I know a lot of people come here to learn how about the paleo diet and lose weight. That’s great and I totally support you with your goals, but here’s the thing… Diet’s don’t actually work.
And they never will work.
Literally millions of people start the new year with the goal to lose weight, we go on diet programs, we join gyms – we make it a priority to show up every single day.
But what happens when we don’t see those results we want immediately? We stop.
We stop before we’ve really even begun. We stop before we give ourselves any chance of noticing results. We stop right as we are actually about to experience any suffering and growth. According to research at the University of Scranton, only 19% of people will actually stick to their New Year’s Resolutions for TWO YEARS. What’s more, research from an Athletic Social Networking site reveals that January 12 is the most likely day you will give up on your New Year’s Resolution of losing weight.
12 DAYS PEOPLE! I don’t care if you have all the money, resources, connections, best workout equipment, the best personal trainer, the best special diet… You are not going to see results in 12 days.
But that’s what so many people expect – and when those expectations aren’t met, they stop and end up right back where they started.
Diets Are The Same (any time of the year)
Diets do not work because of the same principle. We have this flawed expectation that a diet is a short-term thing. If you want real, lasting results, that couldn’t be further from the truth.
The reason diets don’t work is because you are still the same person you were before you started dieting.
You have the same habits, the same mindset, the same lifestyle.
No matter how hard you push yourself, you will eventually default back to who you really are. Back to your old lifestyle and your old eating habits.
Diet Suck
AND, diets suck in the first place! Who in their right mind wants to spend the time to count calories and be in a constant argument with their stomach because they are not eating enough food.
Absolutely not me!
How To Actually Make A Change In Your Life
If you want real, lasting change you need to change your habits. You need to adopt a lifestyle of actually being and eating healthy. You need to BECOME a “healthy person” if you want to actually be a healthy person and lose weight.
It sounds so simple just reading it, but so many people completely ignore this! I’m seriously so dumbfounded that people think they don’t have to be a healthy person to be a healthy person!!! That doesn’t even make sense!!!
We Go For The Quick Fix
We live in a world today where we want everything handed to us. We don’t want to work, we don’t want to suffer, heck, we don’t even want to get off the couch.
We are so lazy – but we can change!
You can start by ignoring, “This diet will get you a six pack in six months”, or “This diet will help you lose weight in 2 weeks!”
Here’s how these programs work out:
- You restrict your calorie intake and eat foods that you hate.
- You do start to lose weight, but your energy levels drop and you feel miserable.
- You achieve your goal – woohooo!!! This month of starving myself was worth it right!? Take that Jacob! You were wrong!
- You go back to eating how you did before the diet(because you already accomplished your goal – things can be back to normal now…) and you gain the weight right back.
The only way to make a diet work is through pain and suffering for the rest of your life – it’s literally the stupidest thing in the whole world.
Change Your Lifestyle, Change Your Habits
If you change your LIFESTYLE and your eating HABITS and make BETTER FOOD CHOICES, you can eat as much as you want, whenever you want, and still lose weight!
It’s exactly what I did. I focused on changing my lifestyle and my eating habits, not my diet. My diet was transformed because of my new habits.
Those new habits allowed me to lose 45 pounds effortlessly and totally transform my life.
Here’s some straight-forward habit changes that you can make in your life:
- Avoid empty calories – Saying no to beer, soda, and sugary snacks will be one of the best decisions you make in your whole life.
- Snack on real foods, not processed junk – Fruits, vegetables, nuts, and seeds are the best snacks out there.
- Revolve your dinner plate around the vegetables, not the meat
- Start intermittent Fasting – This leads to increased energy AND less hunger throughout the day
- Get an accountability partner – changing your habits and lifestyle is hard. Find somebody to go through the journey with together.
- Clean out the kitchen – get rid of all of high-calorie, low nutrient-dense foods. And don’t forget about the sugary stuff too. I made a free pantry clean out checklist, you can download yours here!
- Exercise at high intensity at least three times a week – Your workouts can be 10 minutes long if you go full on and give it everything you got.
- Say no to bad fats – refined, processed oils should not enter your body. All they do is put oxidative stress on your body which ends up damaging it. Eat good fats only, tons of them.
Looking for more habits to start becoming an actual “healthy person”? These are for you:
“Kick-Start Your Day With An Extraordinary Morning Routine”
“The Incredible Power Of Journaling”
“Visualization Leads To Success”
If you’re interested in going paleo, I wrote a tutorial that will explain everything and help you get started right now. In college? I’ve got a super detailed guide on how to maintain your diet and find the resources you need to stay healthy ! Have any questions about anything? I’m happy to help!
