Extreme Planning Leads to Extremely Awesome Weight Results

“I never have coffee before we head out because it makes me poop.”

Meet my younger sister, Lucy, who made an offhand comment over dinner about planning and prepping for the Grand Canyon’s (GC) “rim-to-rim.” The term is just what it sounds like: from the top of one side of the canyon, hikers descend to the canyon’s floor, trek the 10-miles, cross the raging Colorado River on a suspension bridge (freaked Lucy out) and finally hike up the other canyon-side. (People do this “for fun,” I’m told.)

Lucy casually added, “Ben and I start planning and prepping for the rim-to-rim a good six months in advance.” (Caveat: Ben grew up in Phoenix and knows his way around the GC. Non-locals need a year of planning and prep.)

At her words, my ears perked. The parallels between heavy planning and prepping for a monster-hike and planning/prepping for a lifetime weight loss seemed pretty obvious to me.

Here’s what I learned: My sister and her husband plan their hike as if their lives depend on it because they do: people die in the canyon every year (11 out of millions of visitors last year, but still) and 250 more are rescued by helicopter.

So, Lucy and Ben take many hilly practice hikes in the mountains near Phoenix, they break in new hiking boots, they figure out which foods they’ll tolerate in extreme temps, which water “bladder” works the best for them and so forth.

Weight Loss Takes Extreme Planning

Am I suggesting that nailing a permeant weight loss is akin to hiking the Grand Canyon rim-to-rim? No, in fact, I’m saying it’s much harder. Creating a lifetime weight loss after menopause is not for the timid. And within our hearts we need to respect how difficult our trek really is.

Because when we’re losing for a lifetime, we’re actually transforming into a different and better version of ourselves.

It’s my thought that the diet-culture has been murmuring sweet nothings into our ears for decades – just use our product and you’ll be slim next week – and we don’t see the forest for the trees. The cartel has long told us that if we just use their product, losing weight will be easy-peasy. And then when we don’t find it easy, they blame us (their customers).

At that, we then blame ourselves for making weight loss/preserving “unnecessarily” hard. And walk through life thinking it’s all our fault.

I’ll be the first to say: Weight loss/maintenance is hard (as if you hadn’t noticed).

Smart Food

I lost 55-pounds in my early 40s and have maintained (I say preserved) the original loss for 18 years to date. (I’m currently 60.)

This is a good time to add that I’m a former private practice therapist. But funny enough, the type of therapeutic approach I used to lose/preserve ended up not being what I studied in school beyond an intro class. I hadn’t realized that I’d been using cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) the entire time I was losing/preserving weight early on.

Just like the rim-to-rimers, I take planning and prepping super-seriously too.

Prepping

Every Sunday afternoon you’ll find me prepping for the coming week. It’s my thought that fast food has stolen the very idea of convenience from us, and it’s high time we take it back for ourselves. So on Sundays I prep these foods: sliced apple with lemon to keep them from browning, baggies of brown rice, baggies of hard-boiled eggs, mini pumpkin muffins, a three-bean salad and you get the idea. The goal is to make life as easy as possible on ourselves when we’re losing/preserving after age 50.

In the beginning, when I had just started to lose weight (I had hit my own version of bottom), and while I was rabid to lose/preserve the loss, I realized that I needed to take it slowly. I was eating on a specific food plan (find yours at the annual U.S. News & World Report) and every morning I would list in my notebook the obstacles I would face on that particular day re: food. After writing the obstacles down like: “I see Lynn for lunch at noon” I then add solutions to the tough moments. These are my three suggestions for the Lynn-obstacle:

Use the “Eat Before You Eat” Tool

Once you’ve pulled into the parking lot of the restaurant eat an apple or banana or a small thing of yogurt. The “eat before you eat” tool is a game-changer because now you’re no longer relying on willpower. When you “eat before you eat” you’re not cowed by hunger.

Get Acquainted with the Menu

I’m assuming that earlier you’d pulled up the restaurant’s menu and took your time reading the menu in full without an insistent server. Having taken a few moments to read the menu, you arrive knowing exactly what you want to order.

Get a Salad

If you’re not ready to “go public” with your new eating plan (which is perfectly fine) consider not ordering veggies and brown rice and instead ask for a large salad (it won’t automatically grab Lynn’s attention like the rice and veggies would). This situation actually happened to me. A friend who loved her food looked at my brown rice and veggies scornfully. Our relationship didn’t make it much further than that lunch.

And I know that salads can be made to be super high in calories too. Just become skilled in making requests like ask for the blue cheese, dressing and walnuts to be placed on the side. And then, of course, use very little of all the extras. Think: leafy greens and tomatoes.

For the smartest of eating tips, stop on by!

We’ve so got this.

Let’s Start a Conversation:

Have you experienced an extreme sport like hiking the Grand Canyon rim-to-rim? What do you think about an epic hike being compared to planning for smart eating when we’re over 50? Do you have a great food to use with the “eat before you eat” tool? If yes, please share! We all need ideas.