Making Weight Loss Easier
By: Nutritionist Keith Klein IV CN CCN

That picture is of Gretchen Reynolds, a client from Lean Body Coaching. While you see a lot of hard work and effort from the outside, you can’t see the changes she made on the inside. In the before picture Gretchen had tried repeatedly to lose weight but never succeeded for years. She finally succeeded when she changed how she thought about weight loss and food preparation. In the before picture, she never carried her food. In the after photo, she never leaves home without it. And that’s why she’s now down to 140 pounds in her latest swimsuit photo.The problem with telling people the truth about weight loss is that they want to avoid hearing it. They want it to be easier, require no work on their part, and engage in hope seeking that a pill or medication will come along and do the work for them. In other words, they express the conscious desire to change but unconsciously fight and defend their position not to change. For example, when I say something like, “if you’ll just cook and carry your food every day, your issues regarding your weight and health will go away.” They’ll respond, saying, “I can’t do that; I don’t have time.” Or, “No, I can’t do that; I don’t know how to cook.” In other words, they believe cooking and carrying food is more difficult when in reality, doing so will simplify their life in many ways.

Cooking and carrying food is essential to weight loss and long-term success for several reasons: The first is that it allows you to control the portion size and ingredients you consume. It can be challenging to gauge how much fat, calories, sugar, and salt are in your food when eating out. Preparing your meals ensures you eat the right food that aligns with your weight loss goals. And it allows you to use healthier ingredients that are lower in calories and more nutrient dense. Foods like vegetables, lean proteins, and whole grains will give your body the nutrients needed to function.Carrying your food gives you more control over your hunger and helps you avoid impulsive food choices. And when you have pre-prepared meals and balanced mini-meals, you are less likely to reach for candy bars, chips, and other unhealthy options when you get hungry at work or on the go. It’s also much more cost-effective than eating out, which can add up quickly.People who don’t cook and carry their food complicate their lives and make losing weight much harder. By not bringing food, they will be exposed to hunger, have limited food options, have unplanned meals, have a lack of control, and increased stress. And all those interferences make their weight loss harder and much more difficult.

Let’s look at a list of the top five things that hold people back from losing weight.

But take notice, the one thing on that list that will resolve all the other issues is number three, cooking and carrying food. Your list might be slightly different, but the truth of what I am saying will still turn out the same no matter what your list contains.

So here’s a list of five things that can hold most people back from being thing

1. They eat out too much.

2. They overeat at one time.

3. They don’t cook or carry food.

4. They eat too much red meat or fried food.5. They snack too much.

And there you have it, my list of the top five things that hold most people back from losing and keeping weight off.Number three would simplify weight loss because it resolves all the other issues. If you cooked your food, you would eat out less and have food to carry. If you cooked and brought your food, you’d have the right proportions and eat less red meat and fried food. And if you took your food in your cooler, you’d also bring healthy snacks to avoid hunger between meals which would significantly curtail snacking by keeping you away from the vending machines and candy bowls at work.Those of us who carry our food view it as easier than not carrying it.

If I take my food, I don’t have to fight traffic at lunch hour to find a restaurant. And I would save time from waiting while the restaurant cooks and prepares the food. With all the hidden fat and calories, whatever I order will be more food and calories than I need. And once I’m back in the office, and I get hungry in the middle of the afternoon, will you be able to find something healthy and satisfying? Nope! When we bring our food, we avoid dealing with those issues and many like them and begin aligning our conscious choice to be thinner with our inner narrative. We prevent the internal chaos at the end of the day that most people find ruminating and bouncing off the walls of their brains. Thoughts like, why did I eat so badly today? Will I ever be thin again? What’s wrong with me? Why can’t I ever seem to eat right? So you see, for all of us that carry, we avoid everything I just outlined and become congruent with our conscious and unconscious goals.If a person struggles with losing weight, it’s often because they view carrying food as difficult and time-consuming. And when your brain looks at the work it takes to do a task, you’ll be unmotivated to do it. But you’ll be highly motivated when your brain sees what it gets in return for doing a task. What would happen if you changed your mindset or perspective from looking at food prep as work to viewing it as a thing you want to do and decided to be committed to carrying your food?Once you develop the proper coping skills and learn how to power-cook, you’d quickly discover that you’ve been lying to yourself all these years. If you’ve never cooked, you need to be patient with yourself because, like any new skill, it will initially take a certain amount of focus and attention. But like any complex skill, it changes and becomes a natural part of what you do daily, like any routine. Once my clients watch the Power-cooking video to see how easy it can be in the Lean Body Coaching program, and they see how successful people cook in bulk, doing it gets a lot easier. Secondly, having great-tasting recipes is crucial. Why? Because if you love the food you carry, you’ll keep eating that way.