Skip to main content

Mark's Backstory


I'm committed to being a positive influence in the lives of others, but it is hard to be the best person you can be if you're "owned" by something. Food owned me. I tried year after year to diet and exercise only staying on a plan for a short period of time, only to fall off the wagon yet again. I couldn't crack the code.

As a sales trainer an coach I knew that 80-90% of issues people face are psychological, not technical. I've known in my heart for years that this was the case with health and nutrition. It seems as if 95% of the message out there about being healthy and fit is centered around either what to eat or how to exercise. It felt to me that that wasn't the problem. If that was the problem we'd all be skinny and proud. The problem was between our ears. The problem was between MY ears! 

While I've never had any serious eating disorders, I would succumb to what I call emotional eating. Here are just three ways I could self-sabotage myself with bad thinking...
  • "I've had a hard day, I deserve to treat myself."
  • "This is a special moment, I will order what I want."
  • "I've never been to this restaurant before and won't likely be back, it's special."
When most every meal, every day is "special"....it's not special. That took me a lifetime and 47 years to reach my peak of 233 pounds at 5' 10". I couldn't help myself. I would have to fast before a cholesterol blood test and set the blood test appointment for 8:30am at the start of the day. After giving blood, I'd drive to McDonald's and get an Egg McMuffin because I was "starving" and hadn't eaten for 2 hours and deserved a break today. 

When traveling or ending a hard day, I would always treat myself saying to myself either "I deserve this" or "I worked hard" or whatever else I could say to myself to self-justify the decision to eat crap. By the way, I work hard every day so you can guess what that means. Maybe you can relate.

In accomplishing anything there are always at least two factors, the will and the resources. The will would be there. I had plenty of reasons to get healthy. Shortness of breath. Occasional chest pains (even though I was cleared of any heart issues). The threat of diabetes. It was the resources I lacked or to be more specific the emotional resources. 

Being 100% committed to finding a solution to food controlling me, I began to bump into people that would significantly influence my thinking and change my life.  Linda Collins, who became my personal trainer and nutrition mentor. Tony Robbins who has helped me develop the psychological tools I need to increase self-control. Rochelle Carrington, Mark Foley, Doug Cohen and Matt Neuberger all of which have a strong fitness mindset and have allowed me to dissect their thinking many times. The list goes on and on.

With their help and the support of my wife, Devon, I have lost over 50 pounds and gotten into the best shape of my life at 50 years old. It's taken two years of focus and dedication but I fully believe I have slain the beast when it comes to food owning me rather than me owning food.

I'm writing this as I want to share with you what I've learned so YOU can't slay the emotional eating beast. During the journey, I journaled a lot of my thoughts and tools and I want to bring them to you so you can feel great and fulfill every dream you have. Sound crazy? Maybe so, but if you struggle with some of the same afflictions I have let me join your army as many have joined mine so we can live the lives we were intended to live. 

This blog is intended to share tangible tools that will help shape your thinking and actions so you can develop the discipline necessary to make the right choices for better health (you'll learn later that it has zero to do with discipline but this is the word we think of).

Let's go!

Mark

--------------------------------------------------------------
Subscribe to McGraw's Laws by Email
My Disclaimer: I am not a nutritionist. I am not a personal trainer. I am not licensed in anything. This is not intended for any serious emotional eating disorders. These notes are for those who have suffered, like many, with not sticking to a diet plan. I won't say much about what type of diet to follow, I'm not qualified for that. Besides, I've been on them all and they all work...if you follow them.




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

What Parkinson's Law Can Teach Us About Getting Fit(er)

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 ...
1 comment
Read more

Your Best Accountability Partner Isn't Who You Think

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 ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Mind "Hacks" You Need To Lose Weight & Get Healthy

There are tons and tons of books on diets, but very few on how to stick with the plan. I've found several mental "hacks" that assist in tricking ourselves into better thinking and better healthy decisions. We all know what to do...it's the doing it when we're under pressure part that trips many of us up. Here's my short list of mind hacks. Over time I will add more details to each of these. Practice the 2 bite rule- If you want something, eat two (reasonable) bits then throw it out. Get comfortable throwing out food! 80% of the taste comes from 20% of the calories. Predecide - Before you walk into any restaurant, know what you're going to eat. You don't even need to see a menu, because you know what you want. Don't tempt yourself by opening the menu. Click here to read the full blog. You bite it, you write it- Track everything you eat BEFORE you eat it.  Celebrate 10 victories for every 1 defeat. - If you stop at McDonalds, celebrate out...
5 comments
Read more