The Life You Want

by Greene, Bob; Kearney-Cooke Ph. D, Ann; Janis Jibrin

  What precipitated the transformation? “I wanted to enjoy life with my wife and son,” explains Peter, whose son was four years old when his dad decided to start eating well and exercising. “I wanted to be the dad who played the game with his son instead of the dad on the bench. We used to go to the park, and I would see other dads chasing their kids around all morning long. I could barely keep up with my son and would have to sit to rest after running after him for just a minute or so. I also wanted to get in shape so I could go on the rides at Disneyland with my family. For several years, we had been asked by friends to go with them, and we always made up excuses why we couldn’t. But deep down I knew the reason why we weren’t going was because I couldn’t fit on the rides, and there was no way I was going to be able to stand on my feet all day.”

  Peter decided it was time to make a change—a permanent one. He started The Best Life Diet’s eating plan shortly after the book was introduced in January 2007, then joined the website: www.thebestlife.com. “Basically, I was overweight because I was lazy and I liked to eat,” he says. “I knew, though, that I couldn’t just go on a diet; I had to change my life.” So Peter also joined the YMCA a couple of blocks from his office, and one day during his lunch break, he decided to actually go. “I got on the treadmill and just walked. The next thing I knew, thirty minutes had gone by, and I was completely wiped out. But it felt good. So I went back a couple of days later. Before I knew it, I needed to go; it was just feeling too good.”

  He continued increasing his activity and improving his diet, and in just ten months, Peter lost 140 pounds. Not only did he start to feel like a new man, but he finally became the type of father he wanted to be. “My son started calling me ‘fun daddy.’ We spent a lot more time playing: riding bikes, playing baseball, going to the park, and even jumping on a trampoline. We were active together.”

  Peter has kept the weight off for more than two and a half years, and he continues to improve his physical health by training for and participating in races and other athletic events. He credits his family with his continued commitment to his new lifestyle. “My family inspires me and motivates me every day to get up and get moving. They empower me. I want to strive to be the best I can be to set an example for my son that life is fun, and the easiest way to keep it fun is if you exercise and live a healthy lifestyle. Exercise is simply part of our lifestyle now, so no matter how we incorporate it, we get to it.” Returning from his second family trip to Disneyland recently, Peter says, “We had an absolute blast!”

  Add your own reasons here:

  A PHOTO AND A TURNING POINT

  Her church buddies kept coaxing her to join them at the gym, but Terane Weatherly, then a forty-two-year-old single mother of three, always turned them down. She felt awkward exercising because of her size. Then one day at work she had a seizure and was rushed to the emergency room—but she was too heavy to fit into the tube-shaped MRI machine. “The technicians really tried to stuff me in, but I just couldn’t fit,” recalls Terane, a senior associate at an insurance company who lives in Connecticut, and a participant in the National Weight Control Registry. “I was able to eventually get an MRI using an open-style machine, but that was at a later date. I had to face facts that if it were something serious, that delay could have been fatal.”

  Terane finally took her friends up on their offer. She could go only twice a week—she wasn’t comfortable leaving her thirteen-year-old twin boys for more than that, and her eighteen-year-old daughter was not really interested in babysitting. “A gym is a very intimidating place when you’ve never been into physical fitness and you are the largest person there,” says Terane. “Fortunately, the people I went with were very supportive, and the people I met at the gym were also encouraging.” Outside the gym, she began walking for twenty minutes on her lunch break and tacking on a one-mile walk on the weekends. Six months later, she’d lost about 12 pounds.

  Despite her progress, Terane’s enthusiasm for weight loss and fitness was starting to wane—until she saw a photo of herself taken about three months before she started going to the gym. “I thought I was looking real good that day, but when I saw the photo, I felt horrible,” says Terane. “I was five-foot-three, 285 pounds, and huge. I said to myself that I’d better take this seriously, especially the diet part, which I hadn’t addressed. I joined Weight Watchers with my sister and kept going to the gym twice a week and walking on my lunch break.”

  At the gym, she spent thirty minutes doing cardio on the treadmill or elliptical machine and about twenty minutes strength training. Her weekend walks stretched from one mile to two or three. Plus, she started doing the little things that add up: taking the stairs instead of the elevator and parking at the farthest end of the lot. Two and half years later, Terane had lost 150 pounds, and to this day she keeps her weight between 135 and 141 pounds. Her exercise regimen has remained the same.

  As she lost pounds, Terane found that she gained energy. “When I was overweight, I was so tired I’d come home from work and just sit there in front of the TV,” she recalls. “I’d ask the kids to hand me stuff because it was hard to pick it up myself. Now I hardly ever watch TV; we don’t even have cable. And I can do everything myself. I run up and down the stairs to retrieve things without thinking about it, and it’s a lot quicker than waiting around for my children,” she laughs. One of the most satisfying payoffs is that Terane’s children have adopted her healthy eating habits, and the one son who was overweight is now at a healthy weight. She also has a lot more energy to devote to her passion: volunteering for her church, which includes getting on the road to help at homeless shelters, attending church conferences, “and basically anything that my pastors need me to do now that I have enough strength, energy, and determination.”

  Terane’s story illustrates the point that what causes someone to transform herself can be surprising and unexpected. It might be something as minor as seeing a photograph—or it could be something more profound, such as surviving a life-threatening illness or going through a divorce. Keep in mind, though, that what triggers a turnaround isn’t always the same as what helps you sustain your new, healthy life. In Terane’s case, it began with a health scare, and shortly after, it was the photo that kept her going. Then, as she started feeling more energized, that became her new source of motivation. In any case, this initial turning point will help you look at your life, your weight, and your priorities in a totally different light, and when it hits you, you’ll know it.

  NO EXCUSES! STOP GIVING YOURSELF AN OUT

  You may already have a good sense of how resistant you are to exercise and how agreeable you are to change. If not, a great way to assess your readiness, resistance, and willingness is to interview yourself using a technique called the motivational interview. To uncover any resistance you might have about changing your exercise habits, turn to page 243. There you’ll find the thirteen questions and some tips on interpreting your answers.

  Even if you are ready and willing to change, it’s also important to ask yourself if you are able. Many people don’t think they are. I have no time. I’m physically limited. I can’t wake up early enough. I’m too tired after work. I only like the weight machines they have at the gym, and I can’t afford a membership. It makes me hungry. It doesn’t make me skinny. There are a million and one excuses, and yet hoards of people—even people with crazy, busy schedules and people who live with chronic pain—manage to exercise.

  Excuses allow you to continue living the way you are now without making any tough choices or doing any hard work. They’re a convenience, a way of allowing yourself to feel better about not doing things that you know you should do—and, somewhere deep inside, actually want to do. In order to move forward, you have to institute a zero-tolerance policy on excuses. Don’t stand for them in yourself any more than you would stand for them in other people.

  The people who make no excuses and go on to become regular exercisers offer proof that the old cliché “Where there’s a will, the
re’s a way” is still as valid as ever. Sometimes getting beyond the things that you typically make excuses for just takes creative problem solving. Sometimes it involves asserting yourself with family members or bosses to get the “me” time you deserve. Sometimes it takes seeking out an expert who can put you on the right track so that you ease into exercise and don’t hurt yourself or burn out. What it always takes is an open mind and honesty. Making excuses is tantamount to lying to yourself.

  What follows are excuses I routinely hear from people who live a sedentary life— and why those excuses aren’t valid. Many of the barriers to weight loss are perceived barriers; they’re not real. As you’ll see, there are practical solutions to almost everything, and when you feel motivated and have a positive attitude, you’re going to be open to resolving any perceived problems that stand in your way.

  YOUR EXCUSE: “I DON’T LIKE EXERCISE”

  Earlier in this chapter, I talked about the different reasons people don’t like exercise, including bad experiences with formal physical activity in their youth and just plain old aversion to sweat, strain, and even workout clothes. While I appreciate your honesty about exercise, I still see it as an excuse. How many people like brushing their teeth at night when they’d much rather just fall into bed? But we all do it because we don’t like the feeling of unclean teeth and don’t want to end up with an unattractive smile or, worse, with a dentist’s drill in our mouths. You need to take the same approach to exercise and do it because you need to; being physically active is a proactive strategy.

  But I’m not advocating that you just grin and bear it. What I’m advocating is that you find a way to make it less of a chore. Take a few minutes to think about this: Is there any form of movement that you enjoy or can tolerate? There are so many different ways to move your body, from the simplest—walking—to the more complex, such as dance. Jennifer Demuth, profiled on the following page, took her first Zumba class (a dance class set to Latin music) and went from “loathing exercise” to becoming so into Zumba that she now teaches it. Look back at question 5 in your motivational interview. If you listed even one type of activity that has worked for you in the past, or if there’s something else that seems appealing, you owe it to yourself to give it a try. Deciding not to exercise because you don’t like an activity that you tried in the past is like deciding to never read a book again because you don’t like mysteries. There are so many different ways to move your body; keep looking until you find the one that fits.

  Remember, too, that there are also ways to enhance your exercise experience so that even if you’re engaged in a workout you’re not crazy about, you may not notice it. Tracy Ring, who you read about earlier, loves music, so she loads up her iPod with songs that divert her attention from the fact that she’s pounding the pavement in her running shoes. Many dedicated exercisers work out with a television in front of them—it’s amazing how quickly time passes when you’re engrossed in a good movie or a favorite show. Others use their workout time as meditation, a time to get away from it all and quiet their minds. For more social people, I’m a big proponent of pairing up with a friend, both for distraction and because you’re less likely to disappoint someone who’s expecting you to work out. Shaun Tympanick, whom you met in chapter 1, and his brother started playing racquetball together and became hooked; they don’t even notice how hard they’re working.

  FROM EXERCISE HATER TO

  EXERCISE INSTRUCTOR

  Anyone who’s ever taken Jennifer Demuth’s Zumba fitness class would be hard-pressed to imagine that the five-foot-six, toned, high-energy instructor was once 260 pounds and a couch clinger. She hardly ever moved. “I spent my entire twenties at over two hundred pounds,” says Jennifer. “It’s hard to pinpoint what led to my weight gain, but it was most likely a variety of factors, such as having divorced parents since I was a toddler and struggling with the emotional turmoil of going back and forth between the homes of my parents and stepparents; low self-esteem; mild depression; job stress; and two miscarriages.” So many situations in Jennifer’s life made her unhappy, and food was one thing she felt she could turn to for comfort. It tasted good and was always there for her. To lose weight, she had to change the way she thought about and used food. She also had to find other ways to reward herself and reduce stress. “For instance, after completing a big work project recently, I went out and bought myself a new shirt,” says Jennifer. “Before, I might have gone out for ice cream instead.”

  The turning point for Jennifer came when she was diagnosed with gestational diabetes, a form of the disease that crops up during pregnancy and is often caused by being overweight. “It was a real wake-up call for me to get on the road to good health, since my life and the life of my unborn baby girl depended on it,” she recalls. With the help of a dietitian, she got her blood sugar under control for the final trimester and gave birth to a healthy baby girl. Then she lost 40 pounds, hovering at 220 for a while. At a plateau, Jennifer nudged her weight loss back into gear by joining a gym and hiring a personal trainer for a couple of months, who gave her a cardio and strength training regimen. “Then I discovered Zumba—I was so happy to find an exercise that wasn’t boring and that I actually liked; I never thought I’d like exercise,” she says. A year later, she’d lost 60 more pounds and has held steady at 160 pounds for close to two years.

  As an instructor, Jennifer has particular empathy for exercisers struggling with their weight, just as she had. “I just want to encourage them and let them know it’s possible without bariatric surgery or some get-thin-quick scheme,” she says. “Never in my life would I have predicted that one day I’d be a fitness instructor—and that I’d love it.”

  No matter how much you enjoy a sport or exercise, in order to have a productive workout, there’s going to be a little discomfort. Not pain—there should never be pain—just the discomfort that goes with exerting yourself. That’s a sign that the physiological changes that improve your health and burn calories are taking place. There’s even some evidence to suggest that people who exercise develop a higher tolerance for pain, which may be of value if you have any painful chronic conditions.

  With physical activity, as with anything in life, when you hang in there, you reap the rewards. Don’t forget the reason you are exercising and use that to keep you going, even if you don’t (and are convinced you never will) like exercise.

  YOUR EXCUSE: “I DON’T HAVE TIME”

  Who isn’t juggling a lot? Work, family, housekeeping, grocery shopping, your house of worship, personal finances, caring for an elderly parent, and all the rest of life’s demands. If that’s your life, activities that you feel are unnecessary—or, worse, unnecessary and boring—aren’t going to make it into your day planner. But don’t you always make time for the important stuff? If you’re not exercising, it’s because you haven’t made it a priority.

  One thing you can learn from people who are successful is how to make the time. People who work exercise into their lives on a regular basis tend to have figured out how to be more efficient with their time. They do a lot of double duty. One client of mine uses her morning workout to plan her day, including what she’s going to make her family for dinner. (Your body has to be in the pool, but your mind doesn’t.) You can also use this time to figure out where you’re wasting minutes that you can otherwise spend on exercise. Another client uses exercise as meditation, an hour after work to clear her thoughts; it’s a lot healthier than coming home and having a drink. One of my favorite stories is about a guy I know who was so concerned about time constraints that he built a desk over his treadmill; he works while he walks.

  Find a way to work activity into things you already do. If you’re a stay-at-home parent who can’t make it to the gym, get a jogger stroller and walk or run your kids to the park. If you have an active social life, you don’t have to give up hanging out with friends; just meet at a place where you can walk or ride bikes. Think creatively. Get to bed earlier so that you can strength train before y
our kids get up. Trade babysitting with a friend who would like to get in a workout, too.

  A DIABETES WAKE-UP CALL

  For most of her life, forty-year old Michelle Fairless was lucky. She ate moderately and exercised only once in a while, but she was able to keep her weight at around 120 pounds. However, after the birth of her third child in 2000, Michelle’s luck ran out. Struggling to care for three children under the age of ten, she had little time to pay attention to her own needs, and the numbers on the scale began to climb, topping out at 165 pounds. Still, it wasn’t until she received a diagnosis of type 2 diabetes in 2004 that she realized she had to get serious about her health.

  “Finding out I had a life-threatening disease made me realize that I had to put myself first,” says Michelle. “Bottom line, if I wasn’t healthy, I couldn’t be the wife and mom that I needed to be. Plus, I would have robbed myself of a full, quality life.” She vowed to make some changes.

  Not too long after, Michelle saw one of my appearances on Oprah’s show, and it got her thinking about becoming more active. The first thing she did was to start using a pedometer to track her activity. “It was a huge wake-up call as to how inactive I really was,” she recalls. Michelle started looking for easy ways to sneak in more everyday activity. “When I took my girls to their soccer practices, for instance, I didn’t just sit and watch, I walked the field the entire time they were playing. Whenever I found a spare half hour at home, I walked around a nearby lake, and I started doing sit-ups on a balance ball every night.”