Diet companies are designed to pray on the vulnerabilities of a specific group of either under-educated or under-motivated people and manipulate them into spending exorbitant amounts of money and time to move in minuscule steps towards their goals. They make their customers think that they are making the tiniest amount of progress to keep them on the hook and keep spending. The weight loss and health industries are designed to keep you unhealthy and keep making themselves money. My mission with healthy hicks is to help people realize that they do not need to spend thousands of dollars on bogus supplements and cheap tricks to be able to live the beautiful, healthy lives they have always dreamed of.
According to the Boston Medical Center: in America alone, 45 million people go on diets every year. Those 45 million people spend $33 Billion in that single year*. And that is just in America. If we use the same ratios, condensed to reflect the Canadian population, that would be an estimated 5 million Canadians spending $4 Billion on books, programs, pills, shakes, equipment etc. that don’t work. Just imagine the good we could do with that $4 billion were it not wasted on these diets.
“I am so sick of being overweight. I am self-conscious and tired all the time. I want to get this weight off me, I am just so confused about where to start. Nothing seems to work for me.” This is a statement I know by heart because I have heard it on an almost daily basis since the beginning of my career.
Let’s do an experiment. Set your timer for 1 minute and name every diet you can think of. How many did you get? If this exercise was enough to make your head spin, we are right there with you. There are Diet Studios, books, apps, Gurus etc. And they all claim to be the next best thing.
I have been working in the health and wellness industry for the better part of a decade, so I understand what a hypocrite I sound like when I say, most of these diets do not work. One more time for the people in the back FAD DIETS DO NOT WORK.
Whether it be Keto, Paleo, High Fat, Low Carb, Carnivore, Atkins, whole 30 or any other combination of random nonsense, it does not make sense and it does not work. You know what does work though? Science and common sense. Here are the 2 basic rules that I live by:
1. To be healthy, you need to move your body regularly, get enough sleep, drink your water, and eat foods that either came from the ground or had a mother much more often than you eat foods that were made by people.
2. To lose weight you need to burn off more energy than you are taking in on a daily basis for an extended period of time.
You may be laughing right now because I have just over-simplified a topic that has been made to seem like rocket science, but it is true. There is room in a healthy lifestyle for just about anything if you are not over doing it. It is my hope that when you read these words, you feel empowered and motivated. You CAN live the life you have always dreamed of. You CAN lose the weight you have been carrying for years. You CAN be the best version of yourself. You DO NOT need to spend thousands of dollars on a “program” or supplements that don’t work.
So, What do I do?
An old horse training saying is “if you are going to swing a leg over a horse, you had best know why you are swinging it” This resonates with me today because the first step on your journey needs to be to set your goals and know your why. Simply being healthier or losing weight is not enough of a reason to get you through the hard days. You need to have a specific reason you are setting out on this journey. Whether you want to avoid having a heart attack like your father did, or you want to be able to play with your kids, or you want to fit into the dress that made you feel good about yourself all those years ago. Do not start anything until you know why you are starting. Know your why and set your goals. Look back at my blog on goal setting for some tips on how to accomplish this first important task.
Now that you know your why, you simply need to follow the two rules I have listed above. You can look back at some of my previous blogs for some specific tips like: Navigating your grocery store, Goal setting and Benefits of walking to start. Most diets encourage restriction of almost everything in the dieter’s life. We want you to do the opposite.
Focus on adding habits and behaviours into your life instead of taking things away. Here are a few examples:
- Set your alarm for 5 minutes earlier so you have time to pack your lunch
- Drink a glass of water as soon as you get up
- Walk once this week
- Add a Salad to your dinner table along with your other food
- Bring an apple or other fruit with you in lunch for a snack
- Plan out 2 of your meals for the week and make a grocery list.
By focusing on adding small behaviours into your day and taking each small step forward that you can, you can avoid the strict rules and feelings of depravation that accompany these fad diets. In your goal setting make a list of the top 10 behaviours you think will help you to live the life you want to live. No behaviour is too small or insignificant so get specific here. From your list of 10 behaviours choose just one to Focus on at a time. Do it for 2 weeks. If you feel that you have mastered that one behaviour, then add another one and so on. If you feel that you need a little more time to focus on one thing, keep at it for one more week before adding another habit in.
Living a healthy lifestyle is not about being 100% good or 100% bad. It is about striking the balance of things that make you happy and things that make you healthy and about opening your heart to the possibility that the things that make you healthy can also make you happy.
The entire purpose and mission of Healthy Hicks is to help people. It is for this reason that we offer our coaching services to help you set good goals and reach them. We are firm believers that nobody needs to spend thousands of dollars on diets, however you may need an extra little help and support. We are here for you. Reach out to us for access to our amazing resources!
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