If your First Plan Fails, Try Another! Religious Sacrifice.

If the first plan which you adopt does not work successfully, replace it with a new plan; if this new plan fails to work, replace it in turn with still another, and so on, until you find a plan which does work. Right here is the point at which the majority of men meet failure, because of their lack of persistence in creating new plans to take the place of those whose fail. … No man is ever whipped, until he quits — in his own mind.
Napoleon Hill. Think and Grow Rich

I have had a recent set-back in my Groundhog Resolution plans. There is a reason I am not a garage door repairman. I hurt my finger pretty good while repairing the garage door opener motor. My painful experience put a big cut in my Pick and commit a time to exercise 10 minutes a day plan.  Don’t worry though, The doctor says I’ll be okay and everything will return to normal with time.

In my persistence for fitness, I am required to find a plan that works for me and you for that matter. We must keep trying and trying until we hit the mix of exercise and healthy eating that’s proper for our individual bodies.

So, a new plan?

Sacrifice: an act of giving up something valued for the sake of something else regarded as more important or worthy as defined by Apple Computer Leopard’s Dictionary.

Sacrifice

I’ve talked a bit about different motivations for fitness. We all are unique, and consequently we have to find what will motivate ourselves. Weight Loss and Fitness is as much as a physical battle as it is a mental battle. Re-thinking old habits and building new healthy habits takes time, persistence, and motivation. Sometimes, we need a little extra help with motivation and our sacrifice to fitness.

• By giving up eating too many calories, we can achieve a healthier body.
• By giving up sleeping an extra 30 minutes in the morning, we can exercise and achieve a physical fit body.
• By giving up unhealthy habits, we can create healthy habits.

We must give up and sacrifice in order to create new.

Now when I hear sacrifice, I usually think Religion.

Most religions require some sacrifice during your religious calendar. Jews have Yom Kippur, Muslims have Ramadan, and Christians have Lent. Each is a time to fast and atone for sins and a way to teach patience, sacrifice and humility. These Religious periods offer a perfect time for those motivated by God to offer up healthful-based sacrifices.

If you have Faith, make a promise to God to abstain from sugary sweets, chocolate, alcohol, French Fries, Coca Cola, or other unhealthy habits. I think that would be one promise you’d want to keep. No on wants to make God unhappy with broken promises.

If you don’t have Faith, then make a promise to your most motivating best friend to abstain from some unhealthy habit.

Back Story

Lenten Sacrifice is exactly how I gave up drinking Coca Cola. I used to drink almost a two liter of Pop (Coke, Dr. Pepper, Mountain Dew, etc…) a day. I decided during lent of 2001, that I would give up Pop as a sacrifice to God. After 40 days abstaining from Coke, I decided to see how long I could go. It is now 2009, and I have about two cans of pop (usually Sprite or 7-up) a year and no Coca Cola.

So, I suggest you and I use the next 40 days to focus on eating habits.

What can you sacrifice that is valued in your diet that may be unhealthy?  Is it Starbucks Coffees?  is it French Fries?  Is it Candy?  Is it Alcohol? Make a promise to the most important person in your life, possibly God for some of you readers, that you will abstain from that unhealthy eating vice.

Let’s Review:

1. Who’s the most important person/entity in your life now?
   • God, Spouse, Best Friend
2. What are the unhealthy items in your life/diet?
3. Make a promise to sacrifice your unhealthy vice for the next 40 days to your most important person.

Hmm, let me think, What are the some things I commonly over-indulge in lately?

• Peanut M&M’s
• French Fries
• Ice Cream
• Brownies, Cakes, Cookies
• Starbucks Hot Chocolates
• Fast Food

I guess there is no rule that says, I can’t cut them all out.

So, a new plan.  What’s your Sacrifice for Fitness?

14 days to Groundhog day, What are you doing about it?

Every year, people make New Year’s Resolutions.

Every year, Most people break their resolutions by U.S.’s Groundhog day,  (Feb 2)

Image: 'Happy Groundhog Day!' http://www.flickr.com/photos/62943723@N00/377567731

What are you going to do about breaking your resolutions?

I resolved this year, not to make resolutions until Groundhog day (a la David Seah).    Now, you ask why?  The Party Forces are against you. Think about it.

• From Thanksgiving until Christmas, there are parties galore with all sorts of food and drinks.
• After Christmas, you’re eating up all the left-over cookies, candy canes, chocolate, and other wonderful goodies.
• New years, you’re partying it up.  Drinking and eating.
• New Year’s Day, with all the New Year’s American College Football games, who’s not going to over-eat chips and salsa, pizza, and beer on New year’s day?
• Then, we have a week of BCS college football games, NFL Playoffs, and then on to the Super Bowl Parties.

Wow, what a stacked load of over-eating bonanzas face us before Groundhog day.  Now, who’s ever heard of over-eating at Lincoln’s birthday parties?  or Valentine’s day nachos?  Heck, The Academy Awards are more of Tea and Wine Party than a bowl of chips and hot dogs.  Granted, for the typical party-goer, Fat Tuesday and Mardi Gras throw a wrinkle in the plans of avoiding the over-indulgent parties. Additionally, Toss in the most wonderful TV time of year known as College Basketball March Madness and the parties are still coming.

Yet, those can be seen as hiccups in the spring along the way to summer BBQ’s.  So, What’s the best time to join a gym?  It sure isn’t January 1st when the wait for the cardio machines changes from a December 0 mintues to a January 30 minutes.  I suggest you Join the Gym in February when everyone else is fizzling on their New year’s resolutions and annoyed by all the January Joiners.  You can avoid the wait and be clean of the major party events.

To be honest, what’s the best time for Resolutions? it’s now, when you have convictions and motivation.  Do it Now, this Second, and resolve to be the new thin you.  Believe it, Dream it, Visualize it, and Feel it.

Not Convinced?

Well, I’m giving you (and myself) 14 days to become convinced.  You have to become so convinced and motivated that you will stick with your new habits at least until you achieve your goals and reach your swimsuit size by summer beach time.

How are you going to prepare yourself to begin the journey of healthy eating, healthy exercise, and a healthier you?

…stay tuned…

Of course, it has something to do with the Slow Weigh, but that’s enough of that for now.

Does the Flat Belly Diet or MUFA diet work for weight loss?

A Skim Review of the Flat Belly Diet.

Welcome MUFA & Flat Belly Diet Searchers.  We have noticed a large percentage of our visits have been from people like you searching for MUFA.  So, We decided to revisit the MUFA / Flat Belly Diet.

With three questions for you:

• Are you following the Flat Belly Diet?
• What do you think of MUFA is it a fad diet or is it the next best thing since Protein Diets?
• How do you Balance MUFA vs. Calories?  Since, that’s the biggest challenge I have had.

Here’s my quick review for those of you new to the Flat Belly Diet.
Disclaimer: I have yet to complete the entire book, (I’ve only skimmed it).

Let’s review the basics of the Flat Belly Diet:

1. Have a calorie goal, they recommend 1600 calories/day
2. Eat MUFA at every meal.
3. Eat Often.
4. Manage your emotional eating.

Now:  Does the MUFA | Flat Belly Diet Really Work?

As we’ve said before at simpleweight, it does not matter what diet you are on, if you eat you less calories than you burn, then of course you will lose weight. When I wrote, Do I really eat 3790 calories a day, I learned that the average US person eats 3790 calories a day. Now, if you are a normal average person, and you go from eating 3790 calories to 1600 calories, then of course you will lose weight. So, restricting calorie intake is a key of any weight loss plan.

Now, the key for the Flat Belly Diet, is science research states by eating MUFA at every meal you will feel fuller longer and help to curb your appetite. If you are interested in the science, you can check out the British Journal of Nutrition (2003), 90:717-727 Cambridge University Press, specifically the article titled: Substitution of saturated with monounsaturated fat in a 4-week diet affects body weight and composition of overweight and obese men

Substituting dietary saturated fat with unsaturated fat, predominantly MUFA, can induce a small but significant loss of body weight and fat mass without a significant change in total energy or fat intake.

More science states that:

In conclusion, diets in which saturated fat is partially replaced by MUFA can achieve significant reductions in total and LDL-cholesterol concentrations, even when total fat and energy intakes are maintained.
Cholesterol reduction using manufactured foods high in monounsaturated fatty acids: a randomized crossover study

Okay, so you want to add MUFA to your diet, How can you do so?

Check How to add MUFA to breakfast, lunch, or dinner for weight loss?

The question as I stated above, is the challenge of balancing the 1600 calories a day with high calorie MUFA foods.

The other challenge is weight loss is both an emotional task as well as a physical task.  Physically is really the easy part:  Eat Less Food,  Exercise More.   Emotionally, weight loss is the difficult part.  With any lifestyle change, we have to very strong motivations for making the change.  The motivation to change must outweigh the difficulty in overcoming our predeliction for eating and emotional and pscychological attachment to unhealthy habits.  I’ve explored the topic of motivation many times here at simpleweight, and it can not be stated often enough.

You must think positively, manage expectations, create strong motivations, and make weight loss socially fun in order to sustain long term habitual change such as weight loss and weight management. For more information, I suggest you read:  7 steps to a positive and healthy lifestyle.

What are your motivations and how has the MUFA diet worked for you?

Your Fitness Bicycle Follows Your Habitual Inner Eye.

As my last post implied about restaurants, I was on vacation for a bit.

Upon returning from vacation, my writing time, my family time, my work productivity, my exercise habits, and my simpleweight development time have been competing for attention as demonstrated by my recent drop off in simpleweight posts. It’s amazing when one’s commitments begin to compete how people react.

• Some people buckle down, pick one thing and get right to it.
• Other people multi-task, and do little things from every piece.
• Other people become overwhelmed by the forest of projects that the tasks that are trees get lost and ultimately procrastination sets in.
• Other people trim their obligations.
• We all follow our Inner Eye trained by our Habits.

Since humans are creatures of habits, regardless of your response, all of us tend to slip in to old habits.  I know I have.  My eating quantity is up, my exercise is down, and my emotional state is directly related to that.  While reading the web as I love to do, I noticed this:

When the schedule gets squeezed, exercise and diet are the last things to cut from my daily routine.  –some commenter on some blog somewhere.

That’s a great mind-set.  Health and Fitness should be one of your top priorities.  I know I can help improve it.  In fact, I believe when you improve your diet and exercise, the rest of the commitments tend to fall in place.  It’s a balance between your passions, your fitness, and your spiritualism/science.  When one is of out whack, the rest of them follow suit.

Here’s a good analogy:  While driving a car or riding a bicycle, if you look to the right, you will start to move towards the direction you are looking.  It’s a balance.  The same came be said for our fitness habits.

If you let one of your habits veer off course, the rest of your habits will follow.  The reverse can be said.

For example, I noticed if I start exercising, I feel good, and then without thinking I start to become conscious of my eating habits.

Another example, a friend of mine and I went to a baseball game.  I ate a hot dog, and he ate a salad.  — Huh? A salad at a ball game?  Well, the backstory is the friend is highly motivated to eat healthy and exercise.  In no uncertain terms, his doctor said exercise and eat healthy.  Wow, what motivation.

Now, my friend asks, instead of how am I going to fit that run in,  how am I going to fit in everything around my running time.  The exercise time is non-negotiable.  By changing your self-questions, one changes their habits and ultimately creates the healthy balance.

Where is your inner eye looking?  How has that impacted your fitness habits?