What they really mean of course is, ‘I’ve failed to follow what was being suggested’, but of course you’ll never hear that. All you’ll hear is a load of excuses as to why that particular programme has failed them.
Just like the ‘but it’s in my genes’ excuse, this one doesn’t wash.
It doesn’t matter who you are, or how big or small you are. If you eat nature’s superfoods, move your body until you sweat on a regular basis, do some resistance training, think positively and get some fresh air – ‘IT’ will work.
The truth is there is no ‘IT’ – IT IS YOU! ‘It’ will work if you do ‘it’. If you fail to do it, then IT hasn’t failed – YOU HAVE! If you want success, if you really want to take charge of your health and your life, you must understand that you’ll never have the body or life of your dreams if you keep coming up with ‘but’, ‘but’, ‘but’.
‘But it’s hard for me because…I eat as a response to emotion’
So many people believe that they will never be able to change because they are ‘emotional eaters’, and as life will always be full of emotion, what’s the point of even trying to change? On the surface this may seem true – again, I would often use this as an excuse – but once looked at, it just doesn’t wash.
You may well think that you are one of those people who eat purely as a response to emotion, but I will tell you now that you eat certain things as a response to emotion. I’ve never heard anyone saying, ‘I’m really pissed off today. I need a grape’! People never turn to things like steamed fish and stir-fired veggies when they’re bored or upset. When people look to feed an emotion they always turn to ‘foods’ containing refined sugars, fats or a combination of the two, such as chocolate, fast food, muffins, bagels, cakes, breads and ice cream.
People ‘use’ refined fats and sugars in much the same way as people ‘use’ drugs, and the excuses for taking them are pretty much the same.
If you ask a smoker why they are smoking they may say it’s because they’re bored, stressed, relaxed, sad, happy, lonely, anxious, angry, excited, upset, nervous, and so on. In fact, there doesn’t seem to be an emotion which isn’t in some way linked to their smoking. If you ask a cocaine addict to come up with ‘reasons’ as to why they are taking that drug, you will hear the same list of emotional excuses and the same goes for heroin, crack and other drugs. The fact that most of the emotional excuses completely contradict one another doesn’t seem to occur to those trying to justify their actions. Equally, those getting their fixes from refined sugars and fats will also blame any number of emotions:
‘I ate the chocolate bar because I didn’t get the job and was consoling myself’
‘I ate the chocolate bar because I did get the job and was celebrating’
People eat rubbish food when they’re sad and when they’re happy, when they are stressed and when they are relaxed; when they’re bored and when they’re ‘on the run’. The sad truth is they have been saying how certain foods help certain emotions for so long that, like smokers and other drug takers, they have ended up believing what they’re saying; but it’s all nonsense. If you’re bored you can shove as many cakes in your face as you like but you’ll still be bored. If you’re upset, all the ice cream in the world will never console you. If you’re stressed, squashing a large piece of pizza in your mouth will not calm you down and if you’re feeling lonely, eating bucketloads of rubbish foods will not fill the gap in your life. In fact, not only will your emotions not be helped at all by eating drug-like refined sugars and fats, but on top of the boredom, stress, loneliness or whatever, you will now have to deal with feeling guilty, anxious and fat!
What would you think if you saw a monkey stuffing loads of rubbish food into its mouth and then trying to explain its actions by saying, ‘I’m a bit anxious today’? Yes, you’d think, ‘stone me, a talking monkey’! But seriously, wild animals have more stress and more anxiety on a daily basis than we are ever likely to experience. Now you may well argue with that, but often their lives are a 24/7 battle to find something to eat or to stop themselves being eaten. You may have to pay your bills, go to a job you don’t like, or have to put up with traffic for hours on end – but you probably know exactly where your next meal is coming from and you’re not about to be eaten! Imagine how much more stressful and anxious wild animals’ lives would be if they had substances entering their system which created additional feelings of stress and anxiety to the ones they are already experiencing.
People who consume rubbish foods and drinks all the time are more stressed and anxious than people who don’t.
This is because refined fats, sugars and drinks like caffeine all create empty withdrawal-type symptoms which are similar to normal emotions like anxiety, stress and boredom. Like drug addicts, people then try to deaden those feelings with more of the same. Initially, the refined junkie foods appear to help, but that’s only because they have taken the edge off a low caused by the last dose.
You cannot feed an emotional hunger with food – you can only feed a physical hunger. Anything you eat when not genuinely physically hungry will be stored as fat!
I will explain more about this in the Seven Deadly Dietary Sins, but for now, if you keep saying you are an ‘emotional eater’, please stop the bullshit and remove this ‘but’ from your life.
‘But, do you know what?…I’m “fine” as I am’
Fine, which of course stands for
Freaked-out Insecure Neurotic & Emotional
Most of the time when you ask people ‘How are you?’ and get the response ‘I’M FINE, thank you’, it usually means they’re feeling either ‘Freaked-out’, ‘Insecure’, ‘Neurotic’, ‘Emotional’ or a combination of the lot. ‘How’s your diet going?’ ‘Oh, fine’ – meaning ‘It’s making me feel insecure, I’m getting a touch neurotic about the whole thing, I’m a bit emotional and it’s beginning to freak me out – so as you can see, I’m fine!’
I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to spend my life feeling ‘fine’. I don’t even want to just feel ‘good’, although good is clearly better than fine. I want to feel pretty damn incredible most of the time, or as my good friend Martin says, ‘outstanding’.
The problem is most people settle for a life of ‘fine’ or ‘alright’. ‘How’s your relationship with your partner?’ – ‘Oh, fine.’ ‘How are your finances?’ – ‘Oh, fine.’ ‘How’s your health?’ – ‘Oh, fine.’ ‘How’s your job?’ – ‘Oh, fine’. ‘How’s your life?’ – ‘Oh you know, it’s OK, it’s alright…I’m FINE!’
The idea behind turbo-charging your life in 14 days is to move way beyond settling for a level of health and vitality and a body that’s simply ‘alright’ or ‘fine’ – it’s about setting ourselves new standards, raising our expectations of ourselves on a daily basis.
‘But it’s hard because…I have children’
It doesn’t matter if you have one child or a football team’s worth; there is no reason on the planet why having children should prevent you from eating well and exercising.
Why does having kids, even being a single parent, prevent you from eating some fruit, making a juice or doing some exercise? And why does having kids mean you have to stuff your face?
When you think about it,