Losing Weight & Feeling Healthy: Patience is Key

By Frankie Forza

I remember reading Stephen Covey’s classic book, “The 7 Habits of Highly Successful People” and a certain gem instantly married itself to my mind:

‘The greatest threat to relationships, in both our personal and professional lives, is a failure to manage expectations.’

Note: I’m paraphrasing Covey’s teaching, which is super relevant to today’s topic. I hear it quite a bit, “Frankie, I’m not that disciplined. How do I commit to healthy living for the rest of my life?”

The answer starts with this 10-minute video I recently recorded…

The video discusses:

Examples of patience that I learned during my own yoga practice (I started in 2002) and from someone like former UFC champion Randy Couture;

Any time you make a big change, expect to take 100 steps backward to eventually take 1,000 steps forward;

How the outstanding benefits of FASTING can stretch far beyond weight loss and detoxification — “Fasting is not just about autophagy and ‘Let’s recycle and get rid of gook and detoxify. It’s also your mind and spirit’s way of telling your body, “I’m the boss, I’m the Commander-in-Chief, and we do what I say we’re going to do. It’s your mind and spirit’s way of exercising dominion over your body.”

Think much like an Olympian (in quadrennials and four-year cycles), or like a business investor (in 3-5 year cycles). Think like a marathoner, not a sprinter.

Why it’s essential to remember, “Nearly all of us are SUGAR ADDICTS” and breaking that addiction is incredibly difficult;

There’s a big difference between “KNOWING” and ‘DOING.” Many studies — confirming my own observations in the trenches over the past three decades — indicate that the vast majority of Americans find it extremely difficult to commit to healthy living long-term.

“One study of dieting obese patients followed them for varying lengths of time. Among those who were followed fewer than two years, 23 percent gained back more weight than they had lost, while of those who were followed for at least two yeas, 83 percent gained back more weight than they had lost, Mann said. One study found that 50 percent of dieters weighed more than 100 pounds over their starting weight five years after the diet, she said.” — excerpt from newsroom.ucla.edu about the work of UCLA psychology researchers Traci Mann and Janet Tomiyama, who crunched meta-data based on 31 different diet studies and published their findings in the journal of the American Psychological Association (2007).

Link to UCLA, Mann and Tomiyama’s meta-data study findings ‘DIET DOESN’T WORK’:

http://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/Dieting-Does-Not-Work-UCLA-Researchers-7832

Link to Centers for Disease Control (CDC) report that ‘Nearly 80 Percent of Adult Americans Don’t Get Recommend Amount of Exercise Each Week’:

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/cdc-80-percent-of-american-adults-dont-get-recommended-exercise/