The 3-D plan to eating healthy (Part 1)

Total Transformation 40 pound weight loss

As many of my readers and friends know, I have recently taken a journey to change my life. For the purpose of this post, I am calling it the “3-D Diet plan to eating healthy,” and losing weight.

My story started about two years ago, but it has been less than a year that I actually started putting into action these 3 principles that I am laying out here. I love running across other success stories, as I did the other day with Rachel and her quest of losing 40 pounds in 1 summer! That’s quicker than my loss. As I have said before, I feel like I now am on the other side of the success story…the spokesman for Amway if you will (BTW I lost 7 pounds since that post), telling people that obtaining your dreams and goals is possible…here is how I believe you can do it:

Desire: Do you want things in your life to be different? I remember 7-8 years ago not caring what I ate, how much of it I ate, and most importantly what beverage I consumed. My favorite consumptions were Coca-Cola Classic, chinese food, and fried chicken. The truth is, two of the three still are my favorites, however my desires changed. My wife would comment how certain foods were high in calories, my response was, “At least if I die, I’ll die happy!” I knew I had gained approximately 40 pounds after I got married, but in the 7.5 years I had grown content with where I was. It was one December day, I finally renewed my gym membership and determined to start working out and losing some weight. I stepped on the scale and almost had a heart attack, not from over working and not from being over weight, but from shock at just how much more weight I had gained. I finally topped out at 53 pounds over my marriage weight. I was 5′ 10.5″ tall, but weighed 198…there was no way I was going to reach 200 pounds…no way!

It was that day that I finally quit Coke cold turkey! I had tried it before but I did not have enough desire to overcome my addiction. Trust me, I was literally a Coke-A-Holic. I never realized how bad they were for me, of course people told me, but I never did the math. I could go to a restaurant and allow the waitress to give me a few refills and consume over 1,000 calories in one sitting just with my beverage. That December day, my unhealthy desire died. I lost 14 pounds and felt good, but when my membership ran out I gained most of it back. I had another problem…my eating habits. As those who have followed my journey knows, it all started with an Apadectomy on Thanksgiving Day. I lost 10 pounds in my recovery week by cutting back mainly on my lunch calories. I changed my normal diet up a little since then, but it has mainly consisted of lowering calories and working out. Unless I know I am going to have a very strenuous workout later in the day or unless I am doing a lunch meeting, I only eat soup, a little bread, and un-sweet tea for lunch, this alone cut my lunch calories by more than half. I finally gained the desire that I needed to fuel my journey towards eating healthier, living healthier, and seeing results. I make myself eat breakfast, whereas I never ate breakfast before, and for dinner, unless it is the weekend and Nicki and I eat out, we typically eat a normal dinner, but Nicki has always cooked small portions with healthier ingredients. We have do not use a lot of butter and cooking oil and other items that needlessly add calories to our meals and truthfully we don’t know the difference. For example, Smuckers makes a sugar free syrup which is 25 calories per 1/4th cup versus 140 calories per 1/4th cup. It tastes just like regular syrup. The fact is, there are a lot of “diet” or “sugar free” items that are horrible, but you have to experiment.  As I saw results, my desires increased dramatically.

I try to reward myself one day a week. I’ll go to the chinese buffet (because I still love it!) or I will grab a double cheesburger from Wendys or hit my favorite BBQ joint, Carl’s Best. Part of keeping the desire to stay healthy is not squelching my natural desire for the things that taste good and that I crave, but are not healthy in excess.

Part 2 of the 3-D plan to eating healthy will focus on our need for Determination when trying to have a healthier lifestyle. Part 3 I will discuss the Dedication aspect of this plan. These 3 principles are really transferable in reaching any goal that you have in life. I’ll tell you this much. I may have thought I was fat and happy before I lost the weight, willing to die happy consuming those things I had grown addicted too, but I can truly say I am happy now and feel better than I ever have. Mostly because I am within the target weight for my build and height, but also because I achieved something great! Many people tell me I am too skinny for which I disagree, but I question, how do you quit eating healthier and being active and making sure you workout to maintain that which I have achieved? Do I simply become a couch potato? I can look at my pictures 40 pounds ago and say…I don’t have the desire to do that 🙂

Join the Conversation: Is there anything you need a change of desires to accomplish?