Want to Lose Weight? Start with This

The key to your weight loss is not what you think.

My colleague Markus recently returned from a trip to the US where he was doing some work for Lifesum. This is normal and not at all fascinating to me at this point. LA, tech company, healthy company, San Francisco, yada yada – (sorry Markus!) but then he mentioned how for one of his meetings they took a hike.

They climbed a mountain, because, well, LA.

I love this.

Here’s why: If I say the word ‘meeting’ what comes to mind? Usually, a table, several hours, boredom, laptops and notebooks, coffee, discussions that lead nowhere.

But meetings don’t have to be all those things.

I was listening to a Ted Talk by Nilofer Merchant about sitting, and how it’s killing us. The title of her talk was: ‘Got a meeting? Take a walk’.

It got me thinking. Not about sitting, although I do think it’s an issue, but about the limits we set on ourselves in life, and specifically when it comes to our health.

I wonder how the very first person who thought about standing desks came to think, ‘Huh, maybe I can stand at my desk?’

What about the first person who had a so-called stand-up meeting? I wonder what made them think, ‘Well we can just stand up and talk, we don’t need to sit to have a meeting.’

How can we think outside the box?

I think about the guy who lost weight by throwing out all his ready-meals and walking to the store to buy the ingredients for each meal he cooked. He tackled better nutrition and better exercise in one fell swoop.

Then I think about the conversation I had with our nutritionist Lovisa this morning. I complained about the “impossibility” of meal prep because ‘I don’t want to spend a day cooking’, to which she replied, ‘Maximum 3 hours: a large salmon filet, salt and pepper, and a squeeze of lemon; put it in the oven. Boil some brown rice or quinoa. Fry some veggies’. I realized then that I’m the one that said it had to take an entire day. It doesn’t. Especially if some colleagues are able to cook and paint at the same time (multitasking genius and iOS wonderboy Olle).

In her talk, Nilofer talks about how we mentally create opposites. We tell ourselves we can only have one thing or another, when actually, with a little thought, we can make both work.

So my question to you is: How is your thinking stopping you from tackling your weight?

Do you, like I used to, think that eating healthy food means you have to sacrifice your social life? Or do you think that staying active 30 minutes a day means 30 minutes less ‘me-time’?

None of these things are either-or. You can do both.

You can have kids and find time to workout.
You can eat better and still eat out.
You can have a desk job and still have a healthy lifestyle.
You can live in a cold climate and still workout regularly.

It’s all in your head – what’s holding you back?

Related links:
How an Obese Town Lost A Million Pounds (lbs)
A Simple Way To Break A Bad Habit
How to Build New Habits by Taking Advantage of Old Ones

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