The No More Excuses Diet (47 page)

EXAMPLE OF FAT-LOSS MACRONUTRIENT PROFILE BASED ON A
2,000-CALORIE/DAY DIET

Meal Examples

OPTION 3: ACTIVE LIFESTYLE DIET

EXAMPLE OF ACTIVE MACRONUTRIENT PROFILE BASED ON A 2,000-CALORIE/DAY DIET

Meal Examples

You can’t follow “generic” diet programs because they do not take into account your personal situation or tastes. For those trying to eat only chicken and broccoli all day, you know how tough it is when you prefer ethnic foods. What do you do if you hate chicken? Or if you’re allergic to nuts? You have to do what’s best for
you
, which means finding the better options among what you like to eat. For instance, if you like to eat pizza, start seeking healthier pizza recipes and cut back on your cookie eating. If you want to stick to a healthy program for the long term, you have to create your own plan, not use someone else’s.

At this point, you have your S.P.E.E.D. strategy, your baseline measurements, your action calendar, weekly workout plan, meal plan, and excuse-busting tactics. These upcoming months won’t always be easy, but don’t get frustrated! If you run into challenges, turn the page to find my best troubleshooting techniques!

PART 3

S
eek Out Reasons

T
ackle the Problem

R
eflect on Your Game Plan

R
evisit Your
I
ntentions

V
alue the Lesson

E
merge with a New Attitude

The S.T.R.I.V.E. model is here for you when life’s trials start kicking in. These generally come along after the initial kickoff and honeymoon. You’re settling into the reality of your new commitment. You’re hungry, you’re sore, and you’re mentally drained from making conscious choices to perform healthy acts on a daily basis. How do you keep going?

This is when you must
S
eek out reasons you’re not seeing results,
T
ackle the problem,
R
eflect on your game plan, revisit your
I
ntentions,
V
alue the lesson, and
E
merge with a new attitude. S.T.R.I.V.E. helps you review your program in a concise way so you can troubleshoot to get through the emotional trials and bust through the
excuses. It’s the tool that will carry you over your hurdles and help you stay focused, no matter what life throws at you.

You’ve set your goals; you’re in execution mode, and you are striving to become your very best. The ultimate goal in designing any fitness program is to become master of your own body. But to do so, you must know your weaknesses, your strengths, your motivations, your patterns, and your life routine. You should be paying attention to what foods make you tired, what exercises make you sore, and what times you are motivated to train, prepare, and reflect. No one is perfect, which is why mastering your body is a continuous journey experienced only through serious reflection.

The path to wellness will take you on this journey for the rest of your life. It’s a hard truth to swallow: Being healthy today doesn’t mean you won’t struggle tomorrow. Fortunately, the opposite is true, too: If you’re struggling with your health or weight today, tomorrow is an opportunity to see things improve!

Life unfolds in seasons, and there will be times when you grow, peak, and rest. Understanding the rhythm of your life will help you master your efforts as you continue to grow and evolve in personal wellness, physical health, and spiritual satisfaction. Striving to become better physically, personally, and professionally requires you to challenge yourself, though. And the only way to challenge yourself is to change your daily habits. Creating successful habits requires small, conscious efforts, so you won’t fry your mental machinery. But how do you do this? How do you stay successful? How do you keep going? How do you avoid burning out? How do you keep from giving up?

You keep striving.

No matter how good your intentions were at the start of the program, it’s likely that by now something has happened that made you falter. Negative people are getting under your skin. Special events or holidays have come along to disrupt your routine and kill your motivation. Setbacks will happen and frustrations will kick in. I know it; I’ve been there. I’ve injured my ankle, shoulder, and back a few times. I’ve dealt with depression, disordered eating, and six years in a row of the “terrible twos.” But you cannot wait for things to be going well to make positive changes in your life.

Arianna Huffington, a successful journalist, political scientist, and media entrepreneur, once said, “You can’t wait for things to be going well to start thriving.” It’s great to have a plan and execute with perfect precision. But in between our winning shots is real life, where the excuses lurk around every corner and small setbacks feel like large failures. We are all on a journey, and there is no real end to the journey toward good health, until the day you depart this world.

So embrace the fact that this ride is going to have bumps. You need to maintain your drive to succeed. So, let’s start our engines and S.T.R.I.V.E. for success!

If you’re not seeing the results you want, it’s time to seek the reasons why. Once a week, usually on Sundays, I take a step back and really look at what’s going on. It’s important to see what you’re doing—both right and wrong—so you can efficiently plan your upcoming week. The only way to create a solution is to seek the problem.

During my post-pregnancy weight loss, I hit a plateau. Though I was exercising four or five times a week and eating well, I didn’t get physical results for nearly a month. So, I had to
seek
the reason
for my setback. I determined my diet needed to be changed. I was working out intensely while maintaining a caloric deficit, but I was not seeing results. I did more research on my basal metabolic rate (BMR) and recalculated how many calories I should healthfully consume while exercising and still lose weight. Of course, this caloric number was adjusted depending on whether I was nursing, sick, or training for a long charity run. I realized I didn’t have enough caloric variation on active days and I felt my energy plummeting from lack of fuel. I had a lightbulb moment when I realized that, in order to get off this plateau, I needed to challenge not only my muscles but my metabolism as well!