Slim for Life (33 page)
Authors: Jillian Michaels
Believe it or not, there’s good news: something is better than nothing. If you’re in this point range, you won’t continue gaining weight. That’s a good thing—a really good thing. The actions you have decided to take will kill any chance that you’ll take in more calories than you’re burning. However, whether you lose weight and get the slim, sexy body you bought this book for is questionable. If you do lose weight, the rate will be slow. If you’re lucky, you’ll shed a pound every 1 or 2 weeks. With this level of commitment, I also question whether you’ll keep it off.
I don’t want to discourage you. You still deserve that pat on the back for attempting to change how you take care of you. But let this serve as a wake-up call. Why did you buy this book? Are you willing and ready to take responsibility and do more? Because you
can
do more.
To move the needle forward—or rather backward, where the scale is concerned—we need to evaluate your tip percentage, then make some adjustments according to where you fall.
• If you’ve committed to over 50 percent of the tips in the book, then you need to go back and choose more of the power tips, aka the 3-pointers in
Chapters 1
,
2
, and
3
.
• Conversely, if you’re under 50 percent but are on the high end of this score range, it tells me you’ve selected many of the power tips. Now you need to give some serious thought to how you’re going to implement them to solidify your slim lifestyle. You specifically need to revisit
Chapters 4
and
6
and get real about where your slim might be sabotaged. You need to arm yourself and plan ahead if you expect to stick with the tips in the earlier chapters.
• If you’re under 50 percent and on the lower end of this score range, you need a do-over! Go back to
Chapters 1
,
2
,
3
,
4
,
5
, and
6
and add at least four tips from each of these chapters that you feel you can truly commit to in your daily life.
Okay, while I’m hoping you’re on the higher end of this point spread, overall this isn’t a bad category to fall into score-wise. It shows me that you get the idea and that you see how to connect the dots that lead to slim. The general principles that lead to a slim lifestyle are amenable to you, and you’re willing to do enough to implement them successfully. This range is not going to get you the quickest
results, but you’ll get results, and that’s what matters most. My one concern if you fall in this range is that if you don’t see a fast enough body transformation, you may get discouraged.
If you want to move at a quicker pace, here’s what I recommend:
• If your tip percentage is between 30 to 50 percent, it shows me you’ve selected more 2- and 3-pointers overall, which is a good thing, but I highly suggest you add
more tips in general.
Revisit
Chapter 5
and give some consideration to what will get you psyched and incentivized to dig a little deeper. Aim to add at least 20 points here. Also, take another glance at
Chapters 3
and
4
to see where you might shore up your slim approach with some simple but effective 1-pointers in Slim Cheffing, Slim Dining, and Eats at the Office.
• If your tip percentage is between 50 and 70 percent, it would seem, based on your total point score and your tip percentage, that you have chosen a nice cross-section of tips from all chapters in all point ranges. To up the ante here, I want you to try to add 10 points from each of
Chapters 1
,
2
,
3
,
4
, and
7
. This will add a little more action overall to your plan and really accelerate your results.
• Now, if you’re at 70 percent tip utilization, you’re definitely on the higher end of this spectrum. If you fall into this category, it tells me you’ve chosen many of the tips with a lower point allotment. You need to add some fitness power tips—some 3-pointers—stat. Head straight over to
Chapter 2
, and add as many of the “Maximize Your Muscle” and “Amp Up Your Cardio” tips as you can.
• Again, you aren’t in bad shape if you’ve ended up in this category, but to enhance and accelerate your results, follow my outlined recommendations above.
Now this score makes me happy. Truly. This is the ideal spot. While you may have thought that getting the highest point score was ideal, the truth is that living this way may not be sustainable or realistic to your everyday life. Landing within this point range tells me that you have a solid understanding of what slim requires and you’re willing to put in the work, but you’re sensible and grounded with what you can fit in and maintain permanently. Getting this score means you have selected not only enough tips but many of the power tips, so that you get escalated, transformational, and lasting results.
If you fall on the higher end of this point score (401 to 450), don’t change a thing! You’re in a great spot poised for success! For those of you who fall on the lower end of this range (351 to 400), and are looking to up the ante a tad and add some finishing touches, here’s what you should do:
• If your tip percentage is 40 percent or less, you could go back to
Chapters 3
and
4
and add 5 to 10 more tips per chapter. This is to make sure you’ve retained enough strategies to apply the general slim principles outlined in
Chapters 1
and
2
.
• In addition, take a quick swing past
Chapter 5
to make sure your motivation is firmly established. I would aim to check at least one-third of the tips in this chapter to make your continued plan of attack ironclad.
• If your tip percentage is 40 to 80 percent, you’ve chosen a decent number of ideas that run the gamut in point allowance. I propose you review
Chapter 6
to make sure you’ve truly conquered this material. Remember, you can work out and eat right, but if you constantly cave to hunger and cravings, your results will slow. If something unforeseen comes along and knocks you for a loop, it’s imperative that you be prepared to jump right back on the horse. Also, be sure to
swing by
Chapter 7
once more and play with some of these supercharged tips. They’ll help you maximize your results and the time in which you attain them.
Liar. No, seriously, are you this hard-core? I don’t even fall into this bracket. This is some serious commitment, and it can only mean that you have an insanely high tip percentage
and
you chose nearly all the power tips. I’m stoked for you, superimpressed, and have no advice for you to better your results. But I do have a brief word of caution. While I love your gusto, if you land in the higher range of this range, above 500, be wary not to fall into an all-or-nothing mentality. This extreme resolve is very hard to maintain.
I’m worried you might be obsessing too much about your slim lifestyle. When you slip a bit (and you will, we all do, no one’s perfect all the time), I’m concerned that you may freak out, get discouraged, and give up. I’ve known many a dieter who started out 100 percent in and then got exhausted and overwhelmed and consequently gave up entirely. They just couldn’t keep up such an oppressive level of commitment. Plus, if you’re too regimented, life is just no damn fun.
Remember my promise back on
this page
? I swore I’d get you amazing results without making you miserable. Here’s my advice: I love that most of the tips seem doable to you, but consider allowing yourself some leniency. Remember to live by the
80/20 rule. You’re going to really need that 20 percent of reprieve to sustain this agenda and maintain your sanity.
For example, I hardly ever drink, but once in a while I do have a margarita with my pals. Another example: I follow all the tips on how to maximize my muscles, but there are weeks I’m so crazed, I get to the gym only once. It happens. Take a breath and just know that it’s okay to cut yourself a little slack. It’s also okay to fall outside
the lines from to time to time. If you can work all these tips in 80 percent of the time, you’ll still get amazing results without getting burned out.
At the beginning of the book, I suggested that you pick and choose tips that both resonate with you and are manageable with your lifestyle. What do you do about the tips you didn’t choose? Keep ’em in the idea bank and withdraw them later. Over the next few months, stick with what you’ve chosen, live with them, experience them, and see the results these ideas bring you. Then after a bit, you can go back through the chapters and tweak accordingly: exchange tips out if need be, or add a few more to your arsenal to maintain a decent point score.
I don’t want this book to be a once-read, I want you to reread it and use it over and over as often as you need to for its information and for reassurance. With it, you can keep the special combination that belongs only to you, one that cracks the code of how to get and stay slim for life.
Well, here we are, at the end of the book, but it’s the beginning of your slim life. By living, truly living, this information, you’ve essentially bulletproofed your path to slim. I promise, you now know everything you need to get the results you want, and in a timeframe that will keep you encouraged. Knowledge is power. Now you have
it. Empowered, you’re capable of taking the effective actions that will yield the change you want and deserve.
As you’ve probably noticed by now,
Slim for Life
isn’t really a diet book. Diet books are often about spending a few weeks or months doing something you won’t want to keep doing later or over the long term. Instead, it’s a book that teaches you a new way of life, a far happier and much
slimmer
way. One where you’re never again confused or lost about what to do to get a slim, sexy physique and stay on top of your health. The days of being duped by fad diets, ripped off by worthless fitness gadgets (hello Shake Weight), scammed by pharmaceutical companies pushing dangerous drugs, or harmed by life-threatening surgeries are over. You know better now, and because of this,
no one
can f* with you ever again. (I went the whole book without dropping the f-bomb, but I couldn’t help myself here. Damn editor cleaned it up.)
I mean it. No one can mess with you, Slim.
If you ever doubt it, don’t forget that I’ve
never
met a person I couldn’t get weight off of. Everything I do with my own body and health is in this book, as well as everything I’ve ever done and implemented to get radical results in the thousands of others I’ve helped to find their slim.
Now go kick some ass (your own preferably) and wow yourself. You got this!
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