The ONE thing that finally worked…

I stumbled. iA reddit threadi That really caught my attention.

Someone asked what was the ‘one thing’ that made you lose weight?

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

Some answers include environmental changes or how they prepare their food:

“Putting snacks in little ramekins to eat them. Suddenly I was eating a normal amount of snacks.

“I prepared my specific amount of food and instead of putting it in 2 containers, I spread it evenly across 4 containers. I forced myself to eat only 1 container per meal and my brain Made me think this was my normal dose.

Others changed what they ate:

“Found a salad that I really like. Sounds dumb, but I’ve never craved a salad before, and one that I really liked meant I had a solid few weeks of eating lots of lettuce. Got together – it snowballed from there, because I was feeling really good and then I started craving. Good.”

Some had a more holistic approach that involved reexamining our relationship with food, hunger and suffering:

“Understanding that this is a lifestyle change, not a diet.”

“Embrace the pain. Expect to be short of breath and sore when you’re doing cardio, expect to be sore after lifting, and expect to be sore when you’re restricting your diet. If you are doing it, you will be hungry.

Others used apps to track their calorie intake, giving them a sense of how much they were eating:

“Using an app to track what I ate. I realized a lot of the “healthy” things I was eating, the amount I was eating them, way more calories than I thought. Just cutting back on certain foods did the trick.

And some were successful thanks to initial pressure with medication:

“Saw a doctor about my type 2 diabetes. I was over 300 lbs and had coronary artery disease. I qualified for diabetes medications that also help control appetite. Started tracking calories and exercising.

“Semaglutide”

Some prefer physical activity rather than focusing on food:

“Finding a hobby. I was eating a lot because I was bored. Coming home from work and sitting on the couch would make it easier to eat like sh*t… Now I go and do something I love to distract me from eating. Don’t fall.

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

As we look through this list, read thousands of comments from people and think about the ‘one thing’ that changed their life, and among them How different, we can draw some interesting conclusions.

3 Short Lessons We Can Learn

Lesson 1: “Success is moving from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm.” -Winston Churchill.

Getting healthy is the hardest part. No Losing hope when any strategy you try doesn’t work. I bet for everyone who shared their answer above, they tried dozens of different strategies to get fit. Hell, I bet they tried most of the things that worked for other people, until they found something that worked. For them

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

For example, if you’ve tried Keto 5 times before and you just can’t stick to it, congratulations! You’ve found a diet that doesn’t work for you

If you can keep it. iThe ‘beta test’ mentalityi “I’m going to see if it works for me,” you might find the first domino to fall. yours Travel!

Lesson 2: Beware of Charlton.

Spend enough time on social media, and eventually you’ll run into health and fitness charlatans. These are the people who tell you they have singles. A solution to all your problems. They often have a villain for all the evil in the world (“It’s sugar! It’s carbs! It’s X ingredient!”).

And sure enough, once they get scared and scare the crap out of you, they give you hope with their expensive unregulated supplement or foolproof system.

As you can see in the examples above, there is no “one size fits all” solution to this. Every human being is a unique freak with different baggage and motivations and traumas and experiences that make some solutions a homerun and other solutions will be a non-starter.

You can read more about how to spot and avoid charlatans in my past article: “iHow not to go crazy on the interneti“

Which brings me to my third point!

Lesson Three: All Fit Stories Have 3 Boring Commonalities!

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

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

Literally fits 3 things:

Eat the right number of calories for your goal weight.
Getting some form of physical movement
Making both of these things part of a lifelong lifestyle adjustment.

Losing weight is not magic. It is a change in math and behavior.

As I cover myself iWeight loss guideiScience is settled on it.

Any diet can work, if it puts us in a calorie deficit. We have iCoaching clientsi Some who are vegan, others who go keto, some who count calories and others who do intermittent fasting.

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

When talking about lifestyle changes, most of the answers above include finding ways to make exercise a regular part of life.

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

So how do we make exercise a part of our lifestyle?

We need to find ways. iMake exercise fun, rewarding, or necessaryi:

Entertainment: Try joining a walking/running club with friends. iTemptation bundlingi.
Beneficial: fall in love with igetting strongeri And more confident and how much better you feel after exercise.
Required: Advance payment for trainer, park at end of parking lot, bike to work.