My Weight Loss Game Plan

In this video, I share my high level game plan on how I plan to lose weight and discuss some of things I've learned from my previous failed attempts to get healthy.

Transcript:

Hey what’s up everybody? It’s Scott from Project Reboot. Welcome back! I realized this morning that I’ve spent the past couple of videos talking about how committed I am to losing weight, but I haven’t really spent any time at all talking about my game plan and how I’m hoping to accomplish that.

So in a really weird way, I kinda of consider myself a weight loss expert i mean I’ve lost more weight cumulatively than anyone I know and I’ve also fallen off the bandwagon a bunch of times so I know what does not work. So right off the bat there are a couple of things that I am not going to do.

No Fad Diets

The first thing I am not going to do is I’m not going to dive headlong into a fad diet.

Diets don’t work.

Anything that requires you to religiously follow a set of restrictive guidelines is inherently unsustainable. Diets just end up making you feel bad about yourself when you invariably find yourself in a situation when you have to break a rule or two. So diets are out.

No Gym Memberships

The second thing that I’m not going to do is that I’m not going to spend a ton of time at the gym and it’s not even because I don’t want it it’s because I literally do not have the time.

Now I know that’s what a lot of people say, but let me walk through my schedule a little bit so you can see for yourself. I wake up at 5 in the morning, I make breakfast for my family, I drop my son off at school, I’ve got an hour and a half commute to the office, I work a full day, get off at 6, have another hour and half commute home if I’m lucky, spend about 30 minutes tucking my kid into bed and reading him a story, answer some emails from work, maybe edit a couple of videos, and then it’s time to go to bed and do it all over agin the next day. So for 5 days a week that’s my life and there’s not a lot of extra time to spend at the gym in there.

That’s not to say that I’m not going to spend time exercising, but we’ll talk about that a little more later.

No Cheat Days

The third thing I’m not going to do is that I’m not going to have a cheat day. I think cheat days are a little bit like telling a heroine addict that they can shoot up, but only one day a week. It just doesn’t work.

For people like me, overconsumption is a huge issue, so letting myself eat whatever quantity I want of whatever I want is just destined for failure.

Do: Follow Dietary Guidelines

So let’s talk about what I am going to do this time around. The first thing I am going to do, is that I am going to live by a set of dietary guidelines. Now this is different from a diet in the traditional sense because I am gonna consciously make the choice to only adhere to it 80-85% of the time.

For me, the dietary guidelines that make the most sense is the paleo/primal/caveman diet. It just makes a lot of sense to me to stay away from processed food products and to eat more actual food. Vegetables and fruits and meats and fats and the like. Also, I know from previous experience that carbs are my enemy. I know that I have to significantly limit carbs in order achieve any kind of sustained weight loss which is something that the paleo diet recommends as well.

Do: Set Micro Fitness Goals

The second thing that I’m going to do is I’m going to set micro fitness goals. So I mentioned before I’m not going to have a lot of time to go to the gym but there are a lot of fitness trackers on the market today that allow you to get credit for just small decisions that yo make on a daily basis. So for example, parking your car as far away from the office as you possibly can or taking the long way to the bathroom during your bathroom breaks, or maybe even taking a short walk after lunch. All of these decisions add up significantly over time and could have a huge impact.

I’m using the Jawbone UP Move and I’m going to set myself a goal of achieving 50,000 steps per week. That equates to about 5000-6000 steps during the week days and about double that on the weekends. Now I know eventually I’ll have to incorporate strength training into the mix and maybe get a little more aggressive with my cardio goals, but that’s where we’re going start out and I’ll update you on how that’s going over time.

Do: Step on a Scale Everyday

The third thing I’m going to do is I’m going to weigh myself every day. Now I know there are a lot of schools of though on what’s the right frequency to weigh yourself. Some people say that you shouldn’t weigh yourself at all. Some people say that you should only do it once a week. I’m a data guy. I really like the idea of having a data point at the beginning of the day so that I can take actionable steps to set myself up for success later on in the day. There’s actually a study that was recently published that suggest that people who track their weight on a daily basis are actually more likely to achieve their goals. I’ll try to find it and post it in the description below.

Do: Bend the Rules from Time to Time

The fourth thing I’m going to do is I am going to have a flex day. Now I know I said I wasn’t going to have a cheat day, but I think a flex day is different from a cheat day in that a cheat day kind of implies that you can engage in complete and total debauchery for one day a week and then go back to your diet the following day. That’s not what I’m hoping to accomplish here. With my flex day, I’m really just looking to give myself the flexibility to have foods that I normally wouldn’t eat. Maybe they’re not on the Paleo plan, so if I’m craving a slice or two of pizza, I’ll do that, but I’m still going to be really conscious of what my quantity is.

The last thing I’m going to do is that I’m going to be keeping you guys updated on my progress on a weekly basis, and I think it’s that layer of additional accountability that’s really going to make all the difference for me this time around. I can already feel myself stressing out in the best way about what kind of news I’m going to have for you guys next week when I do my check in.

At a high level, that’s my plan moving forward, and I’m sure I’ll tweak it over time as the results start coming in. If that sounds like a great plan to you and you want to give it a try, click on subscribe. Leave me a couple of comments and let me know how it’s going. If you’ve got other things that have worked for you that you think I should try, I’d love to hear about those too.

And finally, just thank you guys for being there and I’ll report back next week with how it’s going.