Can’t Lose Weight? The Answer Could Be On Your Shelves
Take a good look through your kitchen cabinets and see what's in there. Do you have boxes of cookies and crackers? All processed foods.
Get rid of them.
Got anything in those cabinets that aren't going to support your weight loss journey?
Get rid of it if you want dieting success.
Can't Lose Weight?
Hey, who's kidding who? If it's in the house, you're going to eventually eat it. Why tempt yourself with crappy food anyway?
I'll get back to the evils of the junk in the cabinets in a minute. Let me tell you a quick story about someone who had come in for a first visit consultation.
She was about 15 pounds overweight, which unfortunately, is quite common these days. What I found out through our conversation though, was a shock.
“Mrs. Smith” as I'll call her here, had worked with 3 personal trainers over the course of 5 years. Over that time she'd religiously trained 2- 3 times a week. Not too shabby.
So, to be so committed over the last 5 years, and be 15 pounds overweight, she must have come down from 50 or 60 pounds overweight, right? At least!
But shockingly, this wasn't the case.
She Was About 20 Pounds Overweight When She Started Out
You don't need a calculator to figure out that she's lost maybe 5 pounds over the course of 5 years. This doesn't add up considering her commitment to exercise.
To put it bluntly, those are crappy results. Something is flying below the radar, and it's not a thyroid problem– she'd been checked several times.
So I dug a little deeper.
It turns out she likes to have a snack at night after dinner, before going to bed. You know, the “healthy stuff” like zero- fat crackers and fat- free cookies.
Not just one. But a whole box. Bingo!
No Wonder She Can't Lose Weight
If you've been here a while, you know what a dieting- disaster these processed food snacks are.
When I told her to get rid of all the boxed cookies and crackers from her cabinets, her face twisted and her head tilted.
She looked at me and said, “I can't do that” in a tone of voice that suggested I was out of my mind. Like, now I had gone too far.
I asked, “why not?”
“Well, I just went shopping and bought those things. Some of those boxes I haven't even opened yet. I can't waste all that food”. The excuses kept rolling.
Self Sabotage
This is self- sabotage thinking at it's finest. Is this really about unopened boxes and wasting 15 or 20 dollars worth of junk food? Not at all.
There is an emotional attachment to these foods.
They are comfortable. They relax you in times of stress. They taste good.
That's why they're so hard to stop eating- especially if they're right there on the shelves in your cabinets.
So what's the best way to deal with this situation?
Like removing a band aid- Right Off!
Junk Foods
Don't leave some lying around, “just in case”. They only feed your need for more. By getting rid of it- “out of sight, out of mind”, you gradually lose taste for these processed junk foods, eventually not craving them at all.
After re- examining what she'd be missing out on if she didn't toss the junk, she agreed to get rid of the stuff.
We changed the meaning that certain foods have for her, and we came up with a list of better quality alternatives that would keep her on track to lose those 15 pounds.
After all, she committed to lose 15 pounds NOW. 5 years of putting in the work with no reward was enough for her.
How about donating those unopened boxes you have on your shelf to charity? You don't need that stuff. As long as you're eating that junk, you're going sabotage your efforts.