Hey everybody, this is Mike Uhrlaub coming at you from the Flex compound with another episode of Power Your Life.
I am so excited and juiced to be here with you right now. It is a beautiful day outside. We have finally broken this cold weather curse. I know for those of you who may be down South in Texas, you guys are still suffering through it. But a couple of days ago it was minus 23 degrees Fahrenheit air temperature with a windshield of negative 40. Today it’s almost 20 degrees and it feels like it’s like 50. This is just absolutely amazing. I’m loving it.
The other week my wife Shawna and I went out on a date. We try to get away at least once a month. Both of us have been really busy for a while and we had been having trouble finding time to get out on our date night. Finally, we got out there and had this amazing dinner at this seafood restaurant called Shucks out in West Omaha. One of my favorite recipes.
It was just so great to get some alone time with each other and have a nice, quiet dinner away from the demands and busy-ness of life. It gave us time to talk and reconnect with one another.
As we finished up dinner and started to head home, I started thinking; You all know I’m a bit of a deep thinker.
Time Together is Incredibly Important
Too often we let the pressures and demands of life get in the way of the things that are truly important to us. Such as spending important alone time with your spouse or significant other. That is so critical to the health of the relationship. The investment of your time can make all the difference. Let’s face it time is the most valuable resource we have. Some of you may disagree with me, but time is more valuable than money. Time is limited. Each and every one of us only have so much of that here on this earth. None of us know how much we have, none of us know how long that will be. Once you spend your time, it’s gone forever. You can never get it back.
Money will come and go. You’ll make it, you’ll spend it and you will make some more. That’s why they call it cashflow, it comes goes. But once time is gone, you can never get it back. Each one of us should strive every day to use our time wisely and invest our time in ways that really matters; Such as our relationships with the ones we love.
So now, Today, I want to help you spend your time wisely and give you the rest of the Top 10 Tips that will help make your transition into intermittent fasting even easier.
Before we get started, I want to address a few things I’ve had other clients tell me about intermittent fasting. Some of these are things I thought about intermittent fasting before I started using it.
Intermittent Fasting is a Lifestyle, Not a Diet
One is their cravings for sweets and sugars are just too intense and they can’t overcome it. I want you to listen to this. First of all, sugar is a drug. It has the same effect on your brain chemistry as does cocaine. It’s addictive and hard to break free. It’s not your fault.
Intermittent fasting is a lifestyle, not a diet. It’s a new way of living and a new way for you to live. Just like a drug addict or an alcoholic has to break free of their addictions so does the sugar addict. It’s a process that takes time.
I want you to be patient with yourself. It’s the progress, not the perfection that matters. Forgive yourself. You’re going to slip up. Sometimes you’re going to make mistakes and that’s okay. But over time, you can cut sugar out of your diet. Just do-little bits at time, not all at once.
These tips I’m giving you will definitely help.
Another issue I hear a lot from folks is simply there’s no way they can do this. They don’t have any self-control. We all face things in our life that are difficult. Right now, our society and culture has not made the idea of intermittent fasting any easier for us. This idea of three meals a day with snacks is so ingrained into our culture that any change can seem impossible.
When you add the abundance of food and extensive marketing food companies are doing, it makes intermittent fasting even more difficult.
The Bottom Line
The bottom line is this… If you truly want to change your life, get healthy, and lose weight then something has to change in how and what you eat. If you keep living like you are and expect to lose weight and get healthy… It’s just not going to happen. You must make the decision in your mind you really want to change and start taking action.
A third reason so many people won’t start an intermittent fasting program is they think eating healthy or eating better is too expensive. That is simply not true. Intermittent fasting is a less expensive way of living.
When you go from eating three to four meals a day with snacks to only eating two meals a day, you are going to save money. If you’re following the 80/20 rule where you’re eating 80% vegetables and 20% meat it makes it that much more affordable because vegetables are not expensive.
This is an investment in your life! Sit on that for a while……
Let’s review the tips I gave you last week.
The First Top Five Tips From Last Week Are……
- Before you start an intermittent fasting routine, cut the sugar out. Just cut back. It’ll make a big difference.
- Keep yourself well hydrated. Get plenty of water. Water is going to be your friend.
- Get plenty of sleep. Get some Zzzzzs because you’re going to make bad decisions when you’re tired. In the very early stages of intermittent fasting, you are going to get hangry. It’s going to happen. So make sure you’re well rested. Your family will thank you too. You will thank you.
- Go for a walk. Get up and move around. When you feel the urge to snack or eat, get up and go do something else.
- Coffee and tea are your friends; Coffee in the morning and tea at night. All right. Tea will help you sleep. Coffee is good breakfast replacement. It keeps you from the desire to start eating food first thing in the morning so you can keep your fast going until noon. without further ado, here’s my next five tips.
Without further ado, the next five tips.
Tip Six:
Time flies when you stay busy. The worst thing you can do is keep your eyes on the clock and count down the hours until it’s time to eat again. I’ve done it and it doesn’t work. It’s terrible and doesn’t work well. Remember back in high school waiting for the bell to ring? It does not work with fasting either.
Instead, find something to keep yourself busy. Go meet a friend for coffee, read a good book, watch a movie, get some work done, work on the project in your garage or basement. It doesn’t matter what you do, but stay busy and time will start to fly. All right.
Tip Seven:
When you eat, savor your food. When it’s time to eat, you are going to be tempted to grab something and start wolfing it down. Trust me, you are not starving to death. Take your time with the food. Fix something you really like. Take your time preparing it and arranging it on the plate. Sit down at the table and savor your food. Eating is as much a visual and tactile experience as it is about the nutrients getting into your body. By the time you take your time to savor your food, you are going to satisfy that part of you until it’s time to eat again.
Tip Eight:
Get out of the house and away from temptation. We all are going to have days where fasting is really, really hard. You’re going to want to raid the fridge, hit the freezer, or go into your pantry, pull out a jar of peanut butter, and just start eating it. I’ve been there. I’ve done that. I know how it feels. The best thing to do when that happens is get yourself out of the house and get yourself away from all the available food. When you do that, you don’t want to head down to McDonald’s, the coffee shop, or somewhere with a lot of food. Instead, do what you can to stay away from the food. We already talked about going for a walk and that’s a great option. Go for a drive. Just distract yourself long enough for your willpower to come back. It’s all about interrupting the pattern. When your mind gets set on that food, do something else to flip script. Just change it up by interrupt the pattern because it will help.
Tip Nine:
Save a special treat. This is a good little trick and works really good for a lot of fasters. When there’s a special treat you really want go ahead and get it, but just save it. Don’t eat it right then and there. Instead of telling yourself, no you cannot have that cupcake, tell yourself you can have it, but you’re not going to eat it right now. Make yourself wait for that favorite food. It’s a lot easier because you’re going to eat it. You’re going to have a day where you may have a cheat day or an off day and that’s okay. Eat it at that point. It’s okay to do that instead of giving that food up for good.
Tip Ten:
Stick to the same schedule. We are all creatures of habit and adapt to a particular schedule if we stick to it for a while. For example: If you get up every single morning and eat breakfast right away, your body’s going to get used to doing it. You will wake up hungry; It’s like my dogs at home. They eat every morning at about five o’clock. Guess what happens if I don’t wake up at five o’clock? They’re expecting to eat so they wake me up at five o’clock. This doesn’t really work when it’s the weekends. We are just like that; Creatures of habit.
On the other hand, if you stick to a schedule where you don’t eat until 11:00 AM and have your last meal by 7:00 PM, you’re not going to wake up hungry. After a while, you won’t crave the late-night snack before bed because your body will adapt to it. Your body will start to learn food is something to expect between those hours of 11:00 AM and 7:00 PM. That’s why it’s important to stick to the same schedule when you fast intermittently.
What About Weekends…
Which brings me to the weekends. If you do intermittent fasting during the week, carry it over to the weekends too. Don’t let yourself deviate from it too much because next thing you know, you’re going to be off it one day, two days, three days, and then you just say screw it. Throw it out the window. Stick to your schedule and come Monday it’s going to be easier. Just like I said, it’ll keep you from getting hungry during your fasting hours. It’ll make it that much easier to stick to your plan.
I really hope these tips can help you as much as they have helped me. I do know there are those of you who would like some additional help and that’s why we’ve created our special weight loss system that follows intermittent fasting.
The Four Week Weight Loss System for Busy Moms and Dads
It guides you through the process and is available online. It’s called The Four Week Weight Loss System for Busy Moms and Dads. You can learn more just by clicking the link HERE.
I’d like to leave you with this thought-provoking quote from James Augie. “Lost time is never found again.”
I’ll let you ruminate on that one for a while. Remember, its progress not perfection.
I’m going to head out and enjoy this beautiful weather. Until next time, Power Your Life and keep moving forward.
