Stop Crashing; Start Cruising Instead.

‘Crashing’ after periods of dieting is one of the most common struggles people tell me about.

Perhaps you’ve been driving the car too fast, if that's you.

Let’s start cruising instead …

1. The Big Picture 🖼️

2. Explain It To Me Like I’m 5 👦

3. What Does Sustainable Progress Look Like? 📈

4. Go For Lots Of Small Wins 🏆

5. Parting Zen 🧘‍♂️

The Big Picture 🖼️

Full disclosure: I have done and coached ‘crash diet’ programs.

I no longer do that.

It’s not the case that all aspects of all crash diet programs are bad.

I’ll admit that some of them can sometimes be good for some people.

However, the vast majority of people will not benefit long-term from a short-term crash diet.

Let’s define ‘crash diet’ as ‘any diet promising’:

• More than 1-2 pounds per week of fat loss in an obese person or;

• More than 0.5 pounds per week of fat loss in a lean/normal weight person.

That’s it.

Thus, beware of:

“Lose 10 pounds in 10 days!”

“Lose 20 pounds in 1 month!”

Or any offer enticing fat loss more rapidly than I have shared here.

Explain It To Me Like I’m 5 👦

Today’s topic, as simply as possible:

“The faster you go, the more likely you are to crash.”

What Does Sustainable Progress Look Like? 📈

I’ve drawn this on over 100 calls live using a whiteboard …

… mostly to set expectations correctly.

Go For Lots Of Small Wins 🏆

You can see that in crash diets, rapid progress is followed by crashes that are equally rapid and usually to lower levels of health and happiness because you become more stressed, distrustful, and hopeless.

There is another path.

The path I teach has ups and downs.

You won’t lose weight every day or even every week.

You will have struggles. Not everything we try will work every time.

You will have plateaus, too.

In a 6-month program for an obese person with 30 or more pounds to lose, having a plateau for an entire month after losing 10 pounds is a good thing and something to program for.

You don’t want to be in a caloric deficit all the time.

What you want is:

• Lots of small wins.

• A few bumps along the way.

• Lots of small wins.

• A few milestone moments.

• Lots of small wins.

• Long-term adherence.

If you’ve struggled with crash diets in the past, click here to chat with me.

I would love to hear your story and see how I can help.

Parting Zen 🧘‍♂️

A simple word, phrase, or thought to take with you:

Be well,

Coach Matt

PS: Here are other awesome newsletters I’m reading:

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