Updated January 30, 2006.
For me, losing weight became almost a religion. It was something that impacted on my life every day, almost every hour as I would get hungry and crave the kinds of foods I would see my friends, colleagues and family eating. I am not the kind of person that has ever successfully applied discipline to my life in the past. I have tried and failed several times to quit smoking, and I was the kind of person who had gotten very used to eating whatever the hell I felt like, whenever I felt like it and never getting any significant exercise.
So I really had to be strong with myself. Constantly remind myself of the goal and live and breathe that goal every day in order to stick with the program I had set for myself.
Other people will probably be negative about your new lifestyle. I had friends and family giving me all kinds of warnings about my health, which is kind of odd because the new path I had set out on was far healthier than the old, but they would warn me about not eating enough, tell me that I was already the right shape for my age, one colleague suggested I was having a mid-life crisis, thereby making my reasons for wanting to lose weight seem crazy and ridiculous. But I didn't allow any of the negativism to touch me. I was determined that if there was ever anything I had wanted to do for myself, this was it, and nothing was going to stop me. You are going to have to be determined too. You have decided you are going to do this thing, so DO IT.
Health Warning
Having just told you to ignore any cautions you may be given about your new lifestyle, let me add an important caution.
Everyone is different. The things I describe in this article worked for me, and did not cause me any harm . far from it, but that doesn't mean they will not harm you. So before you adopt any of the lifestyle changes I describe, see a doctor and tell them what you intend to do. They will tell you whether these things are safe for you and they will be able to give you expert advice about how to attain your goal safely. As I said at the start, I am not an expert, just a normal guy who tried something that worked with fairly dramatic results.
Weight or Size?
I've been talking about weight-loss up until now, but what I'm really talking about is size-loss. That's the way I thought about it. I'll tell you something pretty amazing for someone who undertook a successful weight-loss program like me . I never weighed myself. I didn't weigh myself at the start of the program and I still haven't weighed myself. I don't own a set of scales and consequently I have no idea how much weight I have lost. What I do know is that I now comfortably fit into a pair of size 32 Levis and that was the goal I set myself at the start. What I do know is that when I get out of the shower in the morning and look in the bathroom mirror, I'm looking at the kind of body I always wanted to have. When friends ask how much weight I've lost I tell them "I've gone from a size 39 Levis to a size 32 in six months".
The reason I'm telling you this is that weight is kind of an abstract idea. It's a number, a measurement. It doesn't have any real connection with the life you're going to be living once you reach your goal. So instead, try and set a goal that has a real connection with the new you that you want to be. Who knew how many kilos (or pounds or whatever) I was going to have to drop in order to be able to fit into the kind of jeans I wanted to be wearing? A real measure for me, as the weeks went by and the pounds dropped away, was how many belt notches I had come in (I bought a new belt after the first 2 months of my new lifestyle).
The Forbidden List
OK, so we come to the good part, what kinds of changes you are going to have to make to start losing weight. The very first thing you are going to have to do is forget about consuming certain kinds of foods and drinks. There are probably levels of importance to the various methods I'm describing in this article, and this is the highest level . the most important. These foods and drinks need to disappear from your life totally. I don't care how much you think you need them, or how much a part of your life they've been up 'till now. If you're serious about attaining your goal you must never consume these things. You will be better off without them. Making the decision, and sticking with the decision to drop these things from your life is going to have the biggest and most immediate impact on you losing the weight you want to lose.
For me, losing weight became almost a religion. It was something that impacted on my life every day, almost every hour as I would get hungry and crave the kinds of foods I would see my friends, colleagues and family eating. I am not the kind of person that has ever successfully applied discipline to my life in the past. I have tried and failed several times to quit smoking, and I was the kind of person who had gotten very used to eating whatever the hell I felt like, whenever I felt like it and never getting any significant exercise.
So I really had to be strong with myself. Constantly remind myself of the goal and live and breathe that goal every day in order to stick with the program I had set for myself.
Other people will probably be negative about your new lifestyle. I had friends and family giving me all kinds of warnings about my health, which is kind of odd because the new path I had set out on was far healthier than the old, but they would warn me about not eating enough, tell me that I was already the right shape for my age, one colleague suggested I was having a mid-life crisis, thereby making my reasons for wanting to lose weight seem crazy and ridiculous. But I didn't allow any of the negativism to touch me. I was determined that if there was ever anything I had wanted to do for myself, this was it, and nothing was going to stop me. You are going to have to be determined too. You have decided you are going to do this thing, so DO IT.
Health Warning
Having just told you to ignore any cautions you may be given about your new lifestyle, let me add an important caution.
Everyone is different. The things I describe in this article worked for me, and did not cause me any harm . far from it, but that doesn't mean they will not harm you. So before you adopt any of the lifestyle changes I describe, see a doctor and tell them what you intend to do. They will tell you whether these things are safe for you and they will be able to give you expert advice about how to attain your goal safely. As I said at the start, I am not an expert, just a normal guy who tried something that worked with fairly dramatic results.
Weight or Size?
I've been talking about weight-loss up until now, but what I'm really talking about is size-loss. That's the way I thought about it. I'll tell you something pretty amazing for someone who undertook a successful weight-loss program like me . I never weighed myself. I didn't weigh myself at the start of the program and I still haven't weighed myself. I don't own a set of scales and consequently I have no idea how much weight I have lost. What I do know is that I now comfortably fit into a pair of size 32 Levis and that was the goal I set myself at the start. What I do know is that when I get out of the shower in the morning and look in the bathroom mirror, I'm looking at the kind of body I always wanted to have. When friends ask how much weight I've lost I tell them "I've gone from a size 39 Levis to a size 32 in six months".
The reason I'm telling you this is that weight is kind of an abstract idea. It's a number, a measurement. It doesn't have any real connection with the life you're going to be living once you reach your goal. So instead, try and set a goal that has a real connection with the new you that you want to be. Who knew how many kilos (or pounds or whatever) I was going to have to drop in order to be able to fit into the kind of jeans I wanted to be wearing? A real measure for me, as the weeks went by and the pounds dropped away, was how many belt notches I had come in (I bought a new belt after the first 2 months of my new lifestyle).
The Forbidden List
OK, so we come to the good part, what kinds of changes you are going to have to make to start losing weight. The very first thing you are going to have to do is forget about consuming certain kinds of foods and drinks. There are probably levels of importance to the various methods I'm describing in this article, and this is the highest level . the most important. These foods and drinks need to disappear from your life totally. I don't care how much you think you need them, or how much a part of your life they've been up 'till now. If you're serious about attaining your goal you must never consume these things. You will be better off without them. Making the decision, and sticking with the decision to drop these things from your life is going to have the biggest and most immediate impact on you losing the weight you want to lose.
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