Lose 10 pounds (in 10 steps) & keep the weight off forever - part 3

Step 3: Be honest and critical of yourself

Odds are that the more overweight you are, the longer it's been since you last stepped on a scale.

Why is that?

I'll tell you why. It's because you either don't want to know or you've been lying to yourself about what the answer might be when you get on that scale. Avoiding the knowledge of your situation is a subtle, yet very powerful way of lying to yourself, and it can be devastating not only where weight-loss is concerned, but in almost all aspects of life. In fact, I firmly believe that if the only thing you were to get out of this entire book was learning to be honest with yourself, all other aspects of your life would improve dramatically.

Either you will come to the conclusion that losing weight is something you must do or you'll be happy and fat or happy and unhealthy. If you can be happy and fat, by all means do so. Life is meant to be enjoyed. Why spend your life torturing yourself if you don't have to? Better to live 55 happy years than 70 miserable ones.

See, it's happened more than once that I've met a person who was either overweight or used to be overweight who said something like the following: "Then one day I stepped on a scale and I saw that I weighed 250 pounds. I had no idea!"

How can a person have no idea that they're obese? (In this particular instance, we're talking about a woman who was 5'7", so she was at least 100lbs. over a healthy weight). Frequently, when a person is in trouble or some aspect of their life is not going as they hoped, they begin kidding themselves about their circumstance. People most always want to see things as better than they are.

I frequently imagine I am Brad Pitt, for instance.

People begin to accept that their dysfunction isn't a dysfunction at all, but completely normal. Why do people do this? Simple: because it's easier than admitting that there's something wrong and trying to fix the problem. It's always more difficult to commit to change or to admit to oneself that change is necessary.

Criticism is a gift

This brings me to my second point (and you might criticize me for throwing in an addition step here, but look at it this way: you're getting eleven bits of advice for the price of ten. Oh wait, this thing is free. You know what I mean).

It's time for America to start looking at criticism as something that's positive when done in the right way. Yes, perhaps that sounds like an oxymoron, but it's not. Being effectively critical sound be looked upon as a gift and not a curse.

As far as I'm concerned, the positivist movement (generally conceived by a self-help movement whose participants can do no wrong) that's swept America over the last decade or so has damaged our ability to make improvements in our lives, not helped. Everybody is trying to spin bad habits into positive qualities.

Movie criticism provides a nice analogy. It's fairly well-known that to be a successful movie critic for a large, daily newspaper, one must err on the side of the positive. People want to go see films and they want to have their enjoyment reconfirmed when they read film reviews. Ultimately, they end up getting what they want and the vast majority of Hollywood films suck.

In life too, if one keeps insisting on viewing everything as positive, one will quickly lose her ability to distinguish between what is good for herself and what is bad. And life will suck. (This does not mean that when you miss a workout or devour a bowl of ice cream that you berate yourself by thinking "I'm such a fat loser. I can't do this.)

What I'm talking about is a consisten way of looking at life that demands excellence at all times by asking oneself how something can be done better and how things can be improved.

This does not have to mean that not achieving excellence necessarily means failure. It does not. One can be happy about reaching a goal at the same time one also asks how that same achievement might have been completed faster or better.

Let's face it, if you are easily satisfied with everything you do, it is unlikely you will be very self-motivated to do better. This is very key to weight-loss because I guarantee you this: nobody is going to do it for you. It's very important to find ways to motivate yourself. Set goals that are reasonable, achieve them, then ask yourself how you can do more.

Step 4: Position Yourself to Be Successful

Now, if that statement doesn't sound like some New Age hocus pocus, I don't know what does. However, let me provide a couple of examples as they relate to weight-loss.

I have ridden my bicycle to work for going on 20 years now. For seven of those years I lived in a condominium that was about a mile away from where I worked. The bike ride to work took 15 minutes. The ride back, all downhill, took 10 minutes or so. For that entire seven years, my weight remained constant.

Eventually, I wanted a bigger place, so I sold the condo. Realizing I had to move farther away due to the price of larger condos in my area, I had one requirement for the location: it had to be near a bike path because I knew I wanted to ride my bike to work.

Ultimately, I found a place, began making a longer ride to work, and lost ten pounds after about six months because the ride both to and from work took 25 minutes and became an aerobic (fat-burning) workout instead of an anaerobic (muscle-building) one.

This is what I'm talking about. If you are overweight, changing that condition requires a complete change in your thought processes, and putting yourself in a position to be successful is part of it. There are all sorts of applications for this.

Do you go to the movie theater? Of course you do. Now here's the important question: how often do you go to the snack counter and order stuff? As you can well imagine, as a former film critic I used to see a lot of movies. I NEVER ate anything at the movie theater.

Why?

Because it's all junk food, empty calories. In other words: crap.

A single trip to the movie theater and an order of a drink, popcorn, and candy can result in a caloric intake of well over a thousand calories (half of your daily requirement or more). It would be one thing if you bought an 8oz. soda and a small bag of popcorn, but everything in theaters is huge. Usually, it's the 44oz. soda ("It's only twenty-five cents more!), the tub-o-popcorn, and the Snickers bar that's the size of an elephant turd.

So, how do you put yourself in a position to be successful?

Simple: only go to see movies after eating a full meal or after having a snack at home. Plan your movie trips either after lunch on weekends or after dinner on weekdays or weekends.

That way, you're already full when you get there and your desire for food is diminished. Of course, it would be better simply NEVER to eat any food at a movie theater (or bring your own), thereby saving you thousands of dollars over the course of a lifetime, but I know the temptation can be pretty strong.

There are a tremendous number of applications for this step and it's primarily a matter of taking the time to think things through.

After you've begun practicing steps 3 and 4, you'll see all sorts of ways to put yourself in a position to be successful. Perhaps you're looking for a new job. While we can't always be picky about things, you should still ask yourself: can I get there by some form of transportation other than my care? Can I park somewhere close and ride or walk for twenty minutes? Do you live in an area that has easy access to bus lines, parks, and bike paths. Instead of driving somewhere, can I walk?

Begin to see how you can put yourself in different positions to be successful.

Step 5: Become Informed

This is almost a subset of being honest with yourself, but I decided that it was so important to one's overall health that I'd put it here.

Politicians and talk show hosts often speak about the intelligence of their audience or their constituents. Why do they do this? Pretty simple really - more people will vote for a politician if they believe that politician thinks they're smart. It's a compliment. Compliment people and they will like you. More people watch Oprah if they think Oprah has faith in their ability to make decisions.

Thankfully for you, I believe you're probably an idiot (don't worry, I am too!).

Don't be insulted. I think that most of America isn't too bright, so you're not alone.

Next time you're out driving, count how many people you notice talking on their cell phones. These people are idiots (it's a fact that talking on a cell phone dramatically increases the risk of an accident). Next, count how many drive too fast and recklessly. More idiots. How many people tailgate? More stupid people. When you go to a movie theater, how many people bring infant children who cry throughout the film and ruin the experience for everyone else in the theater? Those people are stupid (and inconsiderate).

How many people in this country smoke cigarettes, which are confirmed cancer-causing agents? Those people can't be too smart. How many people are involved in domestic abuse cases each year? How many people abuse their children? How many people commit crimes? How many people snort cocaine and smoke crack?

Really, that's just a short list, but I bet if you added up the numbers, it's more than 250 million already. That's all of us! Our entire nation is full of idiots.

There, I've proved it. Don't hold it against me.

Our country has been trained over the past century to use ignorance as an excuse for almost everything. "Oh, I didn't know" is used millions of times a day by people to blame their mistakes on somebody or something else. Well, I'm telling you now, if you aren't aware of the contents of stuff you're putting into your own body, whatever happens to you is your own fault.

It might be the most important thing you ever do to become informed about what's in the stuff that you eat. I can just about guarantee you that if you walked into any fast food joint and polled the people eating there about the contents of the food, more than half of them would respond: "Oh, I didn't know that."

Did you know eating one meal at McDonald's or Burger King can easily supply you with more calories than you require in a day? You mean to tell me that you didn't know that one regular size Burger King milk shake has about 700 calories in it and by itself supplies a third of your daily caloric intake? And don't get me started on how many fat calories are in those meals.

Being honest with yourself and being informed go hand-in-hand. Once you begin checking labels, asking questions, and reading books, you will have no excuse for not changing bad habits. At that point, you will know the answers and will only have yourself to blame for the choices you make. This is one reason people don't become informed. Again, it's a subtle way of lying.

The frightening thing is that this method of living becomes so ingrained in people's thinking that they truly, honestly believe that what they don't know is somebody else's fault. They believe that it's somebody else's responsibility to tell them that what they're eating is bad, or that they're 200lbs. overweight. People will continue to believe these things.

However, you're reading this right now. Are you one of these people?

What I'm saying is that if you take responsibility for your actions by becoming informed about everything you do, it will automatically become much easier to change your bad habits.

Step 6: Make Your Life Less Convenient

As a nation, we're too into convenience and virutally everything we do results in the burning of fewer and fewer calories. Basically, we want things done for us; some energy-saving convenience that makes things easier. No wonder everyone is getting so large.

Okay, here's your first attainable goal:

When you go to the supermarket or the mall or to work, park as far away as you can.

I bet you're like everyone else when it comes to driving to the mall. What do you do? You drive around near the entrance of the mall looking for that one parking spot that will alleviate the need for too much walking because you're in a rush or whatever. Your thinking on this is simple: If I find a close spot, I'll save time.

But how often do you actually find that spot?

What you do is what every other idiot does: you drive around and around wasting time trying to find a spot that usually isn't there. Okay, maybe eventually somebody pulls out and you slip into a spot and you feel great. But most of the time you drive around aggravating, building stress, thinking: "look how God spites me" by not opening up that parking spot for you. Frankly, I've even seen two cars come to the same open parking spot at the same time and battle it out. Sometimes people honk at each other. Sometimes they actually get into a physical confrontation.

Not really worth it, is it? And while you're looking for that mythical, close parking spot, some thin person is already in the stores shopping.

What if you adopted a different attitude about parking? What if, instead of trying to find that close spot near the entrance of the mall, you simply parked in the first open spot you saw?

I'll tell you what will happen over your lifetime: you'll save lots of time because you won't spend it trying to find a close spot, you get to the mall faster, you'll reduce the amount of carbon monoxide you spew into the atmosphere and, above all: YOU'LL BURN MORE CALORIES.

I may not be a doctore, but I can tell you for a fact, you'll burn more calories walking from your car to the mall entrance than you will sitting in that car looking for a parking spot (unless you get so aggravated you elevate your heart rate substantially).

And the farther away you park, the more calories you will burn getting to the mall.

The Bigger Picture

Think about this in the context of a year's time. How many places to you drive your car in an average week? I bet you go to the following places: the supermarket, mall, movie theater, work. That's only four places and I bet it's a very conservative estimate for most people. So let's figure you drive to work 5 times a week, the supermarket 1 time, the mall 1 time, and the movie theater 1 time. So that's 8 trips in a week.

If, instead of parking in the closest spot, you park in the spot farthest from the entrance, you burn more calories.

How many?

Since one burns approximately 200 calories walking per hour, it will depend, but if you average an extra five minutes of walking on each trip (both ways, remember), that's an extra 16.7 calories burned (200 divided by 60 minutes = 3.33 calories burned per minute x 5 minutes = 16.7. Incidentally, this 200 figure is for a person weighing 150lbs.)

Now, there's an important question here: how many calories do I burn doing nothing?

The answer is approximately 70 per hour, so we need to estimate those extra calories based on this figure. That leaves you burning an extra 130 calories per hour, which means that the five minutes of walking leads to an extra calorie burn of 10.8 calories.

Another point to remember is that if you walk briskly for an hour, you burn up to 350 calories, so this figure can be increased with a little more effort, though you'll obviously get to your destination faster. For each pound of weight above 150, you can add an additional 1.5 calories.

Ultimately, for a person weighing 150 pounds, that's potentially an extra expenditure of 4500 calories in a year, and that's a very conservative estimate.

Going up?

Here's another attainable goal:

Stop riding elevators

That's right. Take the stairs. There are so many instances where people choose to ride elevators instead of walking up one or two flights of stairs it's sickening. You think you're getting there faster, but the truth is that most of the time you wait for the elevator far longer than it would take you to walk up the stairs.

Ultimately, the extra calories you burn can make a real difference. Imagine if you walked up the stairs at work, at the mall, at the theater, and anywhere else you usually use the elevator. Over the course of the year you will burn an extraordinary number of extra calories.

Do you ride the bus to work? If so, try getting off one stop early and walking the extra distance. In fact, you can do this anywhere you ride the bus. Just get off a stop early and walk. If you ride the bus a lot, particularly to work, those are extra calories you'll burn every day.

When starting to apply this step to your weight-loss goals, don't forget the first two steps.

First of all, if you feel that parking far enough away from the mall entrance that you have to walk five minutes is too much effort, start by simply parking a little farther away and gradually working your way to the point that you park as far away as possible.

Then, feel good about yourself when you make the longer walk no matter how long it is. There's no point to feeling guilty about not parking in the spot in Kansas (unless you live in Kansas) that would have made your walk really invigorating.

The important point is that you're walking more and that's healthy and you should feel good about the effort.

Are you starting to see how easy this is? Are you starting to see how all the pieces fit together? The final pieces are revealed in Part 4.