long time for useless cardio.  Thankfully I was done 5 minutes after she came back so I had enough time to stock up on Cank-Aid and warm salty water.  This brings me to some more of the basics…

I am going to start running, I need to lose some weight.

Good luck with that.  Using running to lose weight is like using a spoon to empty bathwater out of your tub; you will eventually get it done.  If you insist on running as a form of weight loss, do it the right way by incorporating speed drills and sprints into your runs and you’ll really achieve what you’re hoping for.

Can I do the weight lifting class at my gym instead of lifting?  It’s so boring and I hate it.

You mean the class that does more reps in one hour than I would ever do in one week?  I would say no simply because you cannot lift heavy enough.  And I can’t say this enough:  group fitness has its place in life but not as a primary if your desire is to look good naked.

What do you think about…{insert diet concept/book/workout technique/DVD/latest fad here}?

Who cares?  You know you don’t.  I could tell you that it causes a new arm to grow out of your neck and if you are hell bent on it enough, you’ll bring an extra sleeve for your shirt just in case.  Seriously.  And honestly, if it is going to energize you, challenge you, inspire you and so on and it is safe, I say go for it.  I hope that most of us have been around long enough to know that change matters more than the actual diet or workout itself.  Not to mention, are you new to dieting or not?  If you are new, you’ll lose weight running to the shower in the morning.  If you’re a veteran, you could scale Mount Kilimanjaro eating only a bean and a half of pear and maybe, just maybe, you’ll lose a half pound by the end of the week.

I started doing bootcamp 5 days a week.  Is that ok?

Only if they mix it up.  If you are doing 5 days of jumping/plyometrics, that is not ok.  And if it is really a glorified run club, see #1.

It is cool to see people in their “stages of readiness”.   When we first start out we just want to lose some weight.  But then we lose a few pounds and realize we look the same as before, just smaller.  Then we go to a beach and put on a bathing suit and realize we’re so crinkly that we look like we wrapped ourselves in cellophane before we left the house.  That sets us on a mission to be smaller and tighter.  The rest is history but it’s wild to watch it go down in slow motion.  This wraps up all the questions asked to me in April.  May is proving to be a slow month which is nice because I need to regenerate in my hole office after all that.  Woop woop!

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This is part two of my crazy month of April where I was accosted by some insane folks with some insane questions.

I want you to know how this really happens because when you read these it can almost sound like I’m trying to say that I’m well known or something.  Umm…that is SO far from the case.  BUT, I am well known in my very small circle of influence (that’d be 8 people, 2 dogs, 2 cats and some bunnies in my yard) by what I presently do and what I used to do.  Now those folks never ask me any questions—they know better.  After I’ve told you something 5 times, I begin to put your business out there when you ask me something you know already.  This is a great deterrent for repetitive questions from family.  It looks like this:

Repeat offender: “Jodi?”

Me: “Yayesss?”  If you have ever had me say yes to you this way, you know what this sounds like.

RO: “Do I have to measure my food?”

Me: “Nope.”

RO: “Really?  You told me before that I should?”

Me: “I did?”  Knowing full well that I did and said with a massively incredulous tone.  “Well then why are you asking me again?”  Said with full sincerity.

RO: “Because I was hoping you would say no.  And you did, but I know you’re lying.”

Me: “I’m not lying.  You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.  Like progress (pronounced proe-gress).  Why do what you need to do to progress?  What you’re doing so far is working great for you.  Just keep doing more of that.”  At this point they’re done with me because they realized they’re not going to get anywhere (both in their dieting and the conversation with me) but I swear to you I am neither mean nor snide.  Those days are behind me (kinda;).

So if it’s not all my family and friends asking me these questions and I’m as famous as a homeless guy (although the dude in Boston who walks along Mass Ave, Roxbury, and washes your windows is pretty well known), who is asking me these questions?  Their friends!  Holy suffering survey, Batman!  My family’s friends and my friends’ friends can keep me busy for a long time.  Since I’ve never met most of them before, I do not mind.  It is funny to watch someone who knows me run and hide, though, when they ask me a question they know is a no-no.  But they don’t realize that I just do that to them.  Sillies.

Here’s Part 2.

Do I have to measure my food?

Yes.  Think about it this way.  You’re on a side street doing a good clip.  Not sure how much but a bit on the fast side.  A cop standing on the side of the road for a detail pulls you over.  He didn’t clock you.  He saw you.  He’s been on the force for 25 years, though.  He “knows” speeding when he sees it.  He gives you a ticket and tells you to slow down.  Is he right?  Yes.  But the ticket he gives you is dependent on *exactly* how fast you were going.  He claims 43mph.  Your speedometer said 40.  Three extra mph adds $30 to the ticket in Ma.  When you contest this by going to the judge and say, “I can’t accept this. He didn’t measure this accurately. I should not be stuck with this fine.”  The judge is going to say, “You’re right.”  Think of this when you step on the scale.  You’re using an accurate measuring tool to measure an inaccurate way of dieting.  Must be frustrating to accept those extra 3 pounds.

When can I stop measuring my food?

First time dieting:  after 5 weeks.  Veteran:  after 3 weeks and you are on a roll.

Do I have to have a cheat meal?  I’ve been doing great without one.

Yes.  Because you haven’t gone anywhere yet that has your favorite food.  You’re locked up in a cell known as your house.  As soon as you leave the compound, though, and go to a real function with real food laid out in front you, I have ten dollars that says you’ll forsake utensils and you will defy gravity with some of the eating techniques you will use when you get around that PB/chocolate/ice cream/starchy food/dessert that you’ve been missing.  No snortling please.

Sometimes the things that I get are not actually questions, but declarations.  It’s as if they want me to say to them, “You are so amazing and so on track!  What you’re doing is fabulous.  You’ll be Heidi Klum in no time.”   However, it’s usually something that will send me into a two hour rant.  See below:

• “I don’t eat salt.” Who is scarred from the salt rant?  Don’t make me go here again.  I can only say “huge” so many times.

• “I don’t eat fruit.” Now that’s just sad.  Fruit is nature’s candy and definitely not the reason you haven’t reached goal.

• “I don’t eat starch.” This is a BIG mistake.  There are a ton of Atkins/South Beach sufferers from back in the day who can tell you how much this hurts you as you get older in life.  This is cool if you never ever gain any weight back.  BUT, if you gain even just 5 pounds back, you’re done for.

• “My trainer says…” Good.  Why are you talking to me about this?  Follow what they say and stop fact checking them.  This is some sick game people like to play pitting trainer against trainer like they’ve been hanging out with Michael Vick or something.  Knock it off and go with your trainer.  You’re paying them.

You know there’s more.  I had lock jaw by the end of the month.  Hang tight.  Woop woop!

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Before I delve into how our girl is a survivor and how she is much smarter in her attempts to diet, I want to back track a bit to yesterday’s post.  Under Stalemate, I mentioned a bevy of things our girl was no longer sticking to like she did the first time around and I failed to mention how important that was.  When we diet the second time, third time and even fourth time around, we become less and less detail oriented.  We excuse more and more of our indiscretions but yet we look for the exact same results that we had when we were following the plan to a T.  As soon as we realize that we are not progressing like we did before, we then use that as a weapon of mass destruction against ourselves, our purpose, our success in life, our relationships and so on.  So we do it half heartedly but judge it whole heartedly.  It’s a bad combo.  What can we learn from that?

Myth: We are really on point while dieting even though we’re not tracking anything or fully adhering to anything.

Fact: We know when we are on fire and we know when we are going through the motions.  We are not disappointed with the plan when we do not get results—secretly we know we shouldn’t have any.  We are actually disappointed with ourselves because we cannot stay focused.

Failing forward: The longer we diet, the better we get at knowing when to start a plan and when to cry ‘uncle’.  Much like learning how to separate emotion from the task at hand, knowing when to start a diet and knowing when to wait is an art in and of itself but it can be done.  We begin to learn that there is a difference to committing to a plan and “cleaning up our act”.  The latter is best used when it is not a good idea to diet but staying where you are is not a good idea either.

Won the Battle, Lost the War

She reached goal, folks, and you would think that she would be excited but she’s not.  In fact, not only is she not excited, she’s actually panicked about it.  For her to make goal she had to do a bunch of things with her diet and workouts she wasn’t exactly prepared to do and now doesn’t know how to back out of them.  For one thing, she does cardio 2 times a day, 7 days a week and has no idea how to back out of that.  She also eats less than 1000 cals per day, no fat, no cheat meal and hasn’t seen a starch for weeks.  She’s exhausted, cranky, weather beaten and bitter because this isn’t what she had in mind when she first started dieting.  She feels sort of trapped.  On the one hand, she loves her body but on the other hand, she feels like a slave to it and can’t imagine keeping the pace she is at indefinitely.

Myth: Maintenance is hard.  It is actually easier than you think but our girl is confused right now.  She does not realize that the only reason she is in this spot is because she forced a situation in the first place.

Fact: The longer you are at a weight, the more you *own* it.  It will take more to make you gain weight as time goes on and you will do less and less to maintain it.

Failing forward: Eventually we begin to learn that we can’t just *stop* things.  We begin to see that there is a method to this madness and that a slow taper will keep our results while we lighten the burden on our bodies.   As we do this, we start to learn what’s a trigger food, what causes us to have insomnia, what’s the least we can do and still sane and what’s the most we can do and not collapse from exhaustion.

The Smoke is Clearing

Flash forward a year and our girl is doing ok.  Not great, just ok.  She has much to learn about being lean and staying lean but seems to be up for the lessons.  She rebounded again from the last diet she did but nowhere like she did the first time.  The second rebound was about 7 pounds and the manic frenzy of eating was not nearly as dramatic as before.  However, she noticed that her body on a whole is different, her weight distribution is not close to being the same and she is developing acne for the first time in her adult life.  Something is up but she’s not sure what.

Myth: We just diet, get lean and all else stays the same.  Nothing could be further from the truth.

Fact: If you want to maintain this lifestyle long term, you need to get smarter about what you are doing to your body being this lean.  There are good and bad consequences and you should know what they all are.

Failing forward: With as much drama that comes with every diet, we look better each and every time we do it.  Our weight distribution tends to even out, our body composition changes more favorably and we have less and less mood swings when done the right way.   However, when it’s not done the right way we can develop disordered eating patterns, burn ourselves out and go the complete opposite direction of health and wellness and head down a long dark corridor of confusion and disillusionment.  Failing forward is the right way.  By giving ourselves permission to not be perfect, not always be on a plan, gain a few pounds here and there and like working out for other reasons than how we look, we begin to embrace this as a lifestyle instead of a means to an end.  What I would love for us to see on a whole is that every week of your diet is a learning experience—not a test.  Therefore, you are there to take notes…not score a 100.  If you look at your dieting in this light, it will change the way you react when you “can’t get everything right”.

I wrap this all up tomorrow on audio.  I have some things I want to say more than write so I hope you meet me there.  In the mean time, get off your back and cut yourself some slack.  Cool?  Woop woop!

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…may make or keep you fat.

Meet Fat Fox.  He’s my daughter’s stuffed animal who has turned my house upside down.  We have arguments over whose turn it is to hang out with Fat Fox.  He’s the man.  However, when you think you *look* like Fat Fox, that’s not cool.  Especially if you’re orange.  That’s a bronzer issue.

You would be amazed at how much you really do not know about losing weight or being lean.  The whole ‘cals in vs cals out’ thing?  Nonsense.  The no starch but ‘healthy veggie carb’ thing—only a matter of time before you find a bunch of insulin resistant folks out there because of this misinformation.  The ‘lean’ craze that hit everyone who eats meat about 10 years or so ago—holy helpless hormones, Batman, we’re beginning to see the effects of that surface now.  Our girl is no different in what she thought about dieting.  What she thought to be fact is actually fallacy and now the struggle begins.

Back in the Battle

About a month after Armageddon, our girl is ready to get back to dieting.  She’s officially disgusted with herself.  Mirrors?  Thing of the past.  No, our girl is not dressing up anymore or wearing her cute gym clothes, she’s in a baseball cap, black baggie sweatpants and a too big T shirt.  She’s switched gyms because there is no way she can go back to her old gym and face anybody a month after her glorious goal date.  It’s too fresh and raw for her.  So she joined a gym on the other side of town and got back into the swing of things.

Failing forward: You will never rebound with the same magnitude again.  You may rebound again, but it will not be as great as the first time.  Changing gyms is extreme and really speaks to the severity of insecurity our girl had.  However, some of us wished we had changed gyms but stuck it out anyways.   What our girl is really suffering from is the fall from the top.  I’ve alluded to this here.  I will tackle it for real some day in a longer post, just know it’s coming.

Watching Grass Grow

The second time around is nothing like the first.  Nothing.  First, it’s hard to get that fight in your spirit again.  You know how hard it’s going to be.  You know how much you’re going to have to give up for it again and you’re not sure you want to.  There’s also no romance left to this battle:  the little nuances of seeing the body change, the cool reaction of all your friends when they would see you and not knowing what all the phases of dieting would be like so you looked forward to each one.  Second, it is WAAAAAAAYYYYYYY harder to lose weight each and every time you diet.  If you lost 2 pounds per week the first time around, you’ll lose 2 pounds per 2 weeks and possibly 3 weeks the second time around.  It’s hard.  It’s laborious.  It’s like watching grass grow.  So here’s our girl…miserable, heavier than her initial weight and profoundly disillusioned.

Myth: Many girls believe they have “metabolic damage” at this point and that’s why they cannot lose weight.  That’s not exactly true although they have jacked up their hormones which is what’s causing the delay in weight loss.

Fact: This is going to sound insane, but if you want to try and lose weight right after a rebound, you need to at least start with a re-feed of some sort and then s-l-o-w-l-y start to diet again.

Failing forward: At this point, patience is a virtue and we seasoned dieters tend to understand this.  We do not look for progress the first 4 weeks or so and instead, give our bodies time to get back into the groove.  Learning to separate our emotions from the task at hand is not easy and takes a good amount of practice and emotional fortitude.  But going for the gusto here would do more harm than good so she has to ride out this storm in slow motion.

Stalemate

Eight weeks in and our girl weighs 2 pounds less than when she started.  She picked up right where she left off and can’t understand why the scale isn’t moving.  Yes, she’s had a few breakdowns here and there.  A whole pint of ice cream, a few days of endless nibbles, some cookies and a few other indiscretions not worth mentioning but that shouldn’t be enough to stop her progress, right?  She’s missed the gym a few times, too, and she doesn’t keep track as well as before but she’s still in the gym 7 days a week so what gives?  She also doesn’t measure what she’s eating and she has the meal plan memorized so she knows what she’s eating every day so whatever.  She’s on it…yes?

Myth: Picking up where you left off will give you the results you had before.  Somehow you think your body should just snap back in place because you’re back to eating the same boring chicken and tasteless green beans.

Fact: You didn’t start off your first plan at 7 days a week and no condiments, why would you start there now?  Torturing yourself does not make your body conform faster.

Failing forward: We begin to discover the tricks of the trade and what really produces change in our bodies.  We do not lose weight because we exercise and eat right, we lose weight when we cause a *change* in the body great enough to elicit a response from it.  If you’re used to running 5 miles a day, you will not all of a sudden start losing weight doing so just because you declared yourself on a diet.  You must do something different or more to elicit that weight loss response from your body.  As we mature as dieters, we begin to realize this by actually backing off from dieting when we really do not need to.  This keeps us from having to go on 10 calorie diets and run a ½ marathon every day for cardio.

We’ll pick her saga up tomorrow when she finally gets to where she wants to go but now finds maintenance about as fun as getting a colonic with a central vacuum attachment.  More to come! Woop woop!!:o)

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