The Food Breakup- It's Time To Change Your Relationship With Food!

Parkinson's law coupled with Pareto's Law are two of my favorite rules.You may not know Parkinson's lawBy name but you might know it has the ruleWork expands to fill the time allotted. What does that have to do with weight loss? And fitness?It's simple.If you don't have a finite number ofCalories four macros to eat each day… You will have no boundaries for how many you will eat.And you have the high probability of eating way too much.Ask me how I know! Boundaries equal freedom. When you have limits you know where you're going to stay within.Without limits things tend to spill over.Parkinson's law taught us that when you're given a projectAnd given two weeks to do the project, you'll take two weeks.If you're given one week, you'll take one week. You see, work expands to fill the time allotted.It's a natural human behavior. Once we understand it it we can manipulate it and use it to our damage period There's two ways to use this ...

In a previous post, I commented, "You can't outrun the fork." The meaning is that it's hard to have exercise compensate for overeating. I have some more evidence for you. One Five Guys Little cheeseburger (not the normal one) is 840 calories. If I go to Orange Theory and bust it for 55 minutes on a good day I can burn 895 calories. Sorry ladies, I know you don't burn as much. So, one cheeseburger that... ...takes 5 minutes to eat... ...tastes good for the 5 seconds it's in my mouth for each bite, ...makes me feel horrible for 5 hours afterward, is the calorie equivalent of 55 minutes of a hard workout. Please don't blow your gym work in the restaurant. It's not worth it. BTW, don't get me started on the fries.

Yea! You lost a couple pounds this week! You're feeling great and you want to celebrate...and you should. But how? The old you would celebrate with your favorite food...I would have! Food Is For Fuel, Not For Feelings. I want you to feel good when you see pounds coming off. Celebrate!  Just don't do it with food, because we know where that will get you. It's critical to substitute your celebrations...this is yet one more way to slay the dragon. Every time you DON'T celebrate with food your building your mental strength and reinforcing the new you. Here's a few ways to celebrate the zero-calorie way: Foot massage and not the Robert Kraft kind New jeans - Reminder don't wear loose clothes, see my blog about that New exercise shoes or workout gear ...and my favorite a trip to Lululemon (don't judge) Slay the dragon, one win at a time!

This Pretty Much Says It All! This image pretty much explains my eating challenge. Many people are faced with 'emotional eating'. I define emotional eating as eating for comfort, rather than nutrition. If you're having a good day you celebrate with food. If you're having a bad day, you celebrate with food. Here's good news- breaking that connection is a learned skill that starts with awareness of the real problem. I have many good strategies within my blog on how to begin to break the cycle of insanity.

Today is my 1,000 straight day of logging. Over the past 3 years, I've dropped 50 lbs. and at 51 years old I can honestly say I'm in the best shape of my life...by far.   Here are some lessons I've learned that might be of help to others on your journey. 1) You can do it! I promise. Just don't ever give up. You can win this war, but the war is made up of 1000 battles. Win each battle and you will win the war. It's inevitable! 2) It's at least 80% psychology. Once we have some basic knowledge about nutrition, the rest is a mind game. My line is, "We don't need to know we shouldn't eat the cookie, we need to learn how NOT to eat the cookie." Face the fact that if you've overeaten as I have, it's a psychology problem. 3) Food Is Fuel! Yup. It took me 49 years to get that one in my head. Please learn that one earlier than I did. Food is not there for emotional comfort. It's not there to cheer you up w...

You want an awesome accountability partner? Someone who's always with you through thick and thin? Someone who won't judge you but will never budget in their relentless pursuit of you staying (or getting) to where you want to be? Here's your partner...meet your favorite pair of jeans (or shorts or whatever kind of pants you love). Bue Jeans? I have a brand of jeans I love. Yet there's nothing more frustrating than trying to put them on when I'm not at the right waistline. The frustration of getting that button to slip inside of that hole...arrgggg! I can get frustrated just thinking about it. Yet, how can you use that to your advantage? I used this hack as I was dropping weight. When I was a 38" the jeans were starting to fit tight. I said to myself, I'm not doing 40". I refused to buy 40" pants even though the 38" were snug. With time and focus the 38" got loose, so what did I do? Of course, I went back to eating more and exercising ...

I use to say that eating right while traveling was tough. If we say that, we will find a way to make it true. Really though, it's not as hard as you might think with a few strategies. Here are some thoughts on food while traveling... @Restaurant - When you eat out while traveling you need to limit options. If you sit down at dinner and open the menu, you're screwed. What you say? Not look at the menu? Mark, you've lost your mind. Yup, don't even open it. Ever restaurant has grilled fish or chicken and vegetables. It's just that easy. You got this! Personally, I like fish but it never tastes as great at home than when I'm traveling. So fish is a go-to for me. @Airport - Ok, truth. Fewer options here. You can get a grilled chicken sandwich about anywhere, but here's where some prep helps. Get your blender bottle with protein powder out. Ice and water and you're set for a meal. No joke, carry that thing with you everywhere! My favorite is Quest protein ...