Until today.
But first, we're just going to talk about it and think about it, because if I've learned one thing in my experience, most of the stuff you hear is wrong.
If you are looking for a crash diet to lose X-number of pounds in X-number of days, you are looking in the wrong place. If you are looking for a secret pill or juice or vitamin that will melt away that extra weight you're carrying, you are looking in the wrong place. If you're looking for that magical gadget or exercise video that will tighten your tummy or shrink your butt or get rid of your flab in 3 minutes a day with absolutely no effort, you're looking in the wrong place.
But if you are looking for a simple formula to becoming healthier and happier, with the extra bonus of losing weight along the way, then this might be the place for you. I have a simple two-step plan that will accomplish all of those things. Get ready, because here it comes:
Get off your butt. Stop shoving junk down your piehole.
See? Simple!
OK, so that's a joke ... sort of. It's also true. If you want health, there is no substitute. Every other gimmick, gadget, fad, solution, craze or secret you've heard in the past works in one of two ways:
Either it achieves a temporary solution to a symptom, without tackling or even addressing the underlying problem, or It doesn't work at all.
So, we've already been talking about exercise, and I hope you have begun to work on that. If so, you might already have noticed changes in your appetite. I know that when I first started, after I had spent an half-hour huffing, puffing and sweating away on my bike, the last thing in the world that I wanted was a greasy cheeseburger.
Still, exercise alone will not help you meet your goals. You might crave healthier food once you begin exercising, but if you don't know what that is, how do you know what to put in your body?
We'll get there, but not quite yet. For this step, all that you need to do is start forming new habits to educate yourself. To do that, keep eating the way you have been (for now), but start looking at the food labels of what you're eating. Get familiar with what you are putting in your body. In particular, pay attention to the serving size and number of servings in the package and compare it to how you actually consume it.
A lot of times, food companies use the serving size to mask how unhealthy their products actually are. You might pick up a 24 oz. bottle of Pepsi and see "100 calories" and think, "Well, that's not too bad, especially since I just walked for an hour and burned 200 calories." But if you look a little closer, you'll see that it actually says that there are 100 calories per serving, and there are 3 servings in a bottle! So now, even with your 200-calorie-burning walk, you're 100 calories in the hole! That might not sound like much, but a month of 100 extra calories a day means about one extra pound on the scale.
Another example: The other day, my wife asked me to stop by the store to get some sauerkraut for a country dinner she was preparing. I looked at the label and saw that it appeared to be very low-impact on my diet. I have been particularly concerned about the amount of sodium in processed foods lately, so I took special note of that category and saw that it contained only 5 percent of my recommended daily allowance of sodium ... per serving. My eyes then went back to the top of the label to see that there were -- HOLY CRAP -- 14 "servings" in this itty-bitty can! Wow! So not only was sauerkraut low in calories, it was truly a miracle food! And by "miracle," I'm talking about the fishes-and-loaves variety. Imagine, feeding 14 people from one 16-ounce can of sauerkraut!
But seriously, I'm sure there are plenty of people who could put away half of that can by themselves, and in so doing would be wolfing down one-third of their recommended sodium intake for the day from one side dish!
These are the types of things you learn if you simply pay attention to the food labels. And while I've told you to not bother making changes to your diet yet, I can't imagine how anyone could not be affected upon seeing exactly how unhealthy some of this stuff is.
In many ways, this is simply the same advice that financial experts give to people about their money, when they tell them to keep a journal of everything they spend their money on, with the same results. Little by little, they don't see how much money they are wasting on, for example, a bottle of soda from the pop machine at work. A dollar here, a dollar there ... who cares? But when they see the grand total at the end of a week or month and realize they're spending the equivalent of that month's water bill or a new outfit, they begin to think of ways to cut back on those bottles of pop.
It's the same way with nutrition labels. Start keeping track of what the food you are eating contains. Do this by examining the food labels on everything you eat, or by asking for the nutritional information at restaurants. If you are feeling especially motivated, you can keep all of that information in a journal. Then, after awhile, you should begin to notice some patterns ... too much of this, too little of that, WAY too much of that.
I have a feeling that once you begin to see exactly what you are putting into your body, you will be ready to start making changes for the better.
For more information about how to understand food labels, the Food and Drug Administration has a great guide available online here.
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