... Then Just Stay Fat. (15 page)

We “say” lots of things, but do we “act” on them? Action is where the finite constraints of time meet stated priorities. We must act our way toward our goals. We can’t just keep talking about them.

I love a good plan.  A plan is my roadmap for how to spend my time. Ask my husband. I drive him nuts always demanding to know “
w
hat’s the plan?” He’s relaxing on a Sunday morning and by 8:30
a
.
m
.
I’m hovering over him, hands on my hips, extricating a “plan for the day” out of him. You might call me a control freak (nothing I haven’t heard before), but you might
also
say I like to efficiently use my day. Either way, I’m making a plan, even if I don’t tell you. It’s in my head.

Planning is your friend when it comes to dropping some weight. I surmise lack of a plan helped put you in your current predicament. Based on past results, we know we can’t rely on your instincts and internal controls to help you out. They’ve been failing you.

You need a plan.

There are several ways t
o look at it
.
 
You'll need to “plan” your day so you have time to exercise and do food prep (making your own meals is
one of
the best way
s
to control your calories).
 
You'll need to “plan” your food so you don't
overeat
your daily calories.
 
You'll also need to “plan” what you will do when faced with obstacles and challenges
—
like unexpected cravings, office birthday cake, and invitations to dine out or attend parties.

Time Management

It’s one thing to say you have a plan. It’s another to execute on it.  One of THE biggest obstacles I hear from clients regarding their ability to deliver on a stated “plan” is lack of time – which is kind of funny, ‘cause if they really had a plan, they wouldn’t be out of time.
Anyway…

I get it. Kids, spouses, work, chores, bake sales, soccer games, dinner and the damn dog. I get it. But what you’ve got isn’t a time problem, it’s a priority problem.

The trick is to figure out how to filter the stuff you NEED to do from the stuff that you’d LIKE to do from the stuff you can blow off (aka, NOISE). You need a “filter” to do it – a measuring stick.

When it comes to
figuring out “your filter” (personal mission) and
planning your day, I
love
Franklin-Covey
tools.
They are hands down the best there
is (in my opinion).
Stephen Covey
also has man
y helpful books (checkout the “7 Habits of Highly Effective People” for starters).

I'm sure some of you just rolled your eyes.
 
I did too when I was first introduced to creating a personal mission statement or time management in general. It all seemed so froufrou and fluffy. I thought
Kumbaya
would break out at any moment. My mantra had always been “just get your stuff done. 
The end.”
Why all the touchy-feely questions about “my mission,” “what’s important,” or “who do I admire?” It finally dawned on me that if I wasn’t clear on what I wanted, I wouldn’t be clear on where I was headed, and if I wasn’t clear on either of those, I wouldn’t know what to say “yes” to and what to turn down. If I said “no” to nothing, then I’d never have time for what I claimed was important to me – in this case, getting healthy and dropping some pounds.

You
gotta
have a good plan and good tools to keep you on track. Change is hard enough. Allowing “noise” to derail you just makes it harder, if not impossible.

Food Planning

Help with food planning is made much easier by food logging (yes, I've said it before and I'll keep saying it:
 
LOG YOUR FOOD).
 
Just like each day we’re handed a new set of 24 hours to spend, each day we are handed a new hunk of calories to spend. With each mouthful and swallow, we are CHOOSING how we spend those calories, and some of us are going into debt (gaining weight). You might think you are good at tracking food in your head, but you’re not. Our brains gloss over snacks, candy dishes, extra butter and the bread basket. Our brains also suck at estimating portion sizes
—
I mean
really
suck at it.

To track your food and plan it,
use a spiral notebook, pencil, calculator and the good ole' Internet (for the online food databases)
,
or an
online calorie tracking service
(my favorite is dotFIT
.com
)
.
 
Both work just fine. It's a matter of convenience.

You can log your food as you eat it, so you know where you stand. Or you can log your day’s meals in advance to make sure you stay on track – then just “eat that plan.”

Make grocery lists before you food shop, ideally based on the food log plans you created.  Choose your meals for the week, or at least a few days,
and
then only buy those items.

Also, know what you’ll order before you go to a restaurant. Look up their menu online or in your food
-
logging program. If they aren’t listed, make approximations based on similar restaurants.

Be on the lookout for “friends” who try to derail your plan. Have responses ready when they push alcohol and deep-fried cheese at you.  And be prepared to stand your ground. Some friends actually don’t want you to succeed –
it’s
their issue, not yours.

Planning for Obstacles

No matter how well you plan your time and plan your food, you will run into the occasional unplanned obstacle. It might come in the form of an unannounced office party complete with cake, ice cream, cookies, and brownies. It might show up as a well-intended neighbor dropping off some extra cookies she baked. Maybe it’s a craving that sneaks up out of nowhere and bites you on the rear as you stand face-to-face with the grocery store checkout candy. The hardest are friends and loved ones who push drinks at you or insist you try a bite. Challenges abound and you’re
gonna
face them.

You need to make a plan. Create a list of times and places you know you fall off the wagon. Every time you actually fall, go back and add that moment to your list. Next to each item, jot down a few ways to avoid the situation in the future or derail it.
Grocery store candy?
Use the “kid friendly, candy-free checkout” line.
Impromptu office party?
Either all out
skip
it (and swing by the birthday girl’s desk later for a quick congratulations) or literally do a
three-
minute drop-in to make an appearance
and
then dash out – you’ve got work to do.

Friends who haven’t read the previous section “Be Suppo
r
tive
,
Damn It” might need a tad more work. If a heart-to-heart conversation with them and a copy of said article doesn’t help, you might need new friends. No one said it was
gonna
be easy.

References:

Covey, Stephen. "Stephen R. Covey.
" .
FranklinCovey
, 2012.
Web.
1 Aug 2012. <
https://www.stephencovey.com
>.

Covey, Franklin.
"Franklin Covey.
" .
FranklinCovey
, 2012.
Web.
1 Aug 2012. <
https://www.franklincovey.com
>.

Let's talk about what it
means to persist
.
 
Sometimes, when I'm musing on a word
,
and its broader relevance to a topic, I like to look it up in the dictionary (call it nerdy, but you'd be surprised th
e paths it can take you down).

Good ol
e
'
dictionary.com
says:

P
ersist

1.
 
to continue steadfastly or firmly in some state, purpose, course of action, or the like, esp. in spite of o
pposition, remonstrance, etc.:
 
to persist in working for world peace; to persist in unpopular political
activities.

2.
 
to
last or endure tenaciously:
 
The legend of King Arthur has persisted for nearly fif
teen centuries.

3.
 
to
be insisten
t
in a stat
ement, request, question, etc.

That definition brings to mind drawn-out wars,
marathons, climbing Mt. Everest and getting to the moon.
 
Those
activities and goa
ls that appear to have no end, the horizon is beyond reach.
 
You blindly keep putting o
ne foot in front of the other.
 
To persist!

Whe
n I think about losing weight
—
ch
anging one's body composition,
staying the course
in spite of office doughnuts,
cho
osing to skip that late-
evening snack even though you want that bowl of cereal so
badly you'd kill a man for it,
the time it takes because fat just won't leap off yo
ur body at a moment's notice
—
that definition wholeheartedly applies.
 
It is abso
lutely apropos to weight loss.
 
Seriously, anyone who
has ever lost weight knows it.
 
If you are one of the many who lost weight and gained it back, or never reached your weight goals, you also know how it feels to let persis
tence slip through your grasp.

Some of you are thinking
, “
Aaahhh
, big deal,
everyone knows you have to stick to a diet to lose weight...
duuuhh
.
”

A
nd
those of you thinki
ng that are correct.
 
But
do not be fooled or lulled in
to a false sense of security. W
itho
ut persistence, you will fail,
and it's unbeliev
ably easy to turn loose of it.

The ability
to persist in your new, weight-
conscious lifestyle is relatively easy a
t first.
 
Everything is shiny and new.
 
The excitement of fitting in those skinny
jeans almost makes you giddy.
 
Oh
,
the thoughts of visible muscles a
nd lower numbers on the scale.
 
With this initial momentum, ordering dry salads with low-
cal
dressings on t
he side
and passing on the bre
ad basket comes easily to you.
 
Friends lavish you with positi
ve attention for your efforts.

And then the new wears off.
 
You slowly become the wet blanket at lunch
who
makes everyone skip Taco Bell.
 
Or worse, you're the
weird
o who always brings his lunc
h and bows out of restaurants.
 
You stand at the back of the break room, away from the birthday cake while everyon
e sings and carves off a slab.
 
"No
, no,
this lovely bag of
baby carrots is fine for me."
 
Office
mates SAY you are awesome as they
poke down an icing-flower the size of a golf ball
,
but secretly you KNOW they are
thinking you are missing out.

Some people in your life even begin to tempt
you into small transgressions.
 
"
One slice of pizza can't hurt;
you dese
rve it."
 
A well-me
aning spouse can be the worst.
 
"You look tired, let's just ord
er Chinese and watch a movie."