14 Aug Fat Loss Tip: Create Space

Scenario:

You’re sitting on your couch after a long day at work.

Suddenly, you notice you’re craving chocolate.

Instinctively, you reprimand yourself for having such a craving.

Next, you question whether you have enough willpower to beat the craving.

You then discover that you eating the chocolate is just inevitable. It’s going to happen.

So you walk over to the pantry while silently yelling at yourself for doing so.

You then eat some chocolate, while both enjoying and detesting the experience simultaneously.

You then tell yourself it’s never going to happen again… while also hating yourself because you know it will.

Does that sound familiar?

It should, because this is basic human nature. It’s how our beatifully ugly brains operate.

So what’s the solution?

Well, the first step to finding a solution is identifying the problem:

The problem isn’t your craving for chocolate.

The problem isn’t your level of willpower.

The problem is you thinking the two can’t coexist.

See, your craving is fine. You want chocolate, and that’s fine. It doesn’t make you a bad person. It just makes you… a person.

Similarly, you’re probably already putting in enough effort.

So the solution isn’t to change you or the craving.

It certainly isn’t to try harder.

The solution is to change your plan.

But first…

Look — it’s not your fault you’re overweight.

It really isn’t.

And I’ll spend the rest of my life proving it to you and the world. If that’s what it takes to change the industry I’m part of.

If insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results… then the fitness industry has been literally driving you insane.

Motivational gurus will tell you to “try harder”, “show me how badly you want it” and other trite t-shirt slogans.

But the simple fact is that this approach doesn’t work.

The fitness industry wants you to think that you are the problem. They want you to believe that you’re out of shape because you didn’t try hard enough.

The truth is that the problem isn’t you.

Ironically, this will be a hard pill for you to swallow. You’re probably thinking right now, “No Dani, the problem is definitely me. I keep screwing up.”

Well, here’s how I’ll prove it to you:

The vast majority of American adults are overweight.

Sixty six percent, to be precise.

So once you recognize that the you aren’t the problem, you can start to look at things objectively.

You can start to see that “trying harder” just isn’t going to cut it.

You need to work smarter, NOT harder.

So what’s the smarter approach?

It’s to change the way you satisfy that craving.

I’ll illustrate the theory in practice, with a real Fit2Go trainer and a real Fit2Go client.

David (a.k.a. “Mister Muscles”) has been working with a client for a few months. We’ll call her Liz.

David and Liz recently came to a roadblock — Liz’s craving for chocolate milk.

Now, there’s nothing evil about chocolate milk. Chocolate milk is awesome.

However, chocolate milk was getting in the way of Liz’s fitness plan. She wanted to lose weight, and that would require cutting calories.

So David had a simple mission.

David’s mission:

Change Liz’s habit of drinking three nightly glasses of chocolate milk.

Purpose:

Lower her caloric intake — consistently — so that she can enjoy a healthy weight that lasts.

What David did was ingenious.

He didn’t try to change the chocolate milk. He didn’t swap it out for some gross, low calorie replacement.

He didn’t try to change Liz. He didn’t try to convince her that chocolate milk doesn’t taste good. (‘Cause that’d be lying.)

Instead, David changed the relationship between the two.

David: “Okay, you enjoy the chocolate milk, so let’s stick with it. I only want to change the way you’re drinking it. You’re currently having 3 glasses per day, yeah?”

Liz (hesitantly, sensing danger): “Yeah… that’s right. “

David (calmly): “Cool, you can continue drinking that amount.”

Liz (cautiously optimistic): “I can… whaaa?”

David: “Yep. But here’s the catch, I want you to drink ‘em in shot glasses from now on. So you can have as many shots as you want. They just have to be shots, instead of glasses. That work for you?

Liz (delighted): “Sure! I mean, I don’t see how this will help me lose fat… but sure!”

Here’s how that plan played out:

Week 1 of chocolate milk shots:

Liz actually drank zero ounces of chocolate milk. The idea of pouring the milk into a shot glass was so tedious that it just wasn’t worth it.

Week 2 of chocolate milk shots:

Liz’s craving for chocolate milk had returned with a vengeance. But all was cool. She stuck with the plan — as many shots as she wanted. They just had to be shots.

After 3 shots of chocolate milk, Liz found that her craving was satisfied. While she used to drink three 8 oz glasses on the reg (24 oz total), she now was fully satisfied with just three 1 ounce shots (3 oz total).

For you math wizzes out there, that’s about an 80% decrease in chocolate milk consumption.

(I think I calculated that accurately. If not, call me out please.)

How the heck is that possible?

Liz — with David’s guidance — created space.

She didn’t try to avoid the craving. She faced it head on.

Liz recognized how badly she wanted that chocolate milk, and then savored every drop of it.

Since she paid attention to the shots instead of the glasses, she satisfied her craving with less.

It didn’t take willpower, it took a plan.

It took space.

It took truth.

And guess what?

This plan is yours for the taking.

Hence, so is fat loss.

You got this.