The ONE thing that finally worked…

I stumbled ​Reddit thread​ This really caught my attention.

Someone asked, “What’s the one thing that has made losing weight good for you?”

This question received 5,400 answers (and counting).

Some answers included environmental changes or changing the way they prepare their food:

“Pour the snacks into little molds to eat. Suddenly I ate a normal amount of snacks.

“I prepared the typical amount of food, and instead of putting it in 2 containers, I distributed it evenly into 4 containers. I forced myself to only eat 1 container per meal and tricked my brain into thinking it was the normal amount.

Others changed what they ate:

“I found a salad that I really liked. It might sound stupid, but I’ve never craved a salad before, and having one that I really liked meant I spent a few weeks straight eating a lot of lettuce – it just snowballed from there, because I actually felt good and then I started to feel like Feeling good about it.”

Some had a more holistic approach that included reevaluating their relationship with food, hunger, and discomfort:

“Realizing that it’s a lifestyle change and not a diet.”

“Embrace the suffering. Expect that you will breathe hard and uncomfortable when you do cardio, expect that you will feel sore after lifting, and expect that you will feel hungry when you restrict your intake.

Others used apps to track their calorie intake, making them aware of how much they were eating:

“Using an app to track everything I ate. I realized that a lot of the ‘healthy’ things I was eating, in the portions I was eating, were a lot more calories than I thought. Just cutting back on certain foods worked to solve the problem.”

Some have succeeded thanks to the initial push with medications:

“I saw a doctor about type 2 diabetes. I was over 300 pounds and also had coronary artery disease. I qualified for diabetes medication that also helps with appetite control. I started tracking my calories and exercising.

“Semaglutide”

Some prioritized physical activity rather than focusing on food:

“Find a hobby. I used to binge eat because I was bored. Coming home from work and sitting on the couch would make eating so much easier… Now I go and do something I love so I don’t have the distraction of eating.”

“Walk. Verified I lost 45 pounds in 7 months just by walking every night in my neighborhood. It was free and low impact, and I could walk rain or shine even during snowstorms. Now I have a treadmill and I walk indoors but the feeling is still as great as it was in the beginning.

When we look at this list, and read thousands of comments from people reflecting back on “the one thing” that changed their lives, and how different so many of them were, we can draw some fascinating conclusions.

3 short lessons we can learn

Lesson 1: “Success is moving from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm.” – Winston Churchill.

The hardest part of getting healthy is… no Losing hope when some strategies you try don’t work. I bet everyone who shared their answer above has tried dozens of different strategies to try to get fit. I bet they tried most of the things that worked for others, until they found the one that worked For them.

What we can learn from this: “Hope is ​A warrior emotion that wastes sarcasm​“, and it’s okay to have hope that every failed attempt means that this is one less strategy you need to try in the future.

For example, if you’ve tried Keto 5 times before and couldn’t stick with it, congratulations! I found a diet that doesn’t work for you.

If you can keep it ​“Beta testing” mentality.​ “I’ll see if it works for me,” and you might find the first domino you’ll fall in love with for you a trip!

Lesson Two: Beware of the Antichrist.

Spend enough time on social media, and eventually you’ll encounter health and wellness charlatans. These are the people who tell you that they are the only ones who have it One solution for all your problems. They often have a villain for all the evils in the world (“Sugar! It’s carbohydrates! It’s ingredient X!”).

And sure enough, just as soon as they are fear mongering and scaring you, they provide you with hope with their expensive, unregulated supplements or foolproof regimen.

As you can see in the examples above, there is no “one size fits all” solution to these things. Every human being is a unique freak, with different burdens, triggers, traumas, and experiences that make certain solutions successful, while others will not.

You can read more about how to spot and avoid charlatans in my previous article here: “​How not to go crazy on the Internet​“.

Which brings me to my third point!

Lesson 3: All getting fit stories have 3 boring things in common!

Although all of these “one” solutions for getting in shape are different, they all have some similarities.

The good news? None of this is revolutionary, proprietary, or fancy.

Getting fit literally comes down to three things:

• Eat the correct number of calories for your target weight
• Get some form of physical movement
• Make these two things part of your lifelong lifestyle adjustment.

Weight loss is not magic. It’s mathematics and behavior change.

As I cover in my country ​Weight loss guide​Science has settled on this.

Any diet can work, if it puts us in a calorie deficit. We have ​Customer training​ Some are vegan, others follow the keto diet, some count calories and others practice intermittent fasting.

Our ability to turn dietary changes into a lifestyle we can live with is how we achieve success, and this looks different for everyone.

When talking about lifestyle changes, most of the answers above also involve finding ways to make exercise a regular part of life.

Remember: It’s okay that you don’t like to exercise. We are not designed to love exercise! Especially if it’s an activity we don’t actually enjoy! We are designed to survive in times of scarcity, not to thrive in times of unlimited abundance.

So how do we make exercise part of our lifestyle?

We need to find ways to ​Make exercise fun, useful, or necessary​:

• Hazar: Join a walking/running club with friends, try ​Temptation compilation​.
• useful: fall in love ​become stronger​ More confident and how much better you feel after exercise.
• necessary: Prepay the coach, park at the end of the car park, bike to work.

Remember, hope is a warrior’s emotion.

We humans are incredibly adaptable creatures capable of change.

Keep trying different strategies, beware of charlatans, and don’t forget the basics!

And very soon, one day, you too may share the first domino to fall that changed things for you.

-Steve

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