The Big Fat Truth: The Behind-the-scenes Secret to Weight Loss (33 page)

And what if you’ve DVR’d your show or are watching premium channels without commercial interruption? Create a rule for yourself and set the timer on your phone: every half hour of binge watching you’ll stop and take an exercise break.

There is a reason so many people turn to fast food for the majority of their meals, or even just some of their meals. Actually two reasons: It’s cheap, and it’s convenient. This is something you already know. You also know that fast food—and let’s be honest, you probably don’t order the salad or any of the other healthier options some places now offer—is the worst thing for your health and your waistline. You have to cut it out of your life.

You don’t even need to know much about cooking in order to break the fast-food habit. And the thing is, it’s actually not that much more work—and it’s even cheaper—to just buy a rotisserie chicken at the market, a bag of corn tortillas, a can of beans, some lettuce and tomatoes, some broccoli, some olive oil and vinegar. Right there, you have two nights’ meals: chicken, salad, and broccoli one night; chicken tacos and beans the next.

If you’re industrious, you can even use the leftover chicken carcass to make chicken soup. (All you do is add water and some chopped celery and carrots and boil for a few hours.) Cut up some extra carrots and celery instead of steaming broccoli, and you won’t even need to use your stove on night one. Just be a good shopper, and you’ll never use the excuse “I can only afford fast food” again!

One of my sons is really into golf, and he watches this great motivational video that I think also has a good lesson for anyone who wants to accomplish anything. When most golfers take a bad shot, they typically curse at themselves and, say, “That was the worst shot,” or, “I suck at golf,” then they move on to the next shot. That just reinforces negativity. What you want to do instead is reinforce positivity. Here’s how the video advises that golfers do it: Every time you take a shot you say, in your head, “great shot,” “good shot,” or “needs work.” Just a simple (but not downbeat) assessment of how you did. Then, before you move to the next hole, you take a practice swing and say to yourself, “great shot.”

Sounds stupid, right? Who’s going to pat themselves on the back like that? But then I thought about it. What you’re doing by rating your shot, then taking another stroke and saying “great shot” to yourself is training the pathways in your brain. You’re erasing the bad shot from your consciousness. When the last thing you hear is “great shot,” it seeps into your brain, setting the stage for actually making a great shot the next time around.

One day, it occurred to me that this technique could help with weight loss. So, today, try this. Step on the scale and look at the number. Then say to yourself, “great week,” “good week,” or “needs work.” Then step off the scale, look at it, and say, “great week.” The last thing your brain hears is going to be overwhelmingly positive. Now see if you can capture that feeling again—this time for real—next week.

I know this exercise (and some of the others in this plan) may seem silly, but they have been tested over and over again, and they work. So don’t just read them, think “that’s cute,” and go on to the next page. Really try them, stick with it, and enjoy the results!

I want to prove to you that life can be sweet without sugar. I’m not saying that you should never eat foods that contain sugar, but I think you’ll find that once you reduce the amount you eat, you’ll crave it less and end up eating fewer “empty” calories overall. Today, grab a notebook and go on a sugar scavenger hunt through your refrigerator and pantry to see how much sweetness is lurking. There may be the obvious things, i.e., cookies, ice cream, certain cereals, and so on (though I hope you’ve got all those obvious sweets out of the house by now). But I also want you to look for less obvious sugary foods, things like ketchup, BBQ sauce, salad dressings, Chinese sauces, pasta sauces, fruit yogurt, energy drinks, and even seemingly healthy things like dried fruit (when the fruit dries up, the sugar concentrates). Check labels for dead-giveaway ingredients: honey, brown sugar, turbinado, molasses, high-fructose corn syrup, other syrups, raw sugar, agave and glucose (including other sweeteners ending in “ose”). Now that you know where the sugar is, work on working it
out
of your life.

It may take a little sleuthing, but grocery stores do stock versions of these items without the added sugar. Another way to avoid these sugar traps is to make these foods from scratch. You will be surprised how easy it is to make salsa, salad dressing, and many sauces with no sugar—and by how much better they taste, too!

By now, I assume (hope!) that you’re well into a cardio workout routine. Now it’s time to start bumping it up. Intervals—pushing your pace up, then slowing down to recover so you can speed up again—help you burn more fat in less time.

In 2008, researchers at the University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia, had a group of women ride stationary bikes at intervals of 8 seconds sprinting and 12 seconds slow riding for 20 minutes (60 repeats in all). The researchers then compared them to a second group of women who rode for 40 minutes straight at the same speed only to find that, at the end of 15 weeks, the interval trainers lost more weight and more body fat than the steady riders. The only question is, Why would you
not
do intervals?!

Target certain days of the week for interval training—maybe do it Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Then experiment with different equipment to see where you are really enjoying the workout. I personally enjoy doing intervals on a treadmill way more than on a stationary bike. Try everything until you find your sweet spot!

Sitting, it seems, is the new smoking. Even if you exercise for an hour or more a day, according to new research, it doesn’t cancel out the bad effects of sitting the rest of the day. That was a rude awakening! I was working out hard in the morning, then sitting at my desk all day. Had to change that. Standing more won’t necessarily help you lose weight, but it will, by all accounts, help extend your life. That may be why you hear a lot now about people buying stand-up desks to help solve the sitting problem. You don’t, though, need a sophisticated system. That all goes back to excuses. If you want to stand more while you’re working, put a large, weighted box on your desk and place your computer on top.

That’s not going to work for everybody, but there are lots of other ways to make sure you stand more and sit less. On Day 11, I gave you a strategy for moving more. Starting today, work standing into it. Now, as soon as I get an email, I delete it, get up, walk to the person’s office, then stand while talking to them. I stand when I talk on the phone. When there’s a crowded room, I let others take the chairs and stand up instead. At my kids’ school, they now break every 15 minutes to stand up and shake out their bodies. Set your watch or phone to remind you to do the same. And next time someone offers you a seat, say “no, thanks.”

One of the reasons it’s so easy to get off-track is busyness. Running here and there, constantly consuming information—our lives are chaos. It’s exhausting just to keep up, and so much easier to let your guard down and go back to your old bad habits if you feel overwhelmed. Today, I want you to begin doing something that I have started to do recently, which is meditate. But let’s not even call it meditation, which might be too out there for some people, and let’s just call it a daily time out. It’s a chance to go inward for a time and re-center yourself so that it’s easier to stay on track. And it’s therapeutic. Letting one thought roll into another thought; you don’t know where it’s going to take you. Ultimately, I’ve found that if you can work up to even just 15 to 20 minutes, it can have a similar effect to exercise, where endorphins kick in and you feel almost as though you’re floating.

Here’s an easy way to try it out: Put the distractions away and just sit on the floor comfortably. Pick a spot to look at, and don’t look away for five minutes. Let your thoughts come, one thought rolling into another thought. The meditation expert I’ve worked with gives these guidelines: If a thought about the past comes up, let the “movie” play with no questions; anything about what’s happening around you currently—for instance, thoughts about sounds you hear in the distance or how your body feels—go with it; but any thoughts about the future, shut them down. Those are the kinds of thoughts that bring on anxiety and worries. Instead, bring your mind back to your breathing, to the spot your looking at, or to any thoughts that don’t concern the future.

Negative thoughts are going to come in. Let those thoughts wash over you, and realize that no one is perfect. We are all a work in progress—which means you will get there, a little at a time, not all at once. Try to love yourself more, and when negativity creeps in, try to match it with love for yourself. Stay positive. You are a good person, who does good things. Visualize something you did that mattered and felt good. In most cases while meditating, I try to keep my mind open to whatever pops in and learn from the way meditation floats you in and out of certain moments. Good thoughts or bad, you will learn from both.

This is just one type of meditating. There are many types, and you can find many good guided meditations on YouTube. I urge you to explore until you find something that resonates with you, and to make a concerted effort to have a point in the day when you go inward, even just for a few minutes. You’ll see what a calming effect it can have. Keep in mind, too, that you may have to work up to sitting for an extended length of time. It’s like exercise—you don’t go out and run six miles right off the bat. You start with a block or two and increase your mileage over time. Same with meditation; you work up to it. But even if the very idea of meditation is daunting don’t give up on it: Even sitting in a room in complete silence for 2 to 3 minutes can have a calming effect.

Not long ago, I got an email from a former cast member of
Extreme Weight Loss
named Patrick. “Hey, JD!” he wrote, “I came out of Thanksgiving day great! I took a food scale with me to measure my protein. Did not have mashed potatoes, stuffing, or rolls. (Did have just a smidgen of pecan pie.)”

That was all great—I was proud of him. But what really piqued my interest was what came next: “I also took a deck of cards and every 20 minutes [had] someone draw a card that corresponded to an exercise I had to do. For example, the 5 of hearts was 5 burpees; 8 of diamonds, 8 push-ups . . . and, yes, I did do them! Even got the kids involved. They were doing the exercises with me. Most successful Thanksgiving I’ve ever had and never one moment felt so stuffed that I was miserable.”

Is that a great idea or what? Today, or, if need be, next time you are in a social situation or having a family dinner, I want you to try this. Don’t wait for Thanksgiving. This is a fun game that can help you get a little exercise in while also helping to take the focus off food. When you have a healthy and amusing diversion like Patrick’s game, who needs something sedentary like Scrabble?

Having a goal in front of you can help you stay focused and motivated. It’s true of any endeavor, but especially true of exercise. Make your workouts count for something. Today, start looking online or checking local sports stores for upcoming events you can train for. It doesn’t have to be a marathon; it can be a 5K walk.

And don’t freak out if it’s billed as a race. I have a slogan I use with cast members on our shows: Don’t compete, just complete. When we’d sign them up for events, they’d say things like, “I can’t compete with all those athletes.” That’s not the point. The point is to just cross the finish line. Your only competition is you. When you show up at the event, keep that line in your head: “I’m here to complete, not compete.” That’s going to prevent negative, shameful thoughts from popping into your mind and prevent you from quitting. All you need to do is finish—no matter how long it takes. And when you do, congratulate yourself on keeping your promise!

Going forward in the weeks and months to come, there are two things that I believe will help everything fall into place: One is being honest with yourself and others; the other is relaxing. It sounds kind of corny, but those two things provide a foundation for healthful living—for everything, really. If you’re honest with yourself—Did I do my best today? Did I keep my promises?—and honest with others—I’m having a hard time today; I could use some help—then you can just relax. And by relaxing you are taking away all of the stress that can send you straight into self-destructive mode. Constantly freaking out over whether you’re following every dietary rule perfectly doesn’t help you. Knowing that you did your best on a given day—or admitting to yourself that you didn’t—will free you to move forward. That’s why honesty is so important. If you don’t beat yourself up about asking for help or having a cookie, you can chill. Slow life down a little bit. Get off the hamster wheel. When you do, it’s easier to get things done in a positive way.

These are two simple concepts, but they’re not always easy. I’m great with the honesty part; I have to work on the relaxing part every day. Whichever way it plays out for you, don’t give up. Lying and stressing out make people fat. Honesty and relaxation make them thin, healthy, and, most importantly, happy. I know you’ll prove me right!