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The Diet After the Diet
“What if I told you, you weren’t finished?”
Using all the principles from George Health, you have burnt away fat and built lean muscle. You’ve mastered your mindset and emotions, and have developed a healthy and joyful relationship with food. You’ve paid off your body fat debts through hard work, discipline, and planning and free yourself.
Now you’ve achieved your perfect weight goal. You enjoy the pride of a lean, healthy physique and the opportunities it provides. But we’re not done. We’ve only just started.
From here you have a choice.
“All I’m offering is the truth, nothing more.” – Morpheus.
This is your Last Chance
“After this, there’s no turning back.” – Morpheus
You’re now in a situation where you can veer off on a few different paths. One path is to end up amongst the 95% of dieters who gain their weight back and then some. Another would be to take a break from the “grind” of dieting and hang out for a bit and maintain your newfound but beneficial losses. Yet another option is to repeat the process, because maybe you didn’t lose all the weight you wanted to lose. Obviously, the latter two paths are the better option, as we’ve stated before. If you forgot, we want you to be amongst the five percent.
You take the BLUE pill
The story ends, you gain all the weight back and believe whatever you want to believe.
Plugged into the yo-yo cycle.
95 %
- Short term goal
- Eratic results
- Strict unmaintainable rules
- Unhealthy relationship with food
- Hard to maintain
- Full weight rebound
- Short term goal
- Eratic results
- Strict unmaintainable rules
- Unhealthy relationship with food
- Hard to maintain
- Full weight rebound
You take the RED pill
You stay in wonderland, and I show you how far your development goes.
Choosing to unplug.
5 %
- Longterm outlook
- Steady progress
- Lifetime maintainable habits
- Healthy relationship with food
- Easy to maintain
- Physique continues to improve
- Longterm outlook
- Steady progress
- Lifetime maintainable habits
- Healthy relationship with food
- Easy to maintain
- Physique continues to improve
“I can only show you the door…”
“…You’re the one that has to walk through it.”
The Dangers of Diets
Cyclic Weight Regain is a Serious Issue
Imagine you have one hundred friends who have successfully lost weight and achieved their body goal this summer. By next summer, fifty of them would have regained the weight. After two more years, ninety five of the original hundred friends would have regained all the weight and twenty-eight of them would actually be heavier. Only five people would still be lean and healthy.
Whether you think weight regain is severe or not, it’s dangerous to lose and gain the weight back repeatedly. Maintaining a consistently lean body weight is a fundamental health objective.
Research in humans and animals has concluded that weight cycling can:
- Damage your metabolism.
- Make it more difficult to burn fat next time.
- Predispose you to sudden weight regain if you binge.
- Lead to lost muscle tissue and greater fat gains.
- Cause baseline weight to trend upwards.
- Increase your blood pressure and cholesterol.
- Visceral fat build up around your organs.
- Shortened Lifespan.
- Damage your metabolism.
- Make it more difficult to burn fat next time.
- Predispose you to sudden weight regain if you binge.
- Lead to lost muscle tissue and greater fat gains.
- Cause baseline weight to trend upwards.
- Increase your blood pressure and cholesterol.
- Visceral fat build up around your organs.
- Shortened Lifespan.
Common Weight Regain Mistakes
The good news is we know why weight regain happens and what to avoid. By studying weight relapsers in depth, distinct behavious have been identified so you know what to avoid to ensure you stop weight cycling before it starts.
There is a price to pay to get what you want…
… and a price to pay to keep it.
Join the Team of Fit Forever
Listen to Maintainers, Not Losers
Rapid weight loss transformations and climactic weight loss stories get a tonne of attention because they are so dramatic. It’s easy to look at these “success stories” and choose them as your next role model. But instead, pay attention to the maintainers. Maintainers are those who have kept steady at their ideal weight for a year or longer. True long term maintainers have done five years plus. These people are rare, so the next time you meet one, stop everything, pay attention and learn from them.
Below are the results of a study from the National Weight Control Registry (NWCR). Using a database of men and women who lost over thirty pounds each and maintained it for a year or more. These people all used different programs, and each of them customized it to their needs and lifestyle. This shows how it doesn’t matter what your personal preference of strategy is, as long as you can maintain it. Despite all the customizing, here are the common strategies and techniques that all these maintainers shared.
How to Stay Fit & Healthy Year-Round
Have a Plan for After the Diet
Allow food intake to gradually increase.
If you are doing the “Get Fit Forever” program, your physical hunger signals will naturally increase as you approach a leaner physique. When this happens, allow your food intake to slowly increase.
If you are counting calories, gradually increase your intake over one to three weeks until your calories are equal to your calories out. The more aggressive your weight loss phase, the slower you must increase calories so your body doesn’t rebound.
Don’t be worried if you gain a little weight; this will be mostly added water and glycogen in your muscles. Once your weight becomes stable, you’ve successfully entered the “maintenance lifestyle phase”.
Training as Normal
Keep the metabolic furnace burning strong!
Exercise and high activity will make keeping lean easy. It’s much easier to eat more and burn more instead of keeping lean on “poverty” calories. Keep your strength training strong, fit some cardio into your week where possible, and stay active in general.
Prioritize Weight Training
Build Muscle that Burns Calories
Muscle is active tissue that increases your overall metabolic rate, so you burn more calories even while sleeping! Weight training has the added benefit of focusing your goals and keeps your enthusiasm high. Weight training is a sport you can enjoy for the whole of your life and does wonders for your strength, function, mobility, confidence and self-esteem.
Live an Active Lifestyle
Look for Fun New Ways to Burn Calories
Successful lifelong lean people are much more active than those that rebound. They choose to cut back on sedentary TV, video games, web surfing etc and look for opportunities to take up new sports and active hobbies.
- Walking or Hiking
- Water Sports
- Part of Sports Teams
- Tennis or Squash
- Golf and Bowling
- Cycling and Running
- Walking or Hiking
- Water Sports
- Part of Sports Teams
- Tennis or Squash
- Golf and Bowling
- Cycling and Running
Healthy Lifestyle Eating Habits
Successful Eating Habits
Continue enjoying unprocessed, high quality, high fiber veggies and fruits full of different colours that fill you up and keep you stable. Stick to consistent meal times and avoid mindless snacking in between meals. Prepare your meals at home (in advance if needed) instead of going to restaurants or ordering takeaway. Be mindful of your food and drink intake at social events and keep your eating routine consistent all year-round.
- Plenty of Fruits and Veggies
- High Fiber
- Preparing and Cooking your own Meals
- Stick to Meal Times (Less snacks)
- Mindful at Social Events
- Consistant all year round
- Plenty of Fruits and Veggies
- High Fiber
- Preparing and Cooking your own Meals
- Stick to Meal Times (Less snacks)
- Mindful at Social Events
- Consistant all year round
Continue Self-Monitoring
Keep Tracking your Progress
The research shows that people who monitor their progress have higher chances of success. This also goes for those that maintain their results. Stay mindful of your meals, log workouts, and take progress pictures.
75%
Percent of maintainers who track weight
Percentage of NWCR maintainers who lost 65 lbs or more and maintained for at least five years that tracked weight as a method of self monitoring.
React to any Rebound
Catch yourself if you see it.
Self-monitoring allows you to quickly identify if your weight is starting to sneak upwards and allow you to promptly nip it in the bud. Normally your weight fluctuates by around two to three pounds so as soon as you see an increase greater than that, it’s time to take action.
You can reduce food portions or increase calorie burn or both. Set yourself a standard to maintain and stick to it. These standards can also include your strength, endurance, flexibility, and general fitness.
Social Support
Success within your Social Network
Weight regainers normally lack stress coping skills, try to handle problems alone and lapse back into using food as a coping mechanism.
Having a coach or gym buddies at your gym or sports club are great for keeping you accountable and for being there when you need support. A solid circle of friends and family will also be vauable to help you with stressful events.
Longterm Vision
Fitness is a Lifestyle
The George Health system is a lifestyle change, not a thirty day program. Programs are just stepping stones, not the journey itself. It’s great to set short term goals, but what about also setting five or ten year goals? What do you want to achieve when you’re sixty?
Have a vision in mind. A vision is a big picture of what you want for your body and health, but without an end point in mind. You never get to the end of your vision, you live it every day. Every time you set a new goal, it will align with your vision. Everytime you complete a goal, you know you aren’t finished because the vision is still there to guide you.
Important Note
This will be hard, but it gets easier.
“Don’t assume that maintenance will be easy. Because it won’t be. I’ve not succeeded at this right myself sometimes. You’ll probably feel a little hungrier even at maintenance, since you’re at a reduced body weight.
Not to say it’s hopeless, because it’s not. You can be one of the 5%. I have found that by eating filling nutritious foods, limiting sugars and alcohols, exercising reguarly, keeping busy in the day, and getting plenty of sleep will all help minimise your hunger. There is also data to indicate that if you maintain a reduced body weight for several years, it will become your new natural weight that your body wants to maintain (i.e. no more hunger to maintain that weight).
“When it comes to picking a lifestyle to follow, ultimately we are all different and must each experiment with different methods and decide for ourselves on the best custom solution. In order to achieve long-term compliance and habit formation, it’s important to choose your own daily routine, make sure it’s one you like and that you see yourself sticking to for life. That includes how you manage your exercise and meals through the day.
The best approach for most people is not an agressive approach, it’s a conservative, sustainable approach, customized for your lifestyle and long-term enjoyment.”
