Don't read this if brutal honesty (or profanity) offends you..

kristen6350 wrote: »

I think this should be a "sticky" for newbies. It's all very true. I think getting past the "excuses" is the biggest thing most of us face. And seriously, when you have no excuses it really becomes pretty easy.

Except for the part where he says that people who don't want to be locked into gym contracts are looking for excuses. I'm on month to month and will be 4 life because a) who knows what'll happen and b) every time I pay, I am making a conscious commitment to work out. It's not an invisible cost that I just forget to cancel.

tomatoey wrote: »

kristen6350 wrote: »

I think this should be a "sticky" for newbies. It's all very true. I think getting past the "excuses" is the biggest thing most of us face. And seriously, when you have no excuses it really becomes pretty easy.

Except for the part where he says that people who don't want to be locked into gym contracts are looking for excuses. I'm on month to month and will be 4 life because a) who knows what'll happen and b) every time I pay, I am making a conscious commitment to work out. It's not an invisible cost that I just forget to cancel.

Yeah, that part jumped out at me too. It's not like the fitness industry doesn't have a well deserved reputation for screwing people at the end of contacts.

Hell, I used to represent a few gyms suing people for their dues. Those contacts are brutal.

I’m not big on expletives. I use them occasionally, but not often. My circle of friends / family includes those that could fill-in for this blogger and those that would want to “save” him. LOL

I have expressed many of these thoughts to people without swearing and my wife sometimes tells me I am still too blunt. LOL. It seems the older I get, the less time I waste on BS. I was Orca the whale for years. I tried numerous diets and have multiple health issues blah blah blah…not worth getting into. The fact is I NEVER blamed anyone but me. There were many times people tried to make excuses for me....”you’re big boned”, “you take a lot of medications”, “you’re tall” you…whatever. I would reply that I was NOT big boned or that medications may play a part BUT they are not “the” reason I am fat….they would then tell me I was being too hard on myself. I think not…I am just honest.

The 2-minute rule is right on. Once the “excuse machine / cry-me-a-river” starts…I know that person is not going to do anything. There is a reason the gyms are flooded with new members from Jan-Mar and then thin out – they gave up.

You Can’t Make a Sacrifice – most can’t. They want all the weight gone. But “have” to have dessert every night or alcohol every night/weekend. Getting up 1 hour early…just “can’t” be done etc.

Treats – It never ceases to amaze me how people justify bad decisions so they get what they want. They “have” to pig out on the holidays – why – it’s the holidays! They deserve it. The “have” to have several mixed drinks so the other person doesn’t feel uncomfortable. They “have” to eat the cake – it was made for them. The list is endless. They are never “in charge” – it is the fault of others.

Planning for an end date – before starting. – Right on the money! Most the people that ask me for pointers in my social circle – always start with wanting to lose X by such and such a date….and it is never a date far into the future…it’s always 30 days away.

Results & laziness – It’s Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory all over again ala Veruca Salt whining “Hey, Daddy, I want an Oompa Loompa!...I want an Oompa Loompa now!”

Attitude – It is everything.

A true story – An outdoor party was ruined because of rain. I was in the car with someone on an errand to get supplies. They were crying over the rain. I headed onto the highway…the person I was with asked “where are you going? We passed the store.” I said, “I thought we might stop up to the Burn Unit at the hospital and see some people with real problems.” My companion burst into laughter and thanked me.

To be honest, I now tend to weed out people that say they want encouragement, ideas, feedback, general help etc. but don’t really want anything to change in their life. I’m not mean, I just don’t try to “sell them” on something they haven’t really “sold themselves on.” There seems to be a lot of people that like to wallow in drama...no matter what the issue may be. I no longer go along for the ride.

I will be at my final goal sometime in the next 30-60 days. It is a target that was constantly revised. I have already set targets / goals in my head for the next 1-2 years toward maintenance / strength exercises etc.

Some people say “It must be nice to be almost finished” and I say, it is certainly nice to reach my target/goal weight after more than a year, but I am only half-way to a lifetime of change.

(Ps - I had a gym membership years ago and lost money when it suddenly closed its doors without warning. I will pay for a year membership. I just won't get involved with multi-year contracts) The place I belong to now is great!

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emily_stew wrote: »

Wheelhouse15 wrote: »

Some of the comments below the article about it's not CICO and you don't need carbs look so familiar.

OMG I just went back to the article and am reading the comments. So many special snowflakes! They're everywhere!
I also just noticed the OP has a flag...someone got butthurt!

Well, in a certain light, it is kind of victim-blamey imo. It's not like everyone just decided completely independently of each other that they were going to have Chinese food and cake all the time, the causes are more sociological and biological. But the solution (for now) is individual, people have to eat less.

MrM27 wrote: »

Yes!

Kind of a useless article. The only people who will get anything out of it are those who've already figured it out.

barneygood wrote: »

MarziPanda95 wrote: »

'You have to make sacrifice to stay healthy. Deal with it. You will have to turn down the donuts. Pass over the ice cream. Skip the odd party.
Forever? No. You can add these into a healthy life for sure. Not daily. Maybe not even weekly. 95% of your diet has to be perfectly healthy. That is the reality.'

This is the only part I kinda disagree with. You can fit a couple scoops of icecream into your calorie allowance per day pretty easily. As for donuts, not daily, probably, but certainly weekly if you're careful. I certainly don't think I could ever hit 95% 'healthy' food but my weight loss has been going pretty dang well.

I agree. I think the rest of it is good, but the idea that you have to skip parties to avoid eating unhealthy food is nonsense. You could (a) not eat at the party, or (b) figure out how to make it fit. And that's assuming everything there is unhealthy...

Yeah, this is the only part that annoyed me. So I'm not going to be successful at weight loss because I eat desserts twice a day. Life ain't worth living if I can't have dessert.

The article was really good. Loved the message and so right on target.

FatOldManMN wrote: »

BS!

Why?

BinkyBonk wrote: »

I tried to click on the link but I'm at work and it was blocked for being "obscene and tasteless" ROFL.

OK managed to read it at home
What a great article and 100% true. I'm about to post it to Facebook because I'm bored and could do with a good s***storm

http://psychcentral.com/disorders/narcissistic-personality-disorder-symptoms/

I actually had to stop and read his bio before commenting. I am amazed that someone with a BA in Sociology can describe human nature in such a simplistic fashion.
1. The two minute rule: is a true evidence of genius when it comes to evaluating success. It's the number one reason why he is successful. It does take our brain about 10 seconds to evaluate another human being and match them with predetermined criteria based on our experience.
However, this evaluation is purely based on his experience therefore it will only tell him if a client will succeed based on his program and under his training programs.
Unlike the author I will get personal, when I got my first fitness evaluation with a trainer I told her that I'm fat because I live in WI ( can't go outside half the year, I'm a stay at home mom, basically I'm sedentary). By this rule, I shouldn't even be here 265 days and 64lb later. I have slowly changed how I feel about my own predicament and now I enjoy cold snowy days when I put my daughter on the sled and pull her for miles. I also fell in love with lifting and got addicted to power!

2. Sacrifice. This one is a big problem. I was heavy my entire life by choice, I was silly in thinking that only with sacrifice can you actually succeed. I always said to myself that I prefer to be heavier and healthy and happy rather than be one of those people who hate themselves, walk around starving, are afraid of chocolate and jog themselves to exhaustion. Guess what, my weight never stopped me from having an extraordinary life that I'm proud off, having a great education, professional success, an amazing marriage and a perfect daughter. Sorry, but the size of my waist line never stopped me from anything including outperforming my skinny friends in gymnastics and doing the splits while at 250lb. Sacrifice is required for elite performers, for professional athletes but for the rest of us, when it comes to physical conditioning, it takes a great deal less than what the fitness industry will have you think. Yes, I stand here proud to tell you that you can loose weight in a healthy, slow and steady way while eating 2000 calories a day without killing yourself and without sacrifice. It's all in keeping things in balance, having a small deficit and regular enjoyable exercise. Track it on here and let time pass. I am animate about loving ones body and feeding it good, healthy, real food. If you must have junk, that must be the exception to the day not the rule. The 80/20 rule is perfect: be 100% perfect 80% of the time or in my favorite way 80% perfect 100% of the time. Because perfection is freaking boring.

Drastic changes??? Well that's a perfect recipe for disaster. Hate it as you might, your brain has developed extraordinary mechanisms over time to make us crave homeostasis. Small changes turned into good habits is the way to go. If someone quit those challenges before 3 weeks it only proves they are intelligent and have a remarkable insight into their own body works. If I were to throw you in prison or an actual battle field how long before you would change who you are and how you behave? Not very long!!!! For those who know MR Zimbardo and the "Stanford prison experiment" you will understand this. It might seem extreme, but that is how your body reacts when you make sudden changes. It's a 50/50 chance you'll make it, better find a plan with better odds.

3. Freak much???
I cannot understand how one human being is telling others that they need to get isolated, live in weightloss bubble and ignore everything. We are complex individuals who are intertwined with our environment, this relationship is codependent and becoming savage is not the way to go. If anything, I believe most people with weight issues have problems socializing so let not encourage them to cut all ties to society. Let's tell people it's ok to be themselves and just do their best.

4. Immediate results? Yep, this is the fitness industry doing; people see infomercials with paid fake models and expect similar results. I want to tell you with love that those people want you to fail because otherwise they couldn't sell you more crap down the line. All those paid actors and models work their butt off for years to look like that and it doesn't happen overnight.
youre not doing anything wrong you are constantly misinformed.

5. Gym commitment? Really? Not signing a yearly financial agreement over goods or services is considered a sound decision. Yes, mr trainer, I like to evaluate, compare and switch gyms when ever I feel like it. Besides, who needs gyms? You can walk, do bodyweight movements, eat good and look great without ever smelling the inside of the gym.


Dear beginers, don't let anyone bring you down. Find your path, take it easy, love yourselfs and be happy.
Please search the EM2WL group here( eat more 2 weigh less) and get good information on how to plan the right path.
Some people enjoy a good spanking and for those of you this article is perfect.
I find it that it only throws blame without providing any positive solutions! It's always the clients fault, it's always your fault!
When ever we are presented with such guilt, such enourmus weight on our shoulders, I recommend throwing that sack of crap down and just walk away without looking back.
Wake up tomorrow like your life just started and take it one step at a time.

I Belive In YOU!!!!

Wheelhouse15, I truly appreciate you bringing the internal vs external locus distinction into play. Focusing on this one argument at hand, would you agree that it is erroneous to dissect human beings to their most basic system components, analyze them out of context and offer certainty conclusions?
Relashionship doesn't prove causality!
My biggest issue was the futile information, blurred out from a place of anger, without serving a real purpose.
We post here because we try to support, encourage, help one another and provide helpful information. Throwing blame is the opposite of working towards a solution! It actually resembles bullying and it's never productive! If something isn't productive what is the point of throwing it at the world ???