For me, that was my health.

As a young man, I was actually happy to be putting on weight. I was working out like mad, and attributed the gains to be my workout, working. I was ecstatic when I finally broke 200!

There was that beer gut that developed in the process… But when an older (probably in his 30’s at the time), male bartender told me, “A wise man builds a shed for his tools,” I accepted the gut as a normal part of manhood and pressed on.

It didn’t stop though. I increased the intensity of my workouts, and I got fairly strong, for a nerdy kid who weighed 135 throughout high school. Yet the gut kept growing.

Then it began to spread. Now it wasn’t just my gut that was expanding, fat was spreading into my face. My cheeks and neck began to swell. It got to the point where I felt like I didn’t really have “my” face anymore. There was now more of a generally round, “fat guy” face where mine used to be.

The legs and arms began to fill as well. It didn’t matter how much I worked out. I was still getting stronger, the muscles were still getting bigger; but, there were no “cuts,” no definition to anything. People started telling me, “you look like you used to work out.”

Ouch. No one who works out wants to hear that they look like they used to look good.

I decided that I had done enough bulking, it was time to cut.

So, how do I lose a bunch of fat, really fast? At the time, Dr. Atkins was all the rage, so I jumped on board. Zero-carb, high fat, all protein, all day. I made it about two weeks, but hey, I dropped 15 pounds!

And then 20 pounds crept back on throughout the rest of the year.

I kept thinking, “if only I could keep this up for longer…” so the next year I pushed harder, with about the same results.

I tried again the following year, same thing happened. Diet tech improvements came along. Now they have a powder that “gets you back into ketosis when you fall out of it.”

For the uninitiated, “ketosis” is the target state of the Atkins approach. This means that there will be “ketone bodies” present in the urine that can be detected by peeing on a special test strip. These ketone bodies only show up in the urine under special circumstances.

One of those situations is kidney failure, which we definitely want to avoid.

The other, is when we’ve exhausted our supply of available glucose for fuel to trick our body into thinking we’re starving so it switches to burning off our fat reserves.

If you’ve never done Atkins before, it takes a good 3 days for you to burn off your existing glucose stores before your body reluctantly switches into ketosis (fat-burning mode via simulated starvation). Once you’re in ketosis, your body is constantly burning up your fat reserves. But, any amount of carbs you ingest will throw you out of it, leaving you waiting for your body to burn those carbs off to get back into ketosis.

Ah! But now we have this Miracle Powder that will get you right back into ketosis! Of course I tried it. I don’t really know if it didn’t work, or if I used it as a means to sneak carbs in here and there, but the net result was that it was less effective than Atkins alone.

This is where the “low-carb” craze came from. The idea is that if you can just eat very low carbs, your body will choose to burn off fat. Except that, the body doesn’t work like that. If it has glucose to burn as fuel, it’s going to burn that glucose as fuel. And when it has an excess of glucose, it will store the balance as fat for later use.

Long story short: Atkins doesn’t work! Or rather, it is an effective tool at removing fat very quickly, for a short period of time. Which is exactly what Dr. Atkins intended! He pioneered this method as a means to reduce enough fat in people to allow them to safely undergo surgery.

Atkins was never meant to be used as a long-term approach to overall health.

Great 😧 now what? Looking for a more modern approach, I tried Intermittent Fasting.

Typically, this involves squeezing all of your eating for the day into a narrow window. For example, maybe only eating between the hours of 4 pm to 8 pm. If you’ve never tried this before, you’ll probably be cranky and hungry up until that four o’clock mark, then bloated as you try to compress 3000 calories into one reasonably healthy meal, after which you’ll probably go to bed hungry.

Now, I’m not saying Intermittent Fasting doesn’t work. There are many people who swear by it. And in fact, I found it an excellent means by which to maintain my body composition levels (meaning my lean mass to fat mass ratio.) It wasn’t very effective, for me though, at reducing my existing fat levels.

There are, of course, variations on this theme. I’ve described what many people call the OMAD method, or One Meal A Day. My mother uses this method effectively to maintain her health in her mid-70’s now.

You could also use a larger window and eat two meals a day. This is a great way to go for people who don’t feel hungry in the morning when they wake up. No problem! Skip breakfast and start with lunch.

I’ve done this before myself too, but not to effectively drop fat pounds.

Then there’s the complete opposite approach: Eating numerous, albeit small, meals throughout the day. I’ve done this one as well. The concept here is to not allow yourself to get hungry, keeping your body processing food all day long, and burning up the energy as you go so it won’t get stored as fat.

For me, this was eating small meals every three hours or so. When I say small, I mean a can of tuna fish and some crackers, or a pair of hard-boiled eggs and half a slice of bread. Just enough food to keep you going to your next eating window, spaced about three hours apart.

Basically, you’re eating all day long, maybe as much as seven times a day, depending on when you wake and sleep. It’s a LOT of eating. And if you work in an office, your coworkers may get annoyed with you and your stinky tuna cans. How effective was it? Well, I definitely bulked up, but still had a hard time cutting the fat.

And then I tried the “stupid” diets. You know the ones I mean. Where they sound way too stupid to actually work. Things like, “the all-cabbage diet,” or “the carnivore diet,” or even, the “paleo diet.” Did they work? Meh, they’re basically all variations of the Atkins theme. So yes, they worked in the short term, but were too hard to maintain to make a meaningful difference.

There I was, after literal decades of trying and failing every diet I could think of. My insurmountable task proving itself to be a formidable foe. What do you do when you’ve tried everything you can think of, and NOTHING has worked?

You get help.

In 2020, that’s exactly what I did. I decided to get to the bottom of what the heck I was doing wrong to my health. I paid money to learn how to get healthy.

And you know what? I found out it wasn’t a single really big mistake I was making. There were dozens of little ones. In fact, when I sat down and thought about all of the things that I’m doing now, that I wasn’t doing then, there were over 100 differences!

Now I’ve made it my mission to help as many people as possible to make these little changes in their lives, because it adds up to big results!

No more dieting! I have no need to go on a diet now, because I’m already at my ideal weight. All I need to do is eat and move, and my body composition takes care of itself.

Want to know if I can help you, too? Hit the link below and let’s find out!

Visit: https://www.eclecticwellbeing.com/Mark1-2-1

The post How do I get to Where I Want to Be? appeared first on Eclectic Well-Being.

Have you ever let some small thing totally derail your day? This used to happen to me all the time when I would “try” to eat healthy. Like, when ordering breakfast, I’d absent-mindedly have grabbed, paid for, then consumed an entire chocolate chip muffin with my morning coffee.

It’s not the muffin that’s bad, it’s what happens after eating it. Guilt. Shame. Beating yourself up for being a “bad eater.” And then the absolute worst thing happens: “Well, now this whole day is shot. I might as well eat all of the stuff I know I’m not allowed to eat.”

It isn’t the all-or-nothing mindset. It’s believing that we must be 100% perfect all the time, or it means we’re bad.

No. Don’t do that to yourself.

Instead, make a game out of it.

See how many “good” meals you can get in a row before eating something “bad.”

When I started, it was 2 meals. Mainly because I was eating those chocolate chip muffins for breakfast every day. For lunch and dinner I did pretty good.

Once I decided to start making breakfast healthier, my “good” streak stretched to 5. Now I was eating the muffins every other day. Progress!

Over time, that streak got longer and longer. Now, I’ve stopped keeping track, but it’s probably around 30 healthy meals in a row before I have an ice cream sundae, or a candy bar, or heck, maybe even a chocolate chip muffin.

Thinking along these lines is a much healthier mindset to have.

We are not one meal; nor are we one day. We are the culmination of all the foods we’ve eaten over the course of months.

With that in mind, what do you want to become?

Will you be made from fresh fruits and vegetables, lean cuts of meat, legumes, mushrooms, and other whole foods? Or will it be from whatever the ingredients are in the factory processed entrees waiting in the freezer?

I decided to live on the healthy side. How about you?

Bear in mind, it wasn’t an overnight shift. I was living on freezer goodies for years. Burritos, supreme pizzas, taquitos, chicken wings, were all lunch staples. If I ran out for lunch, it was a double quarter pounder with cheese, large fries and a chocolate shake. Or maybe a Mexican pizza, two tacos supreme, and a chicken burrito supreme, with a large Baja Blast Mountain Dew. Quite frequently it was also the Chinese Buffett.

Every time I tried to 180° my diet into health, I failed miserably.

I thought I was the problem. What else could it have been?

Turns out, it’s basic human psychology. Our brains don’t like too much change all at once.

“Don’t like,” is probably too soft a term here. It’s more like “everything is crazy! Which way is up? How do I get out of here?”

And that’s exactly what happens. The brain feels like it’s been thrown into chaos, and the subconscious mind takes over.

You can’t fight the subconscious mind.

The subconscious mind will always drive you to do the things you’ve told it you want to do. And in this case, the drive is back to “normality.”

At my most unhealthy state, I was eating all of the unhealthy things I mentioned above, while snacking on chips with sour cream-based dip, and washing it down with soda, beer, or coffee, depending on time of day.

And I had the bloodwork to show for it! I was still in my 30’s when my doctor put me on blood pressure and cholesterol meds.

My first wake-up call was when my cousin Marty passed away from a sudden heart attack at 42.

Then Mom’s reaction was, “oh, the 40-year curse got him.” To which I immediately retorted, “the 40-year what now?”

As it happened, the men on my mother’s side of the family had a history of dropping dead from sudden heart attacks in their early 40’s(!)

One of the other things these men all had in common?

Horrible eating habits. Just like me.

Now I was at a point where I knew I needed to change, because not changing was likely to kill me. I was already on meds. My triglycerides were off the charts. (Seriously, the chart ended at 500 and mine were in the 800’s!) My cholesterol numbers were upside-down. My arteries were probably already starting to harden and choke off.

But every time I tried to get healthy, I failed right back to where I started.

What I wound up doing, just happened to be the correct thing to do. I decided to start small.

I switched to black coffee, then I stopped drinking soda. That’s at least two meals every day where I wasn’t drinking empty calories.

Holy cow, did that make a difference!

I went from 240 down to 220 in what seemed to be an instant, but in reality was several months.

My face started to look more like a face again, instead of the generic roundness I had become accustomed to. My 38 pants that I had been debating about taking up to 40’s were now more comfortable to wear.

That little change alone went a long way, but it wasn’t enough to get me down under 220.

I tried to weightlift my way into health, thinking I would burn off all of the extra calories I didn’t need. In this, I became stronger; but the scale didn’t seem to want to budge.

I cut way back on those frozen entrees I had been eating for lunch and got into the 205 range.

It wasn’t until I got serious and studied the nutritional principles that I now coach that I was able to get properly lean.

None of it is hard! In fact, I like to tell my clients that I help them fail their way to success.

Would you like to have a conversation with me to see if I might be able to help you?

This link will let you look at my calendar to see if there’s any time where our schedules align. If there is, go ahead and book the Can I Help You Call 😊 I’ll take it from there.

https://www.eclecticwellbeing.com/Mark1-2-1

The post Game Your Way Into Health appeared first on Eclectic Well-Being.

I bet many of you are wondering since I’m married to a Health and Mindset Coach, why haven’t I become slender and fit? Honestly, that’s a great question and one I even sometimes ponder.

But the answers are rather easy, and they all come back to my own thoughts. Even though I may get reminders from Mark on occasion (coaching your spouse is not always a great idea. Many times we are more receptive to a stranger’s comments than those we love.), he’s not the one in control of my actions or my thoughts. Only I am. As a coach, he can guide me, hold me accountable, but he can’t make choices for me. He can’t decide in the moment for me. That is all on me.

So why am I starting this spring in the same place as last summer? Well, I’ll tell you – but first I want you to notice that I am starting this spring in the same place as last summer.  This means I’ve made progress!  I’m realizing winter did it again to my body 3 months earlier than when I noticed it last year!

GROWING UP FEMALE

I’ve had to “watch” my weight for as long as I can remember. In high school, I was always on a diet, trying to be skinny. A childhood memory stayed in my mind of me in a Brownie uniform from probably 1^st or 2^nd grade with the front button bulging from my body being too big for it. In junior high, I also had been given the largest cheerleader uniform, because, well, I was the largest cheerleader.  I was not overweight in high school, but I sure felt like if I wasn’t on a diet I would be.

Looking back it’s rather sad that so many of my thoughts, and I’m sure those of other high school girls, were on their bodies. And it was more what others thought, not how we felt. No wonder we grew into women who are so focused on our outer beauty. Young women still face stigmatism based on their weight.

LONG TERM VS SHORT TERM

I became a Saluki Shaker in college, a member of the marching bands dance team. I loved dancing and had even thought of leaving school to dance. But I was too fearful of the unknown. Afraid I wasn’t good enough.  So, when I made the dance team in the spring and was told to come back in the fall 15 pounds less, I was back to dieting!  I had to be good enough! Only this time I tried to be smart about it.

My mom and I joined what would now be called a women’s boutique gym.  We went 3 times a week and I could see my progress as they weighed us at every visit.  I was eating healthy.  I gave up pop, (what we call soda in Chicago), I chose taco salads or tostadas rather than nachos while working that summer at Taco Bell.

But at the end of summer, I was still a few pounds shy of my goal.  I missed the first game of the season because I honestly didn’t think I would actually be benched for a few pounds. Heck, my uniform fit me!

I spent that football season (I love football) sitting in saunas, starving myself all week to binge all weekend, and many other unhealthy short-term fixes. The life of binging and purging.

I quit the Shakers at the end of the season. I was smart enough to know this type of eating was not healthy nor good for my body.  This was the start of me not wanting short-term diets. Instead, looking at weight loss as a long-term, life-changing option.

MY WHY IS NOT STRONG ENOUGH

In my mindset coaching program, The Total MindShift, I start with clarity.  Being absolutely clear on your why, your reason for being. Our purpose, our why, is what drives our everyday decisions. With a clear purpose, decisions on what action to take become clear and easy. If our why is not clear, change doesn’t happen.

Right now my why is just not strong enough to drop another 15-20 pounds. My why is to be healthy and do the things I love doing. But my body is healthy.  I have no medical issues like high blood pressure or diabetes. I feel good. My extra pounds have not yet stopped me from doing the things I love. I hike. I kayak. I practice yoga. I travel back and forth to the city.  There is nothing right now that I can’t do because of my weight.

However, I’ve noticed that I’m getting more winded when Mark and I go for our hikes. I’m getting more winded teaching yoga. AND my jeans are back to being tight! This is my mindfulness coming into action! Noticing these subtle changes in my body. And, I’m noticing these things in March rather than last year in June when I put my bathing suit on. These few changes in my body, which are not in line with my why are the agitator for me to take new action. A month ago, when the weather was too cold to hike, when I was sick with a cold and missed 2 weeks of teaching, and when I hadn’t put on jeans, I didn’t have a why to make changes.  Today, I do.

5 PRIMARY DRIVERS

This week, after noticing the changes in my body, I’ve become more aware of my beliefs, thoughts, and actions. It’s what David Bayer calls the 5 primary drivers: Beliefs lead to thoughts, thoughts lead to feelings, feelings lead to action, which leads to results that reinforce our beliefs or make us rethink.

The thought pattern I’ve had over the last few months was:

Beliefs – I am healthy.

Thoughts – My clothes fit. I can do all the things I love. It’s too cold to go hiking. I have a cold so I should rest. Spring is far off. I’ll be ready to hike when the weather warms.

Feelings – Relaxed. Feelings of hibernating. Warmth. Tired.

Action – Sit by the fire. Watch the snow, not play in it. Make plans for spring. Eat for hibernation meaning comforting winter foods.

Results – My cold slowly goes away. I start feeling sluggish but not enough to change my beliefs until I try on my jeans. Until we go out for a hike. And then my beliefs change to:

Beliefs – Hiking will be much more enjoyable if I dropped 10 pounds.

Thoughts – I can do this. Just rethink your portions and choices.  Move more. Hey, you noticed this before it got warm out and your jeans don’t fit at all!

Feelings – Can’t wait till summer and we can hike the ridge! Or maybe plan a vacation around a long hike. Maybe hike Mount Tammany!

Action – Schedule hikes. Notice when I’m eating out of boredom or to soothe emotions. Make different choices.

Results – My jeans fit better. I’m less winded teaching yoga and hiking.

Back to my beliefs – I feel good!

THE SECRET IS IN YOUR THOUGHTS

So there you have it. Why I’m not as fit and trim as you may expect the wife of a Health and Mindset Coach to be. But you can see, it’s all in my thoughts.

When Mark coaches his clients, he gives guidance on nutrition and movement, because yes, these are key to being healthy and getting down to your ideal weight.

But what he can provide that other Health Coaches can’t, is a mindful approach that includes your mindset. Diving deep into why you may want to lose weight or gain muscle. Digging into your beliefs and your 5 primary drivers.  Getting down to the root of what is holding you back and then making some new decisions, changing your beliefs.

If you are ready to give up dieting forever! If you are ready to consciously create a life and body you love. Schedule a no-hassle, no-pressure Well-Being 101 call with us!  Start living your best life today!

The post Why Haven’t I Gotten Down to My Ideal Weight? appeared first on Eclectic Well-Being.

Yes, that’s exactly what I’ve managed to do since the start of the pandemic.

In the beginning – panic eating

Don’t get me wrong – in the very beginning I was panic-eating just like the rest of us. Kathi and I were eating ice cream sundaes every night! Hot Fudge and Carmel Sauce were our go to favorites! Comfort food like mashed potatoes sounded awesome! Just like many of you, we used food to satisfy our need for certainty and comfort during those first few weeks of complete uncertainty.

After the first month I had ballooned up to around 225! Kathi didn’t want to step on the scale, but when her leggings felt tight, we both knew our panic-eating had to stop.

In April the textbooks for the nutrition certification course in which I had recently enrolled in had arrived.

Now, I don’t know about you, but the lockdown gave me a lot more free-time and it was the perfect opportunity to begin studying something I have always been interested in, nutrition and eating healthy.

I had tried numerous programs or “diets” in the past.

I’d done Atkins before, then Keto for a while. Tried Paleo, South Beach, and Mediterranean. I tried a packaged food program that I now can’t believe I ate those processed foods. They had no taste! Kathi hated it since it left her fending for herself since she wanted no part of pre-made meals!

Heck, one April I decided to try eating vegan. This was a number of years ago when Kathi still worked in the city. I was the chef in the house and I didn’t bother to tell her what I was doing. (See, whatever new diet regimen I decide to try, she was stuck having to try too 😉) However, she noticed after about a week of tofu and imitation meat products. She wasn’t thrilled with the vegan plan – mostly it was the cheese she missed.  Lucky for her, that attempt did not even last a whole month.

Looking for Health in all the wrong places.

So after all those different diets or eating plans I was still looking to be healthier. And this time was different. There was a realization of getting older and I didn’t want any short term fixes. I wanted lasting change.  For my food to fuel my body. To continue living an active life. I also wanted to change my family history. My dad died at only 62 years of age, and a few months later his older brother, my Uncle Bill, died at just 64. I don’t want that to be me. I see myself living to well over 100, and I want to live that long life being able to do the things I love, like hiking, scuba diving, exploring.

Finally, I also want Kathi to join me in this long healthy active life.  We share most of our meals together.  It’s important to me for us to share in this health journey! I want our meals to be tasty as well as providing the nutrition our bodies need as we age.

So after talking with a number of health coaches I know, I settled on the science and behavior based certification from Precision Nutrition. The program was supposed to take about a year to complete; I did it in roughly 3 months.

And then I put it all into practice,

and the pounds started falling off. Before I knew it, I was under 200! I stepped on the scale one morning and it read 199.4. I hadn’t been under 200 since the last millennium. Boy was I ecstatic!

But it didn’t stop there. Each week I was lighter and lighter. I’ve been consistently in the low 170’s for several months now. As of this morning I’m 172.6, and the lowest I’ve seen was 170.3, last week. I don’t know if I’ll see the 160’s. I’m not really even trying to shed any more weight.

Of course, I haven’t really been “trying” this whole time, either.

I’m not on any weird, restrictive diet. In fact, I’ve literally been eating Chocolate, Ice Cream, Pizza, Tacos, Burgers, and Pasta all along, and there have been a couple of occasions where I’ve gorged on a plate of desserts, or a really sweet and gooey Yogurtland bowl.

And still I was able to get down to my ideal body weight. The scale tells me I’m between 7.3 and 10.1% bodyfat. I think it’s being a bit generous, and I’d estimate I’m between 12 and 15%, which is right in the healthy range for a man on the cusp of his 50’s.

Although I studied this nutrition program because I wanted to get healthy and live a long life, I also did it because I want to help people. Besides teaching yoga and mindfulness, I wanted to teach people how to be healthy. To shed the pounds and negativity that’s holding them back from being their true Self. Living a full and abundant life!

Afterall that’s why Kathi and I started Eclectic Well-Being!

So, do you want to know the secret?

Join me for Well-Being 101 on Saturday, September 25^th from 10:30 – Noon, Eastern time, where I will spill it all!

✔ Learn to let go of what is truly holding you back from having the body you want, or anything else in your life that you desire by using this one simple technique.

✔ I’ll share one core principle which is the most proven effective way to make lasting change in your mindset and your body… It improves your chances of success by 95%… in anything.

✔ Discover how you can have more health, more joy, and get out of your own way without changing the core of who you are or doing things you don’t want to do.

This is a hybrid event, so you can attend in-person or via Zoom. Spots are filling up quickly, so register today 😊

https://eclectic.kartra.com/calendar/WB101Calendar

The post Eat Chocolate and Ice Cream Every Day, Pizza Weekly, Tacos, Burgers, Pasta, and Still Drop 50 Pounds? appeared first on Eclectic Well-Being.