First off, Congrats! The hardest part of your weight loss and fitness journey is over. You’ve made it over the steepest ledge of marshmallow mountain. You’ve made it through the thickest foliage of Fatboy Forest.

Let’s recap to make sure you’re now skipping along on the lush, thick, pleasant path that leads to the kingdom of a fitter, healthier, and happier you! 

By now you should have completed both Step 1, and Step 2?

If you’re unsure whether you’ve completed both steps 1, and step 2, then here’s a quick synopsis of both of the steps:

Step 1.) You’ve started, right? And by ‘you’ve started,’ I mean you’ve started doing one easy little thing consistently every single day? Whether it be walking, pushups, dancing, cartwheels, backflips, ninja kicks, whatever. As long as it’s something that gets you moving every single day, and it’s relatively easy for you to do…then you’re doing the right thing! Keep doing this easy little thing for 15 days in a row.

Every single day.

For 15 days.

If you can’t do this easy little thing consistently (every single day) for 15 days, then make the thing easier. There are no pass-go’s with this.

15 days is 15 days. So don’t even think of trying to skip ahead to Step 2 until you have done this easy simple little thing for 15 days in a row. There are no cheat days on this. There are no skipping days. Yes, weekends count too. They are still days. Fridays are days. If today is your birthday, then it is still a day. Christmas is a day. So is Thanksgiving. And Easter. And Hanukkah. If you are tired, then that is still a day. If you have the flu, then you still do your one easy little thing. There are no excuses. No skipping. No cheating. Doing something every single day means doing something every single day. This is important. I know you probably don’t think doing something that is super, super easy can also be super, super important, BUT IT IS!

It’s everything at this point.

It’s the only thing you need to focus on.  

Do it!

No matter what. 

For 15 consecutive days.

It should be so easy that you have no real excuses not to do it anyway. It’s something like walking. It’s a few pushups. It shouldn’t be super crazy difficult. You can do this. The question is will you?

Step 1a.) I made this step up just to tell you that you should not even be reading this made-up step if you have not consistently done your 15 days of your ONE easy little thing.  If you have not done that, then do that. Why in the world would you move on from step one if you have not done step one?! That’s Normie behavior! That means you’re not going to commit. Don’t be a Normie. For the love of God, be different. Do something. 

Step 2.) Okay, awesome! You’ve survived the first 15 days of Camp Weirdo. Now it’s time to search, discover, and acknowledge all the devilish foods, meals, drinks, or habits that are causing you to gain weight. These are often high in calories and low in protein. Think cookies, cake, snacks, chips, ice cream, etc. 

One-by-one it’s time to snipe these enemy calories.

And one-by-one means one-by-one. 

And by ‘sniping these enemy calories’ I mean you put them in the grave for a long, long time.

How long? 

We’re talking decades, not days. You want to keep these enemy foods dead and out of your mouth for as long as you want to be in good shape.

Is this extreme?

Yes.

Is it weird?

Yes.

Will it work.

Yes. 

Will you actually do it?

Most will probably not. And that’s what makes most people normal. (And chubby.) 

So I am asking you to be Weird, my friend. I am asking you to Be Different.

Because that’s how you will reach your goals.  

Also, keep doing your ONE easy little thing every single day. You should be past 15 days at this point. Keep your streak going!

Your streak is important.

If you’ve actually reached this point, then you’ve now reached a level of fitness and mental transformation that ninety percent of humans are unable or unwilling to reach.

The hardest part is done.

For some of you Weirdos, the process of locating and eliminating the enemy foods, meals, drinks, snacks, or habits that have been causing you to eat more than your body can burn will be all you need to do.

This depends on your goal, and on how you want to look and feel, and on how much you are willing to sacrifice for the type of body you’re willing to accept.

By simply eliminating one of your devil foods, meals, drinks, snacks, or habits may have already put you into a calorie deficit.

To find out, you have two options:

1. You can keep eating how you normally eat (minus that one devil food you eliminated) and in 15 days you check to see if you’ve lost weight. If you did, great! Keep that devil dead.   
2. You can calculate all the calories going into your mouth and compare this number with your TDEE. If your daily calorie intake is 10-15% lower than your TDEE, then you are losing weight. This means calories are consistently leaving your body rather than consistently being added to your body.
   
   If either of these situations pertain to you, then you are losing weight, and your next step is to create a fitness routine so you can either gain or maintain your muscle tone.

However, for those who have eliminated their devilish foods, meals, drinks, or habits, but are still taking in more calories than their body can burn, it’s now time to construct your Three Piece Nutritional Puzzle so you can begin eating the foods you love while also creating a body that makes you want to streak butt-naked across the fifty yard line at this year’s Superbowl!

Ready!

Let’s get to it!

Completing Your Three-Piece Nutritional Puzzle.

Finally! It’s time we get to talk about one of my favorite subjects: Lasagna!

No one quite believes me when I tell them I lost forty pounds eating Stouffer’s Microwave Lasagna, but it’s the truth.

To do this, I just had to figure out a way to fit the noodles and cheese into my Three-Piece Nutritional Puzzle.

You can do the same thing with all your favorite foods as well!

As a quick reminder, here are the three pieces of the puzzle we’re playing with:

1.) Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE): This is an estimate of how many calories your body burns in a single day. We need to eat less calories than this number to lose weight, an equal number to maintain our current weight, or more than this number to gain weight. If you’re trying to lose weight, you must eat less calories than your TDEE. There’s no way around this. Math is math.

2.) Resting Metabolic Rate (RMR): These are your ‘keep me alive’ calories. Your body needs a certain amount of energy (calories) to keep your body properly functioning. RMR is the minimum amount of calories your body needs just to keep the lights on and the electricity running. To safely lose weight, it’s best to eat more calories than your RMR, and less calories than your TDEE. These are the first two pieces of the nutritional puzzle.

3.) Protein: Your body has muscles. I’m assuming you already know that! I’m also assuming you want to keep the muscles you have or add more muscle to what you wish you had. In order to accomplish this, your muscles need protein for both maintenance and growth. Our goal is to eat approximately one gram of protein per pound of body weight.

And that’s it.

That’s the puzzle.

Everyday we’re trying to piece together our meals so we eat a number of calories that fall between our RMR and TDEE, and also provide us with roughly one gram of protein per pound of body weight.

These three elements are the primary drivers for both weight loss and muscle maintenance. No need to worry about carbs, sugars, fats, ketones or any other complicated numbers.

Calories and protein.

That’s all we’re focused on.

In ‘Phase 1’ we worked to eliminate the majority of foods, meals, snacks, drinks, and habits going into your mouth that were high calorie and low protein. By doing so, this process of eating less than our TDEE while still getting enough protein to maintain muscle becomes significantly easier.

Here’s how this looked for me when I was concentrating on losing weight:

When I first calculated my TDEE, I weighed about 160 pounds. (I only wanted to lose about ten pounds at this time, but I blinked and before I knew what was happening I had ballooned up to about 180 pounds. Ugh.)

As I gained more weight, I should have recalculated my TDEE because my body was lugging around twenty extra pounds of fat, which meant my body needed more energy to do this, which meant my TDEE would have been higher.

However, this was when I was still figuring things out and didn’t know any better, so I stuck with a TDEE of roughly 2,000.

Since my goal was to lose weight, I needed to eat less calories than my TDEE while still getting roughly one gram of protein per pound of body weight.

As my goal, I chose to eat no more than 1,800 calories per day, which was 10% less than my TDEE. I would suggest setting a target of 10-15% less than your TDEE as well.

While calculating my TDEE, I discovered that my RMR was 1,200 calories per day. As a reminder, this was the minimum amount of calories I should consistently eat in order to lose weight in a safe manner.

That’s it!

My puzzle was complete.

To lose weight I would need to eat within a daily range of 1,200-1,800 calories while getting roughly 160 grams of protein.

Was this possible all the time, every single day, no exceptions?

Of course not.

On some days I ate out at restaurants and on other days I ate meals with my family. On these days only Jesus himself knows how many calories and protein were on my plate.

But for the most part I remained loyal to my Nutritional Puzzle. And I did this by constructing meals that I love, so that I would love the way I eat.

Because when you love something, you don’t want to cheat on it.

You want to devour it!!!

Mmmmmmm!

 

*A Quick Note To The Normies And The Naysayers!*

Right now, you may be thinking, ‘No way.’

You may be thinking, ‘I can’t give up my jelly donut with my morning coffee.’

You may be thinking, ‘I can’t eat weird like this where I have to count everything.’

The good news is that you are a grown up and you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do! You can eat your jelly donut with your coffee today, tomorrow, and the day after, but the bad news is that you cannot eat your jelly donut with your coffee and also lose weight unless you structure your eating habits in a way that causes you to eat less calories than your body burns.

And for some, it may be possible to do this.

Yah!!!!!

Maybe you skip lunch completely so you can eat that high calorie jelly donut. Maybe you eat an itty-bitty lunch and a tinny tiny dinner to compensate for a calorie splurge at breakfast. Maybe your TDEE is high enough to allow you to splurge on junk food and cookies and cake and coca-colas. Maybe you’re ninja at controlling yourself on cheat days.

If you can do these things, then you do you. But just know that math is still math, and you can’t lose weight while eating more calories than your body burns.

It is not possible.

Thinking you can is like thinking you can make a balloon smaller by adding more air.

It’s just not going to happen. Sorry.

As for counting calories…you don’t have to count anything. You can one hundred percent wing all this eating and calorie counting stuff. You can eyeball a cheeseburger and fries and make a game-time decision on whether you think you’ll be eating more calories than your body can burn.

Good chance this method will not work.

Good chance you’ll make a guesstimated game-time decision at breakfast, and then another game-time guesstimated decision at lunch, and yet another game-time guesstimation for dinner, and then a few months later you’ll be in Kohl’s guesstimating how many pant sizes you have increased.

Then you’ll start thinking maybe it was the Fruity Pebbles at breakfast making you fatter, so you’ll try something different. A bagel maybe. Some egg whites. Some yogurt. But then the fat remains so maybe it was the burger and fries after all. Maybe it was the donut. Could it be the donut. Oh God, please don’t let it be the donut!

Normies waste away their entire lives playing this stupid game of guesstimating calories. Always hiding behind the hope that some new fad diet will allow them to eat their donuts and still fit into their high school jeans.

But maybe you’re the exception.

I certainly was not.

I tried the guesstimating game, and it did not work for me. For me, it was like continuously playing the lotto so I could hopefully pay my bills.

Eventually, I had to eliminate the foods, snacks, and drinks causing me the most damage and then I had to be an accountant with my calories.

This may sound terrible. It may sound like an extreme burden, but contrary to what you may believe, losing weight while not knowing how much energy you’re putting into your body is much more time consuming and frustrating than just counting the darn things.

Yes, you read that right.

Unless you have already developed a structured eating habit that works for you, then counting calories is quicker and less frustrating than simply guesstimating your food intake. Counting calories is perhaps the only method that provides a guaranteed certainty of losing weight and it does not have to be as hard as you’re thinking.

You can still eat the foods you enjoy.

You can still go out with friends and family to restaurants, parties, and events, and feast on BBQ, burgers, and pizza. This method of eating is not a calorie prison where the calorie police are going to lock you outside of the McDonalds playpen and never let you come back inside.

It’s easier than you think.

Here’s what has worked for me.

 

Normies will say: “I can’t eat the same meals over and over again.”

And then they eat the same fast food, sweets, and snacks over and over again.

We all do this. Weirdos. Normies. You. Me. All of us.

We’re all humans.

And us humans have a strong tendency to avoid change unless we’re in a situation where we’re forced to change.

Again, your biological brain doesn’t want change. Change is hard. It’s uncomfortable. It’s painful. And your brain’s job is to avoid pain and to pursue pleasure.

Point being, there’s a really good chance you eat the same five to ten meals, week-in, week-out, all the time, most of the time. You like what you like, and there’s not one damn thing wrong with that.

Sure, you like to spice it up from time-to-time. But for the most part, who has the time and temperament to constantly experiment with new recipes and meal plans.

If you have foods, meals, and recipes you already know you love, why would you stop eating them?

My philosophy: Don’t.

Me, I like lasagna. I like Cajun foods such as gumbo, red beans & rice, and jambalaya (I’m from Louisiana if this didn’t give it away!). I like a great steak. I like a juicy cheeseburger with fries. I like tacos. I like chicken, pork, and BBQ. I like pizza, and spaghetti. Did I already mention that I like lasagna!

Give that list to nearly any dietician and you’ll get a ‘tsk…tsk’ and a scowl in return. You can’t eat like this and lose weight, they’ll declare.

They’ll say you must eat salads, fruits, fish, eggs, oatmeal, lentils, and vegetables. They’ll talk of kale and chickpeas.

And that’s fine. I’m not downing any of those foods. I’m not discrediting dieticians.

However, I can honestly state that I lost forty pounds of flab and watched my body-fat go from nearly thirty percent to under five percent while I ate lasagna, steaks, cheeseburgers, and all the other foods I love.

This baffled people.

My friends and family would see me eating lasagna and couldn’t understand how I was losing weight, when, to them, it was so obvious I should be getting fatter.

The answer to this question is simple.

Math is math.

As I mentioned above, my TDEE was roughly 2,000 calories, so to lose weight I just had to eat less than 2,000 calories.

You must consistently eat less calories than your body burns. You know this, but the problem is that you cannot make yourself consistently do this. 

But to do it is simpler than you think. You must first kill your devil foods one-by-one. Slowly eliminating them. 

Once that is settled, you then focus on structuring your meals. Here’s how I accomplished this while still eating the foods I enjoy.

Start with one meal at a time. What do you like to eat for breakfast, or do you eat breakfast at all? Jot down 5-10 meals that you normally eat at breakfast. Calculate the calories for that meal. Now, how can we make essentially that same meal, but with less calories? What substitutions can be used?  

For me, I normally only have a protein shake for breakfast. My goal is to have a protein shake that I enjoy drinking and that has low calories/high protein.

One thing I quickly learned: not all protein shakes are created equal. That I can promise you. Some are super high in calories. Others are lacking in the protein department. Premier Protein is pretty decent. So is a company called Pure Protein. These days I primarily stick with protein powder and make my own shakes. But Premier, Pure, and a brand called Body Fortress were my primary breakfast drinks when I first started on this weight loss journey.

Most Premier Protein Drinks have 160 calories and 30 grams of protein so let’s go with those numbers for this example of how I normally eat.

Breakfast: *Calories: 160 *Protein: 30 grams

For the record, I certainly didn’t (and don’t) always eat lasagna for lunch, but if heaven is nothing but noodles and cheese, then me and Jesus gonna be besties! I love this stuff! It tastes like heaven and it’s a good amount of grub! Do you see this big ole serving size in the below picture…

This is only 660 calories.

For all the food on the plate.

It’s amazing!

To top it off, there’s 40 grams of protein in this super meal.

Now if you don’t like lasagna, then don’t fret. I’m not trying to insinuate that you should eat these exact foods or any exact foods. I’m only showing you one of my typical meals to show you that you can eat the foods you love and still lose weight. You can do this with all sorts of foods and meals. It’s just a matter of pinpointing your top 10-20 favorite meals and then finding (or creating) a healthier version of those meals. Point being: you don’t have to always eat salads and chickpeas and tuna to lose weight and get in the best shape of your life.

But if you continue to eat your devil foods that are high calorie/low protein, then no matter what meals you eat you will gain weight. So again, your first step is to murder your devil foods and to keep them dead for a long, long time. 

Moving on…

For my lasagna lunch: *Calories: 660 *Protein: 40 grams

Now I love big dinners, and I cannot lie. Typically, my eating schedule goes something like this: small breakfast, normal size lunch, a feast for dinner.

This is me, though, and you are you.

There’s no magic in my eating schedule. This is just what works best for my personality and for my daily schedule. If breakfast is typically your largest meal of the day and that’s how you like to roll, then do that. If you prefer intermittent fasting and opt to eat only one big meal per day, then do that. I tried this for a while but had a difficult time reaching my protein goals. But you can eat whatever you want, whenever you want, and still get in great shape as long as your daily calorie and protein numbers fit within your three-piece nutritional puzzle.

Again, if you’re the type of person who can eat a few chips and then put the bag away, then you may be able to have a small snack and still end up eating less calories that your body burns.

As I confessed earlier, I am not that type of person. I’m an ‘eat all the food until all the food is gone’ type of person. Because of that, it became much easier for me to lose weight by completely eliminating the foods, meals, drinks, snacks, and habits that were causing me the most harm.

Most people cannot accept that as an option. Most people would rather be overweight and miserable and clinging to the hope that they’ll one day stumble across that one really, really big secret workout or diet that only the most successful people actually know about. 

I did that same thing for nearly thirty years.

THIRTY YEARS!

Of reading magazine articles about how to get in shape, and watching Youtube videos, and constantly trying different diets and different workout routines. 

And what I finally learned is that I was not actually achieving much of anything because I was always too busy searching for that one really, really big secret thing that only the most success people actually know about. But here’s what finally hit me…What if there is no really, really big secret thing that only the most successful people actually know about? Instead, what if there are only small everyday simple things that everyone already knows about, and the really, really big secret (that only the most successful people actually know about) is that you have to do those small everyday simple little things over and over and over, consistently, everyday, and then that is what will eventually turn me into one of those successful people who others believe have the knowledge of one really, really big secret thing that only the most successful people actually know about.

This changed everything for me.

Because it is one thousand percent true. 

Listen, I say this all the time and I’m gonna say it again here. The secret you keep searching for is this: Success comes from doing simple easy little things over and over and over again, consistently, for a long period of time.

That’s it.

That’s how you win. 

But that is also the hardest part.

It’s the consistency that is hard, not the actual diet or workout.

So if you are the type of person that has problems putting the bag of chips away, then I suggest you do the same weirdo action that I did.

You give up the chips!

For a long, long time. 

Yes, it’s possible.

Yes, you can do it! 

To do this, I’ve found the trick is in starting as easy as possible. And you start as easy as possible by killing only one specific food at a time. And then you get a streak going. And then you protect that streak as if you were protecting your child. Nothing causes you to break that streak. I don’t care if Jesus himself, with Santa Claus and the angel of Elvis standing beside him, are offering you your devil food on a magical golden platter, YOU STILL SAY NO!

Saying no when it is hard to say no is what commitment looks like. 

And to lose weight, you must fully commit to quitting the foods that are causing you the most harm. 

This is not a diet.

This is eating in moderation. However, to reach your goals, with some food’s moderation is best kept at zero.

No matter how good the food may taste, if it is ultimately bad for you, then it is no better than doing crack cocaine or heroin. It’s time for you to eliminate the drugs from your life, so you can make your life better. 

Normies can’t understand this because society promotes severely unhealthy foods that are instantly gratifying but that cause long-term unhappiness. Don’t fall into this. You can eliminate the foods causing you the most harm. You’re just gonna be viewed by some as being a bit weird for doing it. 

But it’s better to be weird and happy, than normal and ashamed of your body. 

Moving on…

Dinner.

I enjoy a good burger from time-to-time at dinner.  

Some will say you can’t eat cheeseburgers and fries and still lose weight. I call those people Normies. 

Normies are strange.

But Weirdos are wise! 

To make this classic Weirdo cheeseburger, I focus on lowering the calories. To do that, I substitute regular hamburger buns for reduced calorie bread; I use fat free cheese which is lower in calories; I use lean ground beef. 

These seemingly small substitutions matter. 

And it’s easy to look at the label at the grocery store and to choose the option that has less calories. 

Same great taste, but less jiggle when you wiggle!

Here’s a breakdown of the nutritional values of this cheeseburger and fries, which was a regular staple of my weight loss dinner plan:

 

* Half Pound 93% Lean Hamburger Meat: *Calories: 340 *Protein: 46 grams
* 02 Slices Publix Reduced Calorie Bread: *Calories: 80 *Protein: 05 grams
* 02 Servings Ore-Ida Shoestring FrenchFries: *Calories: 240 *Protein: 04 grams
* 14 grams Kraft Fat Free Cheddar Cheese: *Calories: 25 *Protein: 04 grams
* 100 grams Heinz Ketchup: * Calories:118 * Protein: 00 grams

Total for dinner: *Calories: 803 *Protein: 59

There are a few things about this burger that may cause you to raise your eyebrows. One, it’s a half pound of beef so it’s good-sized hearty meal, but there’s no bacon, no onion ring toppings, nothing really crazy and wild about it. You could add more toppings if you wanted, but doing so adds more calories and my goal was to create a meal I love but to create it in a manner that limits calories, maximizes protein, and does not destroy the taste. I season this burger with Tony’s Creole Seasoning and, to me, it tastes great! Now let’s look at my total calorie count for the day:

Totals for the entire day: *Calories: 1,623 *Protein: 129

As shown earlier, my TDEE was roughly 2,000 calories per day. So if I ate less than 2,000 calories for the day then I know I lost weight. On this specific day, I ate 1,623 calories which sent my body into a deficit of 377 calories.

2,000 – 1,623 = 377

So at the end of the day my body was at a deficit of 377 calories, which means it did not have enough readily available energy to get me through the day, so it had to break down 377 calories of stored fat so it could convert those calories to energy and use them to keep my muscles working, and my heart beating, and my brain thinking, and to perform all the other processes needed to keep me alive and functioning properly.

And this is how you lose weight. On this day I lost 377 calories. If I do this for a full seven days, then I would lose 2,639 calories. That’s creeping close to a pound of fat lost in one week by eating lasagna for lunch and a half-pound cheeseburger with french-fries for dinner.

Try doing this same process the normie way, by severely restricting your diet or by eating foods and meals you don’t much enjoy. Your biological brain will eventually begin to whisper about how much it sucks to eat the same crappy things every single day. Chickpeas and salads. Lentils and cabbage. Over and over and over. 

You’ll be feenin for a cheat day, but at this point in your journey one single cheat day could uproot an entire week of sacrifice and hard work.

The pure secret to this weight loss and fitness game is not in hacks, or pills, or fad diets. It’s in longevity. And you can’t maintain longevity by eating things you don’t enjoy and by doing things you absolutely despise.

Your biological brain will always outlast your willpower in these situations. It will convince you to try this other method, or to come up with a more feasible plan, or that you do not have enough self-disciple to keep this up.

None of these things are true. Instead, you only need to start easier and go slower, so that you are steadily strengthening your self-discipline and willpower. You need to devise a plan that allows you to eat meals you enjoy while still losing weight. You need to accept that this process requires a long-term commitment. Being a Weirdo is not about how much you can lift or how stringent of a diet you can survive, instead it’s all about how long you can do the easy simple little things.

For me…

Today is day 706 in which I have not drank a normal calorie soda.
Today is day 706 in which I have not had any chips or sweets.
Today is day 724 in which I have done pushups every single morning.

Individually, none of these things are all that impressive.

Any normie can go a day without drinking a normal calorie soda.
Any normie can go a day without eating any chips or sweets.
Any normie can do three measly sets of pushups tomorrow morning.

One day is not all that difficult.

But difficult is the day you are exhausted. It’s the day your child is sick. It’s the day you worked a twelve-hour day. It’s the day you have the flu. It’s the day you’re busier than Superman in an earthquake.

Every single day is where the difficulty lives.

Consistently doing the easy things is what is difficult. 

But difficult is also where results are born. I’ve done morning pushups for 724 days now. Consistently. Every single day. No exceptions. I’ve done them when I had the flu. When I had COVID. When my back was hurting. When I was in a rush. When I was tired. When I absolutely didn’t feel like it. When I was in Mexico City. When I was visiting my family. On Christmas. On Thanksgiving. On New Years. On my birthday. On the weekends.

Every single day.

For 724 days.

You may be saying, “Whoa, whoa, whoa whoa, wait…this is a little extreme, a bit too weird. Does this mean I can never have another cheat day? Like…ever?

No!

It doesn’t mean that at all. I still have cheat days, but I structure them so that my cheat days end with victory parades.

Let me explain.

First off, the secret to success in weight loss and fitness is consistency. You know this, but for whatever reason, normies have somehow spread a false belief of how we are all entitled to one cheat day (or cheat meal) per week.

I don’t know where or by who this idea originated from, but in my opinion this idea was surely formulated by someone’s conniving biological brain. The logic being that we deserve this cheat day because we’ve sacrificed and worked so hard during the entire week. I mean, hey, even God (sitting up there in his lasagna paradise) kicked back and rested and ate cookies and drank cokes on the seventh day, right?

Maybe.

But the difference is that we are not God.

I’m guessing God does not get fat.

God plays by a different set of rules. 

However, you and I, it turns out we’re not so lucky. We will get fat if we eat more calories than our bodies can burn.

And the truth is that you can ruin an entire week’s worth of sacrifice and hard work with one monster meal per week, and you can certainly reverse your efforts with an entire day of gorging.

At the end of each week, the determining factor that dictates whether you have lost or gained weight is based on whether you have put more or less calories into your body than your body can burn.

That being said, I still think cheat meals are fine. There will be times when you are out with friends, or at a restaurant, or spending time with family, and you flat out are not going to be counting calories.

I get it. 

I have gotten in the best shape of my life while also enjoying the occasional sit down at Papa John’s Pizza, and at Five Guys, and at Mission BBQ, and at Fogo De Gaue. (Mmmm, candy bacon!)

However, I was not able to do this every single day.

But when these situations pop up, or when I find myself twitching for some cheesy greasy pizza, I will have what I call a controlled cheat meal.

First, and really the only rule of having a controlled cheat meal is this:

I never do my nevers, and I always do my always.

This means that no matter what, a cheat meal does not violate my streaks.

A cheat meal does not mean I get to eat or drink any of the devil foods, meals, drinks snacks, or habits that I have already put time and effort into killing. 

For me, this means I won’t drink a normal calorie coke no matter where I go. If I find myself in the Coca-Cola Museum in Atlanta and there are free samples of Coca-Cola passed around, then I will be the odd ball out that respectfully declines.

No matter what, this streak does not get broken. No matter what the situation, this door does not get reopened. I will eat anything else, be it six cheeseburgers smothered in sauce and an entire carton of mozzarella sticks slathered in ketchup, but in no way, shape, or form can one drop of Coca-Cola calories go into my mouth.

And whenever I am eventually rolled out of whatever party, or food museum, or restaurant I was stuffing my face at, I always leave, no matter how full or how fat I feel, as though I have won. As long as I do not break my streak, then I’m riding in a victory parade on my way home because I have stayed true to the core principles that matter the absolute most.

This may seem easy to you, especially if you do not love Coca-Cola as much as I did, but the point is that just because you are at a special event does not mean you suddenly have a full-fledged pass to completely break your streak.

I warn you of this because these are the very situations where your biological brain will perk up and sense an opportunity.

It’s like a dog sensing your weakness, and so it takes this one rare time to test you by jumping onto the couch with its filthy paws and innocent eyes.

It’s times like these when you and I are most vulnerable. It’s when we’re at dinner with friends or family or during the holidays or at a loved one’s wedding (maybe even our own) or on our birthday or whatnot, we’re at a one-time special event, and this is when your biological brain will speak so eloquent and logical in its conviction of how just this once we should allow ourselves to enjoy just this one single Coca-Cola. Just this one time. And it will badger you on-and-on about how this is such an unusual and unique opportunity and because it is such a one-time event, it should not even count against your streaks at all. It will be an exclusion. A one-time cheat moment. It will be like this day never happened. It won’t even count.

And if you fall into this trap, then this one situation that seemed so innocent will actually be the beginning of your new season of failure.

Imagine a recovering alcoholic who is enjoying a once in a lifetime meal at his best friend’s bachelor party. They’re gazing at the beautiful blue waters of the Cancun coastline. They’re at a five-star restaurant. This is a long due reunion with all his old high school drinking buddies and sure enough, the only seating available is there at the bar.

But that’s okay. 

He can handle it.

It’s not a big deal.

Then one friend buys them all a shot of tequila.

It’s there in front of him.

His biological mind is nagging and begging and convincing him of how it will be okay. It’s just this one time. With old friends. In Mexico. For your best friend’s wedding. Never again will they all be together to share a memory such as this one. It is literally a once in a lifetime event.

These kinds of temptations happen.

They’re real.  

Surprisingly, this desire most often hits me not with alcohol or Coca-Colas, but with chips. Sounds stupid, I know. But when I’m at a Mexican restaurant with friends or family and the free chip bowl is brought to the table, I find myself gazing at it with a peculiar and razzled sense of confusion.

In these situations, I can almost feel my biological brain trying to alter the rules of how my streak is worded. It’s attempting to find even the narrowest of cracks where it can wiggle some type of justification of why and how I should be allowed to break my rule for this specific circumstance and for this specific event.

And this is why it is so important that you leave zero wiggle room in your convictions when you are defining your streaks.

As an example, take the following statement:

‘I will not eat any sweets or chips for the next ten years.’

There is very little room (if any at all) to misinterpret, misconstrue, or argue with that statement. It’s nearly impossible for my biological brain to find a way to circumvent that rule.

‘Any’ means ‘any,’ and ‘for the next ten years,’ means ‘for the next ten years.’

Let me be clear though, when I find myself in these situations where I am having a cheat meal, I am firm on not breaking my streaks and I am dedicated to not eating any of my devil foods, meals, drinks, or snacks, but anything else is one hundred percent free game.

This makes it much easier to satisfy your biological brain. You are essentially giving it something so that it will shut the hell up and leave you alone.

So even though I don’t eat from the chip bowl, I may very well order an appetizer of cheesy bacon covered french fries with sour cream and devour the entire dish.

And I consider that a victory.

And it is a victory because I did not break my own rules. I did not fall into the sweet soothing singsong temptation that my own brain will devise.

This is important because each time you resist one of these provocations from your biological brain where it begs and pleads and tries to convince you to break your streak, you become stronger. You build your confidence. Your results slowly begin to compound, and you will begin to notice visible results in the way your clothes fit and in how you feel. But most importantly, you will be strengthening your self-discipline and your willpower in every situation in which you prevail.

This is the primary reason why it is so important to start with a task that is so easy it seems borderline ridiculous.

Starting as easy as possible, with the daily accomplishments of tiny simple consistent little goals, is imperative because it allows you to build up a steady consecutive streak of victories. Maybe you don’t see these victories immediately in the way of changes in your pant size, but the battles being won inside your own brain are far more important at this point.

With all this said, I don’t go out and gorge on these cheat meals very often. When I first begin to take my health and fitness serious, I normally went somewhere around every two weeks before I found myself partaking in a cheat meal.

However, creating healthy versions of the foods/meals that you already enjoy is the best way I have found to discourage any constant cravings for cheat meals. Once you create healthy versions of the meals you already love, you’ll find that you are often just as content with eating these meals as you would be feasting on a cheat meal that will take you farther from your ultimate goal.

But, from time to time, cravings will surely come so I say cheat when you must cheat, but just know that when the sun falls at the end of each week, math is still math.

If you have consumed more than your body can burn, you will gain weight. Excessive cheat meals only increase the likelihood of this happening, so cheat moderately, as an exception, not as a habit.

After my cheat meals, on the very next day, I always find myself a couple pounds heavier on the scale. This is obviously to be expected. And it’s alright. It’s going to happen. A good amount of this is most likely water weight and undigested food, but the important thing is that I stuck to my streak and that I get right back to eating meals that align with my Nutritional Puzzle.

Again, the secret is to do the easy thing for a long duration of time.

Easy workouts. 

Eat foods that you enjoy (only make them with less calories.)

You’ll be weird to others by doing these things.

You’ll be side eyed by normies. You’ll be labeled as an oddball when you refuse to eat those devil foods you were once so insistent to stuff down your throat.

You’ll be counting your calories and your protein, and some people will simply not understand why or what you are doing.

You’ll be eating lasagna and cheeseburgers while losing weight.

Your friends and family will not understand.

At some point, they will surely explain a new exercise or a cardio or a fad diet they are currently trying. And if it sounds great and logical, then maybe you should try it as well, but whatever you do, whether you try it or not, DO NOT sacrifice your streaks.

Because that is really all that matters. 

Never quit your nevers, and always do your always.

Stick to your easy little things that you have committed to doing for a long duration.

Do not let anyone or anything stop your progress of those easy simple little tasks.

Keep moving.

No matter what.

It may seem like a slow train, but trust me, you will be steadily moving forward, even on the days when it feels you are not moving at all.

Choo! Choo!

Now, if you haven’t already, it’s time to go murder your extracurricular calories and begin piecing together your nutritional puzzle.

You can do it.

Just take it slow.

One easy thing at a time.

And once that is done, it’s on to the least important, yet most popular aspect of weight loss and fitness. Exercising.

Let’s build, or at a minimum, maintain our muscle.

Click here to find out how.