The ONE thing that finally worked…

I bumped into reddit thread that really caught my attention.

Someone asked, “What was the ‘one thing’ that made your weight loss finally work?

And this question has had 5,400 answers (and counting).

Some of the responses included changes in environment or changing the way food was prepared:

“Pouring snacks into little ramekins for them to eat.” I suddenly ate a normal amount of snacks.’

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

Others changed what they ate:

“I found a salad that I really like. It sounds silly but I’ve never really craved a salad before and when I had one that I really liked it meant I put together a couple of weeks of loads of lettuce – it snowballed from there because I actually felt good and then I started to feel like it. good.”

Some took a holistic approach that involved reevaluating their relationship to food, hunger and discomfort:

“Recognizing that this is a lifestyle change, NOT a diet.”

“Embrace suffering. Expect to be heavy and uncomfortable with cardio, expect to be sore when you lift, and expect to be hungry if you limit your intake.”

Others used apps to track their calorie intake, which made them aware of how much they ate:

“Using an app to track everything I ate. I realized that a lot of the “healthy” things I was eating, in the amounts I was eating them in, had a lot more calories than I thought. Just cutting back on certain foods did it.”

And some have succeeded because of the initial push with medication:

“I saw a doctor about my type 2 diabetes. I weighed over 300 pounds and also had coronary artery disease. I am qualified to treat diabetes which also helps control appetite. I started tracking calories and exercising.”

“semaglutide”

Some favored physical activity instead of focusing on food:

“Find a hobby. I was overeating because I was bored. When I get home from work and sit on the sofa it’s a lot easier to eat like a fart… now I just go and do something I enjoy so I don’t get distracted by eating.’

“Walking. Confirmation that I lost 45 pounds in 7 months by walking around my neighborhood every night. It was free and low impact, I walked rain or shine through snow storms. I now have a treadmill and walk indoors but the feeling is still as great as it was in the beginning.”

Looking through this list and reading thousands of comments from people thinking about the “one thing” that changed their life, and how different many of them are, we can draw some fascinating conclusions.

3 short lessons we can learn

LESSON 1: “Success moves from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm.” – Winston Churchill.

The hardest part of getting well is No losing hope when some strategy you try doesn’t work. I bet for everyone who shared their answer above they tried dozens of different strategies to try to get fit. Heck, I bet they tried most of the things that worked for other people until they found the one that worked for them.

What we can learn from this: “There is hope warrior emotion that destroys cynicism” and it’s okay to hope that every failed attempt means it’s one less strategy to try in the future.

For example, if you’ve tried Keto 5x and can’t stick with it, congratulations! You’ve found a diet that isn’t working for you.

If you can keep it up “beta test” mentality of “I’ll see if it works for me,” you might just find the first domino to fall on yours way!

LESSON 2: Beware of the quack.

Spend enough time on social media and you’ll eventually come across health and wellness quacks. These are the people who tell you they have it themselves one solution to all your problems. They often have a villain for all the evil in the world (“its sugar! It’s carbs! It’s X ingredient!”).

And it’s certain that once they get you angry and scared, they will give you hope with their expensive unregulated supplement or reliable system.

As you can see in the above examples, there is no “one size fits all” for these things. Each person is a unique freak with different baggage and triggers, traumas and experiences that make certain solutions home runs and other solutions non-triggers.

You can read more about how to spot and avoid quacks in my past essay here: “How not to go crazy on the Internet.”

Which brings me to my third point!

LESSON 3: All fitness stories have 3 boring things in common!

While all of these “one thing” solutions to getting in shape are different, they all have a few similarities.

Good news? None of these things are revolutionary, proprietary or fancy.

Adapt to literally 3 things:

• Eating the right number of calories for your goal weight
• Getting some form of physical movement
• To make these two things part of a lifelong lifestyle adjustment.

Losing weight is not magic. It’s math and behavior change.

As I covered in mine weight loss guidescience is settled on this.

Any diet can work if it puts us in a caloric deficit. we have coaching clients who are vegan, others go Keto, some count calories, and others do intermittent fasting.

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

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

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

So how do we incorporate exercise into our lifestyle?

We have to find ways to make that happen to make exercise fun, beneficial, or necessary:

• Entertainment: join a walking/running club with friends, give it a try association of temptations.
• Favorable: to fall in love getting stronger and more confident and how much better you feel after exercise.
• Necessarily: subscribe to the coach, park at the end of the parking lot, cycle to work.

Remember, hope is a warrior’s emotion.

We humans are incredibly adaptable creatures capable of change.

Try different strategies, watch out for charlatans and don’t forget the basics!

And pretty soon one day, you too might share the first fallen domino that changed things for you.

-Steve

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