Food is Not Your Enemy

https://vimeo.com/442163773/cb1396b899

 

“Hi, I’m Carrie, and I used to have a really bad sweet tooth. Eating candies and having all sorts of awful things in my house that I probably shouldn’t have. Including an awful craving for cookie dough. I used to go to the store and buy a thing of cookie dough and rip open the thing in the car and chow it down.

 

But Robert told me that cravings only last for 20 minutes. He’d say go for a walk around the block or pop in the DVD and do some of the workouts. Whatever you need to do to get your mind off of it for 20 minutes, it passes, and it did. 

 

I lost 4 inches off my waist throughout this program which is insane to me. To be able to fit into clothes and want to show off my waist is so exciting. It’s almost like look at me, look at what I did. You have no clue of what I did or how I got this way but you just all have to come and see. 

 

I think what makes the D28 program particularly special is that Robert just doesn’t give you the move, and says here’s how you do it here’s how many times you do it. He also gives you motivation.

 

And I know it’s prerecorded, and he’s not calling us every day, but it’s like he knew exactly where we’d be at, anticipated it, and told us what we needed to hear for that day. Robert brace has been my life changer and the reason why I can smile and not have to feel like I don’t belong or I didn’t do something right.” 

 

Diets are Not Working

 

The average woman is on a diet for 31 years of her life, 31 years. 

 

The average man is on a diet for 28 years. 95% of diets fail, and the average person can only be on a strict calorie-controlled diet for 5.5 weeks. And 41% of people will put back on weight. 

 

And then, some a year after, they lost it. These are appalling statistics, diets, and a weight-loss philosophy. It’s not winning. Why do we keep submitting ourselves to their rules and philosophies? We would not be OK with these statistics in any other industry or area of our lives. What if you purchased a car and the dealer told you that you would spend the next thirty-one years trying to get it to work correctly? 

 

And once you did get it to work after a year, it would break down and then cost you more to replace it than what you spent on it in the first place. Would you accept those debts? 

 

What if your kid’s school posted a 95 percent failure rate? Would you leave them in school? These are losing statistics. It’s time to take a fresh look at why diets are failing us, why the principles on which they operate are flawed and even false. What’s the one thing they tell you you need to win on a diet? Most people say willpower. They say you need the will to succeed. When we know that willpower is weak, it is not an effective strategy for long-term success. The more willpower you rely on, the weaker it becomes. It’s like a muscle that gets fatigued. 

 

The Thing About Will Power

 

You can’t white knuckle it and deny yourself and deprive yourself ever. And if you don’t have enough willpower, what does that mean? You may as well give up. 

 

Willpower does not work. Think about it like this. Have you ever been in this scenario where you started a new diet plan? You’re excited, and you’re doing great. 

 

You packed all of your little baggies. You put your snacks in a bag; you’ve got your snacks at work. You got almonds coming out of everywhere, almonds in your pockets, almonds in your car, almonds everywhere. 

 

But you feel good because this time you’re in it to win it. This time it’s going to be different. 

 

You get through breakfast like a champ at lunch. You get tempted by your colleagues at work, but you still stay on it. You still feel good. Now, you know, you’re going to go out that evening for a meal. So you look up the restaurant, read the menu, and figure out what you’re going to order before you get there. Finally, you get to the restaurant. Everybody else is ordering unhealthy choices. 

 

You stick with your steamed chicken and broccoli, and you know you’ve done the right thing. 

 

Then what happens, you wait, it was late. It takes a while for your food to come, and now you’re hungry. Then comes the dietary death blow. Your waiter brings out the breadbasket, and it’s covered with white napkins, and they take off the white napkins, and the steam from the bread escapes into the air and wafts across your face and into your nostrils. 

 

And they set it down on the table. You’re starting to feel weak. 

 

And then they slide the BUTTER on the table. And you know that butter is just the right level of smoothness and saltiness that you love. What happens? 

 

Willpower is weakened. And just like that, you devour the bread. That’s why the word diet stands for. Did. I. Eat. That? 

 

Because we set out with great intentions, but we can easily get sidetracked because willpower is not what gets us through its strategy. It’s changing your consciousness about your approach to health and wellness and developing some fundamental convictions. 

 

Everything in Moderation? 

 

My other pet peeve is when people say, well, you know everything in moderation. How many times have we heard that? Everything in moderation? First of all, it’s such a simplistic answer. Why does it drive me crazy? Because we live in America, the wealthiest country on earth. We are not given to moderation. How many iPhones are there? How many pairs of sneakers do you really need? 

 

How many pocketbooks and pairs of shoes are necessary for your survival? When I first came to America from London and went to the cereal aisle, I was dumbfounded. In London, the cereal aisle was a small section with one or two shelves in a store. But here, there was a whole aisle. 

 

I was paralyzed by choice. It was then that I first saw Cheerios. There were like ten different versions of these cheerio things. How do you know which one to choose? 

 

We are not given to moderation. We are a society that always wants more and wants what’s next. The next thing is this concept of bad foods. Our modern-day understanding of the word diet makes food the problem or even the enemy. Whole food groups should be avoided because they are bad foods and make you fat. It means the pain of drastically reducing calories or constantly watching, counting, or obsessing over calorie intake for most of us. 

 

Simply put, our modern-day understanding of the word diet makes food the problem,  and it leaves us exhausted and, even worse, still hungry.

 

Where Did Diets Come From Anyways?

 

 But where did the word diet come from, and how did we get here? The word we use for diet comes from the Greek word Diaita meaning way of life, not cutting out food, not the pain, the torture, the agony, and self-deprivation of the modern-day diet, but a way of life. In other words, A LIFESTYLE. 

 

The great ancient Greek physician, Hypocritic, says, let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food, the outdated approach to food. And it involved a much more holistic lifestyle. 

 

The idea was to eat foods that would invigorate the body, providing it with the nutrition for living a healthy, vibrant life while protecting the body from disease. Food was not the enemy. Food was the solution. Maybe this is why a Greek island called Ikaria is thought to have the world’s highest rate of people living to be over 90 years old. Or the reason why the Mediterranean diet has long been lauded as one of the healthiest in the world. That lifestyle consists of an abundance of healthy, unprocessed food from all food groups. As a result, they are not filled with guilt when they eat some carbs, and they don’t feel deprived or resentful. 

 

It sounds like a much better way to go. There are times to try a more restrictive diet to get to a short-term goal and in these instances, look at the modern-day diet for what they are, a short-term tool to get some fast results. But they are by no means a lifestyle plan for long-term health and wellness. We want to take a look at the ancient Greek approach. Food is your friend. Food is the solution to your transformation. So I have two strategies for you. 

 

First of all, we’re going to eliminate the word can’t from our lifestyle vocabulary. What I mean is this. Once we start a new fitness, a wellness program, we begin to think of everything we can’t have. I can’t have these foods. I can’t eat that. I can’t eat this. 

 

These foods are bad, and we stay focused on the negative. It’s no wonder we feel deprived and resentful. I want us to focus on the positive start thinking about all of the new healthy foods that we can have. Now, the second strategy is very similar. I want you to start adding more food. Yes, add more food, begin to add more good, wholesome, healthy choices to your diet. These healthy choices will eventually drown out the unhealthy ones. Now, I’m not saying eat more significant portions, just find more healthy options.

 

It’s Ok To Love Food

 

One of the things I hear people say is that I can’t stick to a meal plan because I love food too much. Well, that’s great that you love food. That’s going to be the secret to your success. Keep that. 

 

On loving food, some people say less is more, less food, more results, I say more is more. 

 

Some people change their lifestyles and stick with them. For example, someone who becomes a vegetarian doesn’t succeed in the long term by focusing on what they can’t have. They succeed by exploring all of the great options that they can have. Make it your mission to focus on finding more wholesome, healthy choices that will invigorate your body. They’re going to taste great and move you towards your transformation and get your waistline a little bit thinner. I want you to experiment with ways to prepare more green fiber-filled foods. Chlorophyll-filled vegetables like parsley and cilantro, like kale and all the other deep, dark green vegetables, will remove toxins from your body and help you release more body fat. 

 

Focus on the positive and explore more healthy, tasty choices to add to your meal. Stop looking at everything that you can’t do. It’s depressing. Look at what you can do and start to be encouraged. Start to be energized and explore. There are so many great foods out there, so many great-tasting foods that are good for your body that will change your life. 

 

So let’s go Greek. 

 

Let’s start to adopt that lifestyle and adopt their philosophy on food. 

 

Food is the solution to your transformation. Food is not your enemy. Now let’s explore.