My clients lose fat eating whatever they want to eat and you can too…
Now you might be thinking Marcus, how is that possible? Here’s how…
A client of mine comes to me and says, ‘I want to lose ‘x’ amount of weight, increase my energy levels and get my digestion on track,’ I say, ‘okay great’ and I put their customized nutrition program together based on those specific goals, as well as their schedule, food preferences, how many meals they want to eat per day etc.
The way that I structure their program and the changes that I make to it via their weekly check-ins gives them the result that they want i.e. lose ‘x’ amount of weight, increase their energy, square away digestion and the list goes on…
Meaning, they are eating exactly what they want to eat because they have x, y and z goals and their program has the exact food choices and portions that will have them achieve those specific goals.
A lot of folks tend to think that eating whatever they want is the same as eating whatever they feel like eating, but these are 2 very different phenomena, for example…
If your #1 priority is to lose fat and get healthier, you actually don’t want to eat pizza, burgers and ice cream all day long because you know that that is not going to yield you the fat loss and health results that you’re after.
Now, you may feel like eating treats all day long, you might think ‘hey, that would taste delicious,’ but you don’t actually want those foods because the are not going to give you the result (fat loss and health) that you’re ultimately after.
On the other hand, if the #1 priority is eating pizza, burgers and ice cream or whatever foods and portions that aren’t going to give you fat loss and health results, the #1 priority is clearly not fat loss and health.
You can think about it like this…
Let’s say that you want to build some muscle, we know that the requirement to build muscle is resistance training of some sort and so if you want to build muscle, you also want to resistance train.
But let’s say that you decide that you don’t want to resistance train…well, if you don’t want to resistance train, you don’t want to build muscle because resistance training is a requirement of muscle building…you can’t have one without the other.
When we say that we want something, that inherently means that we’re willing to do what’s required to get that thing. In terms of fat loss, that means that you’re going to need to carry out the behaviours that give you the result of fat loss and if you’re not willing, you just don’t want to lose fat…fortunately, it’s that simple.
If you said to yourself, ‘I want to be a doctor’ and then you looked into how much schooling and time is required to get your MD and you decided, ‘I don’t want to do that’…then you don’t want to be a doctor,’ right!?
This concept applies to absolutely everything in life. Saying that we want things without being willing to do what’s required to get them is simply a dream, or more accurately a fantasy because in this case they’re viewed like nice to haves and not must haves because if they are must haves, we must do what’s required in order to turn that fantasy or dream into a reality.
This actually reminds me of one of my favourite quotes ever and it goes like this…
If you don’t get what you want, it’s a sign either that you did not seriously want it, or you tried to bargain over the price - Rudyard Kipling
I’ve thought about this quote a lot and funny enough, it’s actually redundant because not seriously wanting something and bargaining over the price is the same thing at the end of the day, reason being is…
Not seriously wanting something inherently means that you didn’t do what was required in order to get that thing and bargaining over the price is just another way of saying that because paying the price is a requirement.
The price of becoming a doctor is doing the work, the price of fat loss results is doing the work, the price of anything is taking the necessary and required action. If I want to go to Italy, but I’m not willing to pay for the travel cost, I don’t want to go to Italy…
Now you might be thinking, what if someone just doesn’t have enough money? Well, if going to Italy is a big enough priority, this individual would do whatever they could to save up for the trip and it may not happen immediately, but it would happen eventually!
Another example, if I want to go to Italy but I’m too afraid to fly on a plane, I don’t want to go to Italy because avoiding the fear of flying is what I want more than going to Europe because flying is required, we can’t teleport yet!
I realize that this sounds so simple and that’s because it is…but we LOVE to complicate things like this and rationalize (which is just telling ourselves rational lies by the way) and we also love justifying why we didn’t get what we said that we wanted…
It’s all just one big avoidance tactic wrapped up in different packages because at the end of day you’re either willing to put in the work for the thing that you say that you want or you’re not…there’s no judgement, it just is what it is…
No one is going to do it for you, no one is coming to save you and it’s not going to be any easier tomorrow…the requirement is the requirement and that just isn’t going to change.
This is an incredibly empowering message even if it doesn’t feel that way right now because the truth is that the ball is in your court, if you’re willing to do what’s required you can get whatever you want. The body that you’ve always wanted, the perfect career, the relationship of your dreams…all of these things are on the other side of the work, simple as that and again this is such good news because you can take your power back whenever you’d like to, you can literally create your life…we’re all artists!
Also, it’s even freeing if you decide and acknowledge that you’re not willing to do what’s required because you can stop telling yourself that you want something that you’re unwilling to make the necessary sacrifices for, which is so freeing because then you don’t have to play that internal game of tug of war where you’re telling yourself that you want something that you simply do not want.
It’s freeing being like, ‘it would be nice to lose fat, but I’m not willing to do what’s required’…that’s beautiful thing! Or, ‘it would be great to start my own business, but I’m not willing to give up the security in my current position,’ or ‘it would be super cool to live in a warmer climate for the winters, but I’m not willing to leave my family and friends for that long.’
Life is essentially all about trade-offs, we can have just about anything we want, we just can’t have everything we want, so the question becomes…what do you want most?
If you’re unsure, it’s actually really simple and easy to find out because all you’ve gotta do is take a step back, look at what your current situation is and that’s it! You have exactly what you want right now…having said that, if you don’t like what you have right now or your current situation, the only thing that you need to do to change it is what’s required for that change to occur…that’s it!
Now I’m definitely not saying that the implementation of these changes is always going to be easy because it’s not, change can be tough, however, the necessary steps are far simpler than we often like to acknowledge.
If you notice that you’re actually kind of turned off by this message and I can’t imagine that there are very many of you simply because if you’re reading this, the ownership, accountability and self-empowerment message that I promote isn’t anything new to you, but…
If for whatever reason this doesn’t feel empowering…you might want to ask yourself, why? Does part of me actually prefer for things that I can control to be quote unquote ‘out of my control?’
Would I prefer for someone to tell me or believe that I can’t lose weight because I have bad genetics or because I’m too busy with work or because my stress levels are too high or insert whatever folks are saying these days…am I side stepping ownership? Am I avoiding accountability here?
On the other hand if this is empowering, that’s great because that’s exactly what it is, as well as what it’s meant to be!
My clients eat whatever they want because what they want most is the result of their food choices and don’t get me wrong, they’re not eating chicken and broccoli all day long, the food that they eat is delicious, incredibly nutritious and super satiating…and it’s exactly what they want.
I eat whatever I want all day long and so do you…
The outcome of everyone’s food decisions is different, hence why we’ve got such drastic differences in body shapes and sizes, but we’re all making our own choices…again, there’s no judgement, just priorities.
