[podcast]http://www.thelivinlowcarbshow.com/shownotes/wp-content/uploads/llvlcep5.mp3[/podcast]
Oh my goodness, friends! So many enthusiastic and wonderful low-carbers just like you have made “The Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb Show With Jimmy Moore” one of the hottest and fastest-growing podcasts around today!
THANK you so much for your support and interest in what we are doing here. We are aiming to make a difference in the lives of so many and it is certainly an honor to bring the positive and uplifting message that comes from such a passionate and influential voice in the health debate–Jimmy Moore!
This week, Jimmy discusses the awesome power of saying “no” and how sticking to your guns when confronted by temptation not only helps you with weight loss, but also your self-esteem and other such benefits!
Plus, have you seen the latest research on the benefits of eating sugar-free dark chocolate bars like our sponsor ChocoPerfection? Johns Hopkins researchers have some very interesting things to say that may have you stocking up on chocolate for the sake of your health…
Learn more RIGHT HERE by listening to Episode 5 RIGHT NOW!
– Podlinez.com provides telephone access to the show
– Johns Hopkins University study on health benefits of chocolate
– “30-In-30” Low-Carb Weight Loss Challenge blog
– ChocoPerfection with berries recipe
Did you miss something Jimmy said? Click through below to read the full transcript of this episode!
TRANSCRIPT:
Hey, we’re already up to Episode 5 here at “The Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb Show with Jimmy Moore” and the listenership to this cutting edge new health podcast show just keeps growing and growing! THANK YOU for including this show in your weekly activities and for being so willing to share it with others. Speaking of that, have you heard about the new way you can listen to this podcast show that I think is pretty neato mosquito? In addition to downloading it through iTunes and at TheLivinLowCarbShow.com, you can now call our special Podlinez hotline number for “The Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb Show”. That’s right, you can listen to it on your telephone anytime you want. Whoa, isn’t that cool? Grab yourself a pen and paper so you can write this number down. Are you ready? It’s (818) 688-2763. Did you get that number? Here it is one more time: (818) 688-2763. Now you can take this podcast show with you anywhere you have a landline or cell phone. Go ahead and give it a try this week!
As always, we’d like to thank our generous sponsor ChocoPerfection bars for underwriting “The Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb Show with Jimmy Moore.” So many of you have written to thank me for telling you about these awesome sugar-free/low-carb chocolate bars that are perfect for people with diabetes or who are on the low-carb lifestyle. I don’t know what I’d do without my ChocoPerfection bar fix and actually there was an intriguing new study for chocolate lovers out of Johns Hopkins University last week that proved just how incredibly heart healthy eating sugar-free chocolate bars like ChocoPerfection on a daily basis can be. The researchers had not intended on making this discovery about eating chocolate, but human nature had a way of bringing it about when some renegade study participants ignored one of the specific instructions of the researchers in another study. You’ll definitely want to read all about it so there’s a link to that study in the show notes section at TheLivinLowCarbShow.com. With the Christmas shopping season in full swing now, what better way to honor those special people in your life than with a gift pack of ChocoPerfection bars underneath the tree! Christmas will be here before you know it, so call their toll-free holiday hotline number at 1-800-332-1773 or visit ChocoPerfection.com to order these amazingly healthy low-carb chocolate bars.
Are you ready for another exhilarating episode of “The Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb Show” today? I sure hope hope so, because the message I have for you today could be the difference between whether you succeed or fail in your attempt to lose weight and keep it off permanently. Even if you are not on the low-carb lifestyle, this is something you will want to pay close attention to, especially with the holiday season upon us. What is this one thing that could make or break you in your weight loss efforts? It’s a two-letter word that has seemed to leave the vocabulary of most overweight and obese people as it relates to food and other health-related decisions. I’m, of course, referring to the word “no.” That’s right, the dreaded N-O. As in, you can’t, uh-uh, not gonna happen, sorry, try again! Ouch! For such a short word, that “no” sure does pack a wallop of a punch in it, doesn’t it? I’m sure former First Lady Nancy Reagan back in the 1980’s felt some of that antagonism herself with her now infamous “Just Say No” campaign? She was attempting to help her husband, the late President Ronald Reagan, combat the growing drug problem among kids back then by simply encouraging them to say “no” to drugs and alcohol. I remember how the press and President Reagan’s enemies had a field day over this supposedly “unreasonable” expectation for kids to “just say no” to something as tempting as drugs and alcohol. Well, guess what people? If you are overweight or obese and sincerely want to lose weight and keep it off forever, then take a wild guess what you are going to have to do? That’s right, you are going to need to start saying “no” to some things. Aww man! Let me get one thing straight, though: livin’ la vida low-carb is not about saying “no” to all carbs forever. But it IS about saying “no” to certain kinds of carbs that will prevent you from moving forward in your goal to shed those stubborn pounds that have stuck around even longer than your cousin Eddie who comes to visit you during the Christmas holidays.
Here’s an illustration to help you visualize what I’m talking about on this concept of saying “no”: Okay, imagine you’re in a restaurant and the waitress asks you what kind of drink you would like to order. The first thing that pops into your mind is a Coke (NO!), but then you order a glass of water instead. When she returns with your drink, the waitress suggests an appetizer of some potato skins (NO!), however you politely decline and tell her you won’t need an appetizer. But then you begin having trouble choosing what you would like to order ff the menu and the waitress tries to be helpful by chiming in with a fantastic description of their Chicken Strips Meal deal that comes with mashed potatoes and corn (NO, NO, and NO!!!). Shaking your head with a smile, you instead choose the Chargrilled Chicken meal with green beans and a salad without the croutons (GOOD BOY!). Then she asks if you would like Thousand Island dressing with that (NO!). You tell her you would like Ranch dressing instead since it has only one gram of carbs in it. Before she leaves to place your order, the waitress asks if you would like some bread to nibble on before your meal (NO!) and again you politely decline. Okay, so the meal arrives at your table and you enjoy every last bite of it when the waitress comes back yet again attempting to sell you something else to pad the bill so she can get a good tip. This time she suggests you try their new dessert dripping with ooey gooey fudge sauce drizzled on a moist and decadent chocolate cake a la mode (NO!) and you again politely decline realizing that you are staying committed to your low-carb lifestyle 100% by making good decisions about what you put in your mouth. Was there anything particularly difficult about what transpired in the above scenario? Not at all. In fact, that’s a pretty typical experience for me when I eat out at a restaurant and it has become almost automatic now that I’ve been livin’ la vida low-carb for close to three years. Even if you never actually verbalize it out loud, it is ESPECIALLY important that you keep that “no” response ready in your mind at a moment’s notice while you are losing weight because it means you are saying an emphatic YES to your long-term weight loss goals. And that’s the best-tasting, out-of-this-world YES you’ll ever hear, too, let me tell you! The freedom that comes from being in control of your eating habits perhaps for the first time in your entire life will energize you to keep making those good choices.
I don’t know why people get so strung out about having to say “no” to certain things just for a short period of time in order to lower their weight and improve their health. Perhaps they are worried if they say “no” long enough to something that they will stop desiring that food they think they love so much. AND WHAT WOULD BE WRONG WITH THAT?! Isn’t that precisely the point of saying “no” to ANYTHING you are addicted to so you can break the habit for good? Of course it is and that includes your addiction to carbs and sugar. For me, I no longer desire to eat sugar except VERY small amounts on VERY rare occasions. I probably eat about as much sugar in a year’s time that I used to eat in only a couple of days with my old way of eating before I started livin’ la vida low-carb. That’s because my desire for sugar has waned so much now that it actually REPULSES me where it used to provide me what I thought was the ultimate pleasure. Now I realize sugar was ruining my health and was the root cause of why I became so morbidly obese in the first place. “No” is the most powerful word in weight loss and it actually gives YOU back complete control of your body again. You are not at the mercy of those Fritos or Doritos any longer. That bag of Oreo cookies or package of Twinkies isn’t the master of YOUR domain anymore. YOU have taken back complete and neverending control of the wheel of your life and nobody else can ever decide what goes into your body without your permission. Make up your mind right now at this very moment that you will REFUSE to give up control of your dietary habits EVER again. If you do that earnestly, then you will reap the rewards of permanent weight loss success. There are NO EXCUSES for NOT saying “no!” Say it with me now — “NO!” Say it again — “NO!” One more time — “NO!” See, saying “no” isn’t so hard when you KNOW why you say “no.” You know?
This act of saying “no” isn’t about willpower either. It’s about having a steadfast resolve to make smarter and better choices about what you allow yourself to eat. There is a BIG difference between “willpower” and this “steadfast resolve to make smarter choices.” Back in August, I started a low-carb weight loss challenge called “30-In-30” in an attempt to lose 30 pounds over 30 weeks because I had noticed my weight beginning to creep up a few pounds. I had been making some pretty stupid mistakes here and there that weren’t very smart at all for someone enthusiastically encouraging people to start livin’ la vida low-carb. No, I wasn’t secretly gorging myself on chocolate cake (EWWW!) or sneaking a Big Mac and a large order of French fries from McDonalds (GAG!). It was a lot more subtle than that. For example, when my wife Christine and I would go out to eat for dinner over the past six months or so, we would order our meals and of course I would make mine low-carb by usually getting the appropriate meat, vegetable, and salad entrees. But then the server would bring this great big basket of hot dinner rolls just out of the oven with butter smothered all on top of them making them look all shiny and inviting and conveniently placing the basket right in front of me. I could just hear these melt-in-your-mouth rolls calling out to me, “Eat me, Jimmy, eat me!” I had rationalized in my mind that they’re not sugar and I’m only going to have one or two but admittedly, I’d sometimes even have three or four! YIKES! I would eat them and not really feel that guilty about it either. But when the scale started moving up every so slightly, I knew these little sneak-a-cheats were not very conducive to my low-carb lifestyle. That’s why you should never lose your focus or your purpose for low-carbing especially after you hit the weight maintenance phase of your low-carb lifestyle. It’s too easy to get used to bad habits again and suddenly start gaining your weight back. That’s not something you want to have happen because then you’ll be right back where you started before your weight loss.
So, does this mean I can NEVER have dinner rolls again? I get that kind of question a lot from people about chocolate cake and other such foods. The answer to that is no, but I’m here to tell you that you will be making much better choices for yourself that are wiser decisions in the long run. I have to constantly reevaluate in my own mind whether eating that roll or cake is going to be worth the price I have to pay when I step on that scale which I am a big believer in doing every single day for personal accountability. Because of that, the answer 99.999% of the time will be to say “no” and I’m usually glad that I did! If I had this great willpower over food, then how did I ever get to the point where I weighed over 400 pounds? If willpower was the only way to resist temptation and prevent weight gain, then I’d still be that morbidly obese man I was three years ago very likely tipping the scales at 500+ pounds by now. Thankfully, I found the ability to say “no” to those things that I know I shouldn’t have as part of my healthy lifestyle anymore. This isn’t something to bemoan, but instead should makes your wanna jump for joy because it is a lesson the vast majority of people are unwilling to implement in their own life. Weight loss–and I mean long-lasting, meaningful weight control–is not dependent on any kind of inner ability to wish you didn’t want to eat that chocolate cake ever again. That would go against human nature and anyone who tells you otherwise is lying to your face. But your commitment to a healthy lifestyle dictates whether you choose to eat that cake or not. For me, I choose to pass on the cake and would rather have a bowl of blueberries with melted ChocoPerfection bars and whipped cream on top instead. Mmmm. Plus you’ll feel better knowing you’ve made a decision which not only benefits your physical body, but your emotional health and stability as well. Resolve today that nothing will stand in your way of attaining the success that you deserve to have happen with your weight loss goals. Don’t rely on some mystical strength or willpower you hope you will have when the temptations confront you. Be ready for them ahead of time and make up your mind right now how you will handle them. Be smart and make healthy choices so you can see the weight loss success you so desperately desire in your life.
Start practicing saying “no” this week and watch what happens! You’ll begin to feel so much better about your low-carb lifestyle change without the guilt and shame that so many people put themselves through when they eat something they really didn’t want or need. Don’t be afraid of saying “no” to what you shouldn’t be eating because you are teaching yourself important new habits that will serve you well for the rest of your life. This can be hard, I know, but YOU CAN DO IT! That’s it for now and until next time, keep on livin’ la vida low-carb!
[tags]low-carb, chocoperfection, atkins, saying no, resisting temptation, johns hopkins, diet, study, dark chocolate, chocolate health, chocolate bioflavenoids [/tags]