Wendler had a post on his forum about Keeping Your World Small. In it he discusses how he heard Andy Stumpf on Joe Rogan. Andy was a Navy Seal and discussed how he made it through Hell Week. He shared "Don't look at Hell Week as a five-day pipeline. Just make it to your next meal, because they have to feed you every six hours." So if I can stack six hours on six hours on six hours, and just focus on getting to the next meal...it doesn't matter how much I'm in pain, doesn't matter how cold I am...if I can just get to the next meal, get a mental reprieve and mental reset...then I can go on. If you can apply that resilience to setting and approaching your goals from digestible perspectives...you can accomplish an insane amount."
Now, I am in no way shape or form comparing the difficulty of losing weight with becoming a Navy Seal. What I can compare it to is how I actually lost 130 lbs and how there’s even more I can take away from his statement.
I never thought about losing 100 lbs. I often said, if I looked at it that way, it would have been way too daunting to even start. Rather, I just thought about making it to the next weight class. My first step was getting from 328.5 to 308. That’s 20 lbs, pretty doable. Then once I got there I worked my way down to the 275’s. That was actually only around 290 lbs and then I cut the rest of the water weight a few days before.
After that, it was lose the 15 lbs so I wouldn’t have to cut to make the 275’s. Then I followed that process down until I hit the 198’s.
In other words, I “chunked” my weight loss down into smaller amounts. I never thought about an entire amount. I just put my head down and plugged along until the next weight class.
Presently, I am at a weight I’d like to stay for a while. However, it’s not easy. I fight cravings regularly. I didn’t get fat by having good eating habits. They were hard to break and still plague me.
I have been struggling with cravings. I have been thinking they will they ever go away. They are not always on my mind, but when they pop up, they are pervasive. For whatever reason, Andy’s advice resonated with me. It’s not even an analogy actually. I don’t have to fight off cravings the rest of my life, I just have to fight them until the next meal. That somehow makes it much easier in my head.
I don’t always have them, but when I do, it’s not a lifetime battle. It’s just until the next meal. This seems much more manageable than fighting off cravings for the rest of my life. It’s semantics I know, but how you frame things in your mind can be very powerful.
Maybe this advice will help you with your diet. Maybe there’s something else you are struggling with. Just think, “Make it to the next…” You got this!
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