photo credit: Creativity + Timothy K Hamilton
Tonight as fireworks explode in the night sky and you find a moment between the oohs and aahs, consider truly celebrating Independence Day! Free yourself!
Break free from the things that holds you back, the things you think you can’t give up, that you can’t imagine living your life without. Carbs! The sugary ones, not the green leafy ones!
Yes, The USA is land of the free and home of the brave, and there are many reasons to be proud, but from abroad I can tell you that in recent years the one thing that the USA has become most known for is obesity! Super-sized has replaced superpower. Please don’t shoot the messenger, and yes as in other things, the rest of the world is catching up and getting fat too!
Sure it is a free country and you are free to sit on your sofa in front of the TV eating a bag of Doritos or Ben & Jerry’s and or drinking beer or Coke and I can’t stop you from driving through or dialing for your dinner. I just want to suggest that those are habits and until you break them, you are not really free.
Please don’t confuse laziness with freedom. Freedom isn’t just about doing whatever you feel like in the moment, because you can’t be bothered. True Freedom occurs when you realize that if you could do anything in the world, you would be doing exactly what you are doing at that moment and feel the way that you are feeling. Wouldn’t you choose to feel alive and awesome? Do you feel that way when you watch TV or when you’ve just polished off a container of Chunky Monkey?
People ask me all the time, like hourly, how I lost weight and how I stay in shape. Most people tune out immediately because both parts of my answer sound like hard work. Weight training and cutting out starchy carbs (I’m not saying never, but I am saying HARDLY EVER!).
Most people believe with all their heart that they could never give up bread, pasta, pizza, cookies and sugar. They say it is too restrictive! They want to continue on their quest to find the secret way to eat donuts and lose weight.
I’m not only suggesting that life is better when you are lean, strong and sexy; you will also feel better and have more energy when you break the habit. It is actually easier to get starches and sugar out of your system and exclude them from your daily routine than to try to eat them in moderation; leaving your body screaming for more! So stop being a slave to starchy carbs and sugar. I’m not saying it is easy, I’m just saying it is worth it! This weekend there was a great article in the NY Times, “What Really Makes us Fat.” which highlights research featuring subjects who had already lost weight and were therefor at the greatest risk for regain. The research found the fewer carbohydrates consumed, the more energy these weight-reduced people expended.
The one year annniversary of my own Independence Day is approaching. I achieved my 60 pound weight loss in less than 6 months and I have now maintained it for over 6 months (within 1-2 pounds up or down). WOW! This means two things; I am not a regain failure statistic and now that I have been eating this way for an entire year; you can hardly call this an unsustainable or temporary diet. Some people are sensitive about what you call a diet, whatever you eat in a day is in fact your diet. For me the difference is that there is no on and off switch. There is no going back! I’M FREE AT LAST!!
Happy 4th of July!
