Chapter One Putting Your Weight on Project Status
You have made the important decision to lose weight, and you want to do it right this time. But to do so, you must be willing to put your weight on what I like to call Project Status. This means that you must consciously decide to actively, purposely work on improving your weight and your fitness level each and every day. Putting your weight on Project Status means giving your health and vitality a new, higher priority in your life, such that they become of conscious importance to you. You stay committed to working on them, disciplining yourself by working on all seven keys to weight loss freedom. (I've summarized the keys for you in the box on pages 25-26.)
You get out of this project -- your weight -- what you put into it. It will be from your commitment to set a personal standard for yourself -- one that says you will not quit and you will not push aside your goals for a trimmer, healthier body -- that your success will follow. You must be willing to reach for what you want and reach right now. To be in Project Status means that you do not neglect to take care of yourself first, and now is the time to start doing that.
Before beginning the nutritional plan in this guide, you must take some essential first steps that will help you reach the peak of your effectiveness, and lay the groundwork for constructive, lasting change. This is very important -- don't hurry through these initial steps or avoid this part of the process. Take it seriously, and I promise you that you will have the foundation for the most effective and dramatic changes you have ever made in your weight.
Step 1:
Determine your get-real weight.
Your get-real weight is the healthiest and most realistic weight for you, based on your height, your bone structure, and your sex. It is not necessarily the weight of your youth, but rather a state of health and well-being that is congruent and in harmony with how you are physically and genetically configured. It is the weight that is "right" for you -- a stable, comfortable weight, at which you look good, feel good, and lovingly accept yourself from the inside out.
You can figure out your get-real weight by using my Body Weight Standards, a system I developed for my patients; it is a modified and more realistic version of height-weight tables. Though not perfect, these body weight standards are more reflective of what can be achieved and certainly a better measure of where most people should be, weight-wise.
Using the Body Weight Standards chart below, identify where you should be, so that you can move forward from where you are now. The lower end of the ranges are for small-boned people; the upper end, for larger-boned individuals. Be honest here: Don't subjectively say you are small-boned, when in fact, you are just the opposite. Your get-real weight is your target. Record it in the space above.
Dr. Phil's Body Weight Standards Height/Women/Men
4' 10"/90-100-110/114-127-140
4' 11"/95-105-116/119-132-145
5'/99-110-121/123-137-151
5' 1"/103-115-127/128-142-156
5' 2"/108-120-132/132-147-162
5' 3"/112-125-138/137-152-167
5' 4"/117-130-143/141-157-173
5' 5"/122-135-148/146-162-178
5' 6"/126-140-154/150-167-184
5' 7"/130-145-160/155-172-189
5' 8"/135-150-165/159-177-195
5' 9"/139-155-171/164-182-200
5' 10"/144-160-176/168-187-206
5' 11"/148-165-182/173-192-211
6'/153-170-187/177-197-217
6' 1"/157-175-193/182-202-222
6' 2"/162-180-198/186-207-228
6' 3"/166-185-204/191-212-233
6' 4"/171-190-209/195-217-239
My get-real weight is:_________________
Step 2:
Check and record your current weight and waist measurement before you start.
Do two things: First, step on the scale to weigh yourself to determine your starting point. Then, measure your waist with a tape measure positioned one inch above your navel. Taking waist measurements is important because weight distribution -- where you carry weight on your body -- can affect your health, for better or for worse. A too-large waistline circumference, for example, places you at greater risk for heart disease, diabetes, and certain cancers.
A waist measurement of 35 inches or more for women and 40 inches or more for men is cause for concern and may indicate that you are at risk for heart disease or diabetes. Keeping tabs on this simple measurement can protect you in some important ways.
Write your weight and waist measurement in the space below, along with the date.
Date: ____________
My weight: ____________
My waist measurement: ______________
Although I do not advocate obsessive weighing and measuring, you do need to monitor your progress toward your get-real weight with some regularity and reasonable frequency. You should weigh yourself at least at one- or two-week intervals to stay on target; then record your weight in a notebook or journal. The scales should show a weight loss that may be quite dramatic in the beginning, eventually tapering off to a steady, even loss of a few pounds each week. If you aren't dropping pounds at a steady rate, or if you gain weight, you should be motivated to course-correct some aspect of the weight loss plan to make it more effective, including changing your behavior so that it is harder for you to cheat.
Weigh yourself at the same time each week, because your weight fluctuates throughout the day, and you can weigh more at night than you do in the morning. Promise yourself you will not self-destruct if the scale moves up a few pounds, but instead make this a priority for action-oriented repair.
At monthly intervals, remeasure your waist and record these measurements. Watching your pounds and inches diminish will help reinforce your resolve and keep you moving in the right direction.
Step 3:
Clear your environment of "low-response cost, low-yield foods."
The presence of food is one of the most insistent of all triggers to eat or overeat, and you know this yourself if you have ever tried to sample just a few healthy items from a buffet table. This step is thus about removing tempting foods from your environment, including your home, office, car, or anywhere you store food. After all, you can't eat what is not there.
Specifically, I would like you to take an inventory of your environment, looking for and tossing out what I call "low-response cost, low-yield foods." So that you understand the terminology, these foods require very little response from you when you eat them. In plain terms, they are foods that you just gulp and gain -- easily ingested, overly convenient, and requiring little or no preparation on your part.
An excellent example of a low-response cost food is a microwaveable bean burrito. You zap it in your microwave in a matter of seconds, no preparation required. When you eat it, you don't even have to chomp on the burrito; it just slithers down your throat in a few quick gulps. What happens is that you consume an incredibly high number of calories and fat in a very short period of time.
Most low-response cost foods are also low-yield foods. That means they provide very little in the way of good nutrition, with a lot of calories packed into a very small amount of food. Sugar is an example of a low-yield food. It is very high in calories but practically devoid of nutrition, and for these reasons, it is best kept off-limits if you want to successfully control your weight.
Low-yield foods are engineered to be addictive; loaded with sugar, extra fat, calories, too much salt, and unhealthy additives; and of questionable nutritional value. What's more, they are processed and refined; that is, they have been milled or altered in some fashion that devalues their nutrition by extracting fiber and other nutrients.
To sum up, low-response cost, low-yield foods:
• Invite and promote fast, uncontrollable eating. • Need little or no preparation time.
• Require little chewing or effort to eat. The food slides down your throat, and you barely have to chew it.
• Melt in your mouth.
• Can be too easily eaten straight from a package or container.
• Are highly processed.
• Are light on nutrition.
One of the most offending characteristics of low-response cost, low-yield foods is that they are hunger drivers. These foods do not keep you satisfied for very long and may make you hungrier later. Here's why: After you eat these foods, your body's natural stop-eating signals don't even have time to kick in. It takes about twenty minutes from the time you eat something until the hypothalamus in your brain shuts off your appetite. There's absolutely no way that burrito can offer any satisfying effects when it's overly easy to wolf it down in a matter of seconds. So you keep eating more and more of this stuff until you've eaten way beyond the point of fullness; and the unfortunate fact is that you're overfed with unnecessary calories and fat.
On pages 418 to 707 of this food guide, you'll find a comprehensive listing of low-response cost, low-yield foods by category. These are foods you want to limit or avoid. For now, here is an abbreviated list that will give you an idea of what to toss out:
• Cookies, candy, and any high-calorie, sweetened snack foods. • Salty foods such as potato chips, pretzels, taco chips, nuts, and other packaged munchies.
• Sweet rolls, pastries, and doughnuts.
• Cakes, snack cakes, pies, and other baked sweets.
• Presweetened, sugary breakfast cereals.
• White bread, white rolls, white buns -- anything that is not whole grain.
• Crackers that are not whole grain.
• Cold cuts.
• Ice cream and high-sugar froze...
