Mind Blowing

 I had my mind blown this past week.   Literally blow out of the water!  As I just wrote that line I almost started laughing though, because what I am going to share is not exactly rocket science.  But it is a shift in my thinking....and kinda earth shattering for me.   You see, I read a book.......

 About a week or so ago, I wrote a post about my guilty pleasure and a concept that I had picked up from watching you tube videos.  (You can read that post here.)  One of the comments on that book as to recommend a book, (the comment was made by Mrs.Swan....who has a great blog to read)  or specifically she recommended an author.  I researched it right then and there and saw the book was called Eat It.  Mrs. Swan had kindly offered the audible, as a loan but I logged on immediately to the library app and saw that they had the audio book available right then and there.  Sadly, the book form was not available.  Not feeling very patient that day (or any day actually), I got the audio book and grabbed some headphones when I went out to my graveyard walk. (Because you know me, I love me a good graveyard walk!)  

The book is called Eat It (You can find the books here....amazon link.)  

 Oh. My. Word.    This book makes so much sense.  The author kinda debunks quite a few of these fad diets, myths and ideas.  He give science behind his thoughts and he also adds personal stories to his beliefs to give the reader real life.   But lets not delay and instead lets talk about what he does believe or to be specific what I learned from this book.   

*  Weight loss is strictly calories in versus calories out.  It doesn't matter if you are eating junk food, as long as you are eating in a calorie deficit for your body, you will lose weight.   This made sense....and to back it with my own personal story, I once knew someone that was losing weight.  She had lost a fair amount of weight.  She did it by drinking pepsi!  Yup pepsi.   For 6 days a week she drank pepsi....and ate nothing.  ON the 7th day she feasted.  She wasn't tracking calories, but I am sure she was in a calorie deficit and she even admitted that on her 'feast days' she wasn't eating crazy.   Pepsi...pure junk.  Yet she lost weight because she was in a calorie deficit!

*  While weight loss is all about calories the macro nutrients are important for other reasons.  Most notably, heath  and bang for the buck.    Protein builds muscles and boosts metabolism.....Carbs give a temporary burst to fuel you for an intense workout or activity....etc. So if you are eating good calories with lost of macros you are actually helping aid your body.   I loved the analogy he used.  We can walk a mile.  A mile is a mile is a mile.  BUT you can walk a mile on flat ground or you can walk a hilly mile.   The flat mile still gives you the benefits of a mile, the same benefits of the hilly mile, but the hilly mile gives you added benefits.      For me, I don't need that temporary boost that carbs gives me all that often, but I do need the protein for muscles and to boost my metabolism.....especially at my age when muscle loss is a real thing.

* Lets talk about metabolism.  It doesn't permanently slow down when you we weight.  He said Pure myth!   His answer to this was, "Well if our metabolism slows down with weight loss the Jews that lived in concentration camps would have remained skin and bones even after their liberation.  But no, their bodies gained weight and their metabolism didn't show major adversity in the years following, they maintained normal weights after that time. (In most cases, because of course there are always extenuating circumstances) 

*The whole 'calories for the week"that I picked up in my guilty pleasure of youtube videos?  Yeah calorie cycling is what it is called.  (I've actually heard it before but always ignored it because it sounded more confusing to have high and low days and whatnot).    Their first recommendation is to go high day, low day, high day, low day with calories.   But they said that many of their clients do the low calories all week so that they can indulge on the weekend.  They talked about how many of their clients adjust what days are high to match the craziness of life (birthday parties, weddings, vacation days, etc).    They basically said the exact same thing.  Know what you need weekly, multiple it by 7 and divide it up any way you wnt for each day of the week.    (BOOOM....there goes my mind!)

* Exercise.  They do recommend strength training (that's been a sore spot with me....I don't like strength training)  but they don't advise super high intensity with training.  THey said a walk is just fine.  The important thing is to DO IT, and do do something that you actually like to do (or at least halfway enjoy doing!)

*They absolutely do not preach perfection.  They strive for the 80-20 plan.  Try to be on target 80% of the time and stop stressing about the other 20% of the time.     They set a challenge to get a calendar and two pens, one black and one red.  They say that at the end of every day they recommend that you look at your day.  If you stayed within your calories, drank your water and did whatever exercise was planned for the day that you should put a big red X in the day.  If you missed something then you put a black circle.  At the end of the month you can then easily see how you did overall.  When prescribing to the 80-20 thought process, you should have about 24-25 big red X's at the end of the month.

*Stop stressing about a half pound loss....that is what sabotages so any people. People get worried and upset about only losing a half pound and in their panic they decide that their plan is not working so the switch before their bodies really get settled into a plan.   And furthermore, maybe a half pound a week IS what a person will lose each week.  That is not a bad thing either.

The book had lots of really good tidbits and I will be making some adjustments in the near future.  I thought about making some adjustments now, but I want to finish out my 75 hard Challenge first since that has a 'diet plan' that I am following.  and while the adjustments that I am planning on making are not earth shattering or really even far off of what I am doing for my 75 hard the changes would cause me to break from my set plan and I have come this far and I don't want to break from that.  I want to finish it!  So since I am actually on day 58 out of 75 (if you don't like math, that is only 17 days away from the end) I am going to finish!  In the meantime, I am laying out my plans.  I am getting my calendar and pens ready!   Stay tuned and I will definitely be  sharing my plan going forward!