Jun 3, 20217 min read

The Best Motivation to Lose Weight

This article is a transcribed edited summary of a video Bob and Brad recorded in April of 2021. For the original video go to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dytNLM47l78&t=175s.

Bob: Today we are going to talk about the best motivation to lose weight. I think a lot of us are in that realm. We want to lose weight.

Brad: Right.

Bob: And keep it off too. These are some of the best motivations we've found, and then we're going to give you some hints too. So, today, this is based on a paper. It was a systemic review on motivations to lose weight. So, they looked at a lot of different studies on what it was that people said motivated them to lose weight.

Brad: So, they kind of culminated to a list of the most common and most successful.

Bob: And obviously it would vary a lot, depending on if you're male or female and if you're old versus young. Which is funny; I always used to ask staff this as a fun question, "If you could be 10% something better, what would you be?" Would you want to be 10% smarter, 10% healthier? All the older people said 10% healthier. I mean and I was young at the time, like, what? Don't you want to be 10% smarter? So, these are some of the common reasons: Number one ,especially for women, their appearance. They want to be able to fit into clothes again. Or, fit into clothes they haven't for a while. Number two, and this was bigger for men, was health and fitness. They were more concerned about their health, especially if they had something like diabetes or high BMI, which we all do, I think. Or, if you're older, but also along with this, a lot of people wanted to reduce their medications.

Brad: Oh, sure, right. Blood pressure medication.

Bob: Blood pressure and diabetes sometimes you can get to get off the Metformin.

Brad: The medication.

Bob: Okay, number three, they had an important event coming up. Like a social event. A wedding.

Brad: A wedding, that's a big one. You've got two months before this wedding and it's time to hit the diet or whatever.

Bob: Yeah, isn't that the truth? I mean, I don't want to mention anyone in my life but there's many times it was a great motivator.

Brad: Or, if you're up north and it's like here, January, and you're going to go to the Bahama's

or something like that and then in a couple of months, you got to get ready for the beach.

Bob: You said that wrong, by the way. It's up Nort.

Brad: Up Nort, yeah, lol.

Bob: That's how we say it. Alright, number four was the ability to play with children or grandchildren. That's a big motivator. Your grandchild's going, Dad, or grandpa, I want to go and play, come with me!

Brad: Yeah, maybe grandma wants to do that.

Bob: ha-ha. Then number five, which I think is the worst reason, is if there's pressure from friends or family.

Brad: Oh sure.

Bob: You've got to have your own motivation or it's not going to work for you.

Brad: Yeah, that's going to be one of those double negatives, it's going to come back to bite you.

Bob: Yeah, it'll blow up on you. So, this is our advice and we're not nutritionists or we're not dieticians, but this is things that have worked for us and we've seen work for other people. I think the number one tip is really good advice, start with diet and don't worry about exercise at first. You're trying to change enough things all ready and you're going to lose more weight through the diet than you will through the exercise. Despite what people say.

Brad: I've experienced that myself and I’ve seen people who do iron man triathlons, literally, I mean they are exercising all the time. And they're not skinny. They actually have a belly. They're not obese by any means but they’re not thin like you think they would be and I know it's because of their diet. That's why some people exercise a lot, because they think if they exercise a lot then they have the green light to eat anything they want. You can get away with that when you're younger, I think. But once you get into your 40's and especially over 50's, it doesn't work that way.

Bob: Yeah, absolutely. Number two, write down what motivates you and look at it every day. So, if it's one of those things we just talked about, let's say it's your grandchildren. Have a picture of your grandchildren on your mirror and every morning you go, "This is why I'm eating the way I am."

Brad: Yup. So you can take them to the park and then run around. You have to watch out for those swings and stuff. Those things you have to climb into, you're just too physically tall to get in there. You'd really have a tough time.

Bob: Yeah, yeah, I would have a time. I also don't like the spinny rides.

Brad: Oh, certainly not. But, have a picture of it, write it down, and see other people.

Bob: Yep. Number three: I don't think you should use deprivation diet. If you're starving or hungry every day, it's just not going to last. There's nobody that can put up with that. If you're going to become vegan, which is fine, they're going to allow you to eat almost as many vegetables, healthy ones, as you want. Till you're stuffed. You go on keto, you're going to be allowed to eat almost anything, as long as it's not carbs. Or a certain amount of carbs.

Brad: I was doing that once. I was on a diet, I don't know the name of it, but anyways, I was getting hungry. I kept reading the book and they said you're not going to lose weight if you're getting hungry. You have to eat because your body senses that hunger and puts you in starvation mode, so it actually could put some fat on you instead of burning it. It's not like you go eat a donut, but you have to eat specific things.

Bob: Yeah, it works against you.

Brad: Right, keep that appetite at bay, and things will continue to burn. Especially, you're not eating carbs. There are some more details we won't get into that now.

Bob: Number four, I think no matter what, you're going to change your diet. When I say diet, again, I don't mean deprivation. I just mean you're changing the way you're eating. I would start to eliminate processed foods, especially sugar. You can get some natural sugars, so fruits and things like that but really avoid the sugars. That's going to help you lose weight right away. I mean, the sugary sodas.

Brad: What about the sugary juices? There really aren’t many juices that you can get that aren't saturated.

Bob: No. Even orange juice is so concentrated. It's fine to eat oranges, but if you drink orange juice, there is so much sugar in there.

Brad: And this makes shopping at the grocery store easier because you're not going to use the center isles hardly at all.

Bob: Right you go right around the ends.

Brad: Yeah, the meat, the vegetables. Seriously, it makes shopping much easier. I don't eat the bun if I go out to eat or french fries and I used to love french fries. Now, I can easily say no, and it doesn't bother me at all. I much rather have veggies. Give me the steam veggies and I'm really happy with it.

Bob: I love steamed veggies.

Brad: If someone else is there and they offer me some fries, because they give you such a big pile of them, they taste okay, they're not terrible but I don't salivate for them anymore.

Bob: Fries really are terrible for you though.

Brad: Oh, yeah. I used to love them.

Bob: Oh, me too!

Brad: They were my favorite. One of my favorite things to go for but now I don't crave it. I think it was just a matter of changing foods.

Bob: Yeah, your taste buds by changing your foods. The last thing we are going to say, and I don't want any flack from this, number five, you may want to consider the keto diet. The reason I say that is we had Dr. Eric Westman on, who is an absolute expert on the keto diet. In fact, his book, "End Your Carb Confusion," is a great place to start if you're thinking about the keto diet. I don't care if you want to consider the vegan diet, the paleo diet, those are all fine too. But the thing about the keto diet that struck me when he was talking about it, one, you're not going to starve. You can eat as much non carbs as you want. Even the carbs, you can eat a certain amount for a while, and you might be able to bump that up even. The big thing is though, you can do it on any budget too. He was recommending, even if you like to go to McDonald's. Go to McDonald's but don't eat the bun. You can't eat the fries either.

Brad: Or you can't drink the soda. So, just order a burger.

Bob: You can drink a diet soda under his diet.

Brad: Really?

Bob: Yep. He's like, you can eat artificial sugars and sweeteners. If I understand it right, he's looking at the two evils. If you're a diabetic, is it better to be off diabetic and eating some food that's maybe not a great thing for you.

Brad: So, you don't have to medicate yourself further?

Bob: Right, and diabetes leads to so many problems eventually down the road so you really want to try to stifle if you can. Despite what a lot of medical practitioners say, he's got the studies that show that when you are diabetic type 2, you can actually get off the medication. Anyway, that's our two cents. that's exactly what it's worth.

Brad: Yeah. I mean, I've read the keto stuff and I haven't done anything. I'm not a keto person, I'm not a vegan person. I've just cleaned up, taken the sugars out, take out the processed foods. I do like grass fed beef. I think there's some good research on that too. I mean, anytime you mention a specific diet, we're going to have people from all different sets saying whatever.

Bob: I think that's great. Give your comments and we're trying to help everybody out there.

Brad: Right, do what works for your body.

Bob: Alright, remember Brad and I can fix just about anything,

Brad: Except for ...

Bob: Your diet. No, no, ha-ha A broken heart. But we'll work on it.

Interested in learning about the products mentioned in today's video:

1) "End Your Carb Confusion: A Simple Guide to Customize Your Carb Intake for Optimal Health" by Eric Westman:https://amzn.to/3mTo1sK

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