Hey everybody, this is Mike Uhrlaub with another episode of Power Your Life. Today I would like to share with you 3 Secrets to Losing Weight and Keeping it Off. But first, the other weekend, my daughter Kaia and I decided to watch one of my favorite Disney Pixar movies, Up. I really liked this movie for a lot of reasons and my daughter Kaia enjoyed it as well. It gave us a chance to have a good father daughter movie day.
In the movie the main character, Carl, is an elderly man who recently lost his wife and everything around him was changing. He kept clinging onto his past and was starting to isolate himself from the rest of the world.
Carl was so focused on his loss and past failures; He and his wife did not realize their dream of moving to the South American wilderness of Paradise Falls. Carl makes a decision and decides to float his home with helium balloons to Paradise Falls to fulfill his late wife’s dream.
Up, Up, and Away
As the house is lifting up, he soon finds out a young boy scout named Russell stowed away with him and so the adventure to Paradise Falls begins!
You just have to love a movie that has a floating house, a giant bird named Kevin, and talking dogs who can fly planes, and a dog who says squirrels. At the end of the movie, Carl is transformed and realizes he has a whole new life in front of him.
As Kaia and I watched the movie, it really got me thinking about how important it is for us to be able to let go of our past in order to move forward in life. Holding onto your past hurts your past failures, your past mistakes and will keep you from being able to move forward.
Looking Back Keeps Us From Moving Forward
When you’re just looking back and focusing on all of the things that could have been; All the people who have hurt you or people you’ve hurt, your regrets, and expectations not met, it takes up all of your energy and you end up getting stuck.
We are always meant to be moving forward in life. When you’re too busy focusing on the past, you will miss the awesomeness that is in front of you. It’s kind of like driving a car. You have to keep your eyes focused on the road in front of you. You still have to check your rear-view mirror to see what’s behind you. But you’re only doing that for a minute and then your eyes are immediately back on the road in front of you.
I know it can be hard and painful to move forward, but I’m going to let you in on a little secret. The fastest way to move forward and get back on track in life is to forgive someone or ask for forgiveness.
If there’s someone in your life you need to forgive or you need to ask forgiveness from, just give them a call, text, email, or just write them a letter and send it snail mail. Then let it go and let God take care of it. You will be surprised at how amazing that can feel.
Speaking of moving forward in life, how many of you want to be able to move forward on losing weight fast and keeping it off for good? I think most of us want that. So today I’m going to give you the three secrets to losing weight and keeping it off for good.
Secret Number One
You MUST change your diet for good.
This is a must for everyone who wants to lose weight. It is probably the hardest thing to do. You can’t lose weight and keep it off if you don’t make permanent changes in what you eat.
I know this is not the most popular concept. I know everybody’s going for the quick fix. How do I lose weight? I don’t want to give up all the good stuff!
I’m not telling you got to give up the good stuff, but you definitely can’t eat it all the time. This is the truth. You’re going to have to give things up. You’re going to have to make permanent changes in your diet, how you live, and your lifestyle. It’s as simple as that and it’s the truth. I believe in speaking the truth to you, that’s why I’m telling you this.
The key changes you’re going to be making are to cut out sugar and reduce the carbs. Low carb diets do work and are sustainable. You see, all of the carbs you eat, such as your breads and pasta, is broken down into glucose in the body once it’s eaten.
So What Happens?
Insulin is released to allow the body to use the glucose as energy. Then it’s going to store the excess glucose as body fat.
The problem here is we eat way too many carbs and there are hidden sugars everywhere! This stuff is all over the place. All you’ve got to do is just look at your ingredient list to see what is in there. Take bread for example. Why are we adding sugar, high fructose corn syrup, and all of this other stuff to make a carb even more of a carb? What sense does that make other than it sweetens the bread and makes you want to eat more of it?
Here’s a statistic I want you to think about… In the year 1905, the average American ingested five pounds of sugar a year. A year! That’s all they ate.
Today, the average American ingests between 150 to 200 pounds of sugar a year! Think about that. We have gone from five pounds a year to 200 pounds. I weigh 200 pounds. That’s an entire person in sugar we’re eating in a year and it is causing us to get heavier and unhealthier. Not to mention all of the sugar and carbs are causing your pancreas to go into overdrive.
What happens is your body starts producing so much insulin that the cells of the body start to become insulin resistant. This leads to type two diabetes, high blood pressure, obesity, and an increased risk for a heart attack or stroke.
The bottom line is: The way we have been told to eat is making us fat, unhealthy, and is shortening our lifespan.
Secret Number Two
You have to make sure you have adequate protein intake.
In order to lose weight, you’re going to have to reduce the access to energy levels your body has.
Think about this…Your body has three sources of energy, think of them as tanks; Glucose, muscle, and body fat.
Your body always starts with the energy tank of glucose. Once your glucose tank is empty, your body will move into the muscle tissue. It will actually start to break down that muscle tissue for energy. If it can’t do that, then the last thing it’ll do is move into its fat stores for energy.
Ketosis is the state you are trying to get your body into when you are trying to lose weight. This state burns fat. We don’t want to burn muscle.
When you take away glucose, you’re taking away one of those energy tanks. When you reduce your sugar and carbs, you’re taking away energy source number one. So, you have to preserve your muscle. If you don’t do that you will lose weight, but you’re going to lose muscle tissue not body fat.
Then, your body composition is going to be in really bad shape. The only way you can preserve your muscle is to supplement your protein intake.
You have to make sure you’re getting enough protein. When you’re trying to lose weight, you are reducing the portions of food you take in because you’ve got to burn more calories than what you take in. That’s the only way you can lose the weight, but you’ve got to make sure you supplement with protein.
How much protein do you really need?
There’s a really quick and easy way to calculate this. All you’ve got to do is take your body weight and divide it in half. That is the number of grams per day in protein you need to keep your muscle mass.
If you weigh 250 pounds, you will need 125 grams of protein per day. 200-pound individuals would be 100 grams per day. You can do the math and that will tell you how many grams of protein you need per day.
When you think about it, that’s a lot of protein, right? If you’re already trying to reduce your food intake, how do you get that protein? This is a real problem for many of us. I think most people in this country are actually protein deficient.
One of the best ways to do see if you are getting enough protein is to supplement with a high-quality protein mix. Make sure you’re incorporating other sources of other protein too, such as fish, nuts, and lean meats. Stay off the hotdogs, stay off the brats, and stay away from the bacon.
I know they have protein in them, but they have a high level of fat that’s not good for you.
Keep those meats lean and supplement with protein. Look at your protein powders and make sure the one you are using doesn’t have a lot of sugar in it. Look at the ingredients list to make sure they’re not throwing a lot of sugar and extra calories in those things.
Now this brings me to secret number three.
Secret Number Three
When you eat is just as important as what you eat. Let me say that again. When you eat is just as important as what you eat.
What do I mean by that?
Our bodies are meant to work on a cycle known as a circadian rhythm.
The circadian rhythms are 24-hour cycles part of the body’s internal clock and running in the background to carry out essential functions and processes. Things like telling you when to go to sleep, when to wake up, and digestion, all of those types of things.
We have been told in the past we should be eating small meals a day. In fact, there’ve been some sources that have advocated eating up to as many as six to seven small meals a day. The idea behind this is it keeps the metabolism going.
But I’m going to let you in on a little bit of truth here. Eating multiple small meals a day doesn’t work. In fact, it will cause you to gain more weight because your body never gets a chance to use up the food you eat when you’re constantly eating every two to three hours.
This applies to snacking as well. Every time you’re putting something in to eat, your pancreas will release insulin every single time. What did we say?
Too much insulin is going to create other problems as well as gain weight.
Not only did you learn in order to lose weight you have to reduce the access to energy levels that your body has… When you eat throughout the day and into the night, you’re continuing to provide energy to your body through that form of glucose and more insulin is being produced. You never get time to use up that food.
The result happens is your body can’t burn up the fat stores.
That leads to the question; When should you be eating?
The answer is timed eating; Also known as intermittent fasting.
There are many ways to fast intermittently and are easily looked up on Google. The one method I have found currently use is known as the 16 and 8 method. In the 16 and 8 method you only eat during an eight-hour period followed by 16 hours of not eating.
How to Do 16:8
One of the common ways this is done is to eat between the hours of 12:00 PM and 8:00 PM. What this means is the last time you eat is at 8:00 PM at night, then you don’t eat again until noon the next day. This allows your body to metabolize and use up the food you have taken in. It also gives the pancreas a chance to rest. It lowers your insulin levels and forces your body to start burning body fat for energy.
In fact, many people who use this method are often in a state of ketosis while they sleep and well into the morning. This is the way we were really meant and designed to eat. Your body was designed to go for long periods of time without eating. Not only does that help you lose weight, but it also gets your body on a regular circadian rhythm, which helps you sleep too.
Intermittent fasting also causes a greater release of growth hormone, which helps your repair itself, control inflammation, and heal faster overall.
There you have it! That’s the Three secrets to Losing Weight and Keeping It Off for good.
Quick Review
Secret Number One, you must change your diet for good by cutting out the sugar and carbs.
Secret Number Two, not only do have to cut out the sugar and the carbs, but you have to make sure you have adequate protein intake. To figure out the amount of protein just take your body weight and divide that in half. Match that number to the grams of protein to eat per day.
Secret Number Three, when you eat is just as important as what you eat. That’s the intermittent fasting. Remember the 16 and 8; You eat for an eight-hour period and then go 16 hours without eating.
I know this can seem like a lot because I just covered a lot of information. That’s one of the reasons why I have created a weight loss system that follows these secrets and it’s available online.
You could start using this and have the guidance you need from your home. It’s called the Four Week Weight Loss System for Busy Moms and Dads. You can learn more just by clicking HERE.
Like always, I want to leave you with a thought-provoking quote. But today I’m going to leave you with a thought-provoking verse from the good book. from Colossians 3:13 in the New International Version. “Bear with each other and forgive one another. If any of you has a grievance against someone, forgive as the Lord forgave you.” I want you to think about that for a while.
Until next time. Power Your Life and keep moving forward!
