Free The 20/20 Diet by Phil McGraw Page B

rock bottom and you know there is
    no option anymore, you are ready to throw out your old ways that
    weren’t working and make immediate, necessary changes to achieve
    your goal.
    Life rewards action. Stop thinkin BOOKS,
    g about losing weight and take
    action. Now is the time to get out of your chair and into the game,
    because life won’t wait around for you to make up your mind.
    In the next chapter, you will make a plan for achieving your goals
    and then, watch out world, you’re on a mission and no one can stop
    you!
    STREET
    BIRD
    50 | The 20/20 Diet
    4
    SET THE RIGHT GOAL
    To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requir INC.
    es courage.
    — Ralph Waldo Emerson
    Setting the right goal in the right way is imperative. In The Ultimate Weight Solution , I talked about defining your “get-real weight,”
    and I coined that term for two reaso BOOKS,
    ns.
    First, you have to get real about what is safe and achievable for
    you. If you’re a six-foot-tall woman with broad, swimmer’s shoulders
    and quadriceps thicker than most tree trunks and you want to weigh
    125 pounds like all of your pint-sized friends, you would be setting an
    unrealistic, unhealthy, and likely unachievable goal weight.
    You also have to get real about your target weight from a psycho-
    logical perspective. You can’t just pluck a number from thin air that
    you want to see on the scale because you’ll set yourself right back on
    the loopty loop y STREET
    ou know all too well. Think about your relationship
    with your body and set goals toward liking it, being proud of it,
    accepting it for all of your God-given uniqueness, and treating it with
    respect and love. You will experience a psychological shift in how you
    feel about your body as you go through the steps in this program.
    Wa BIRD
    tch Your Transformation
    People are posting selfies all over the Internet these days, but I’m asking you to take a selfie that is for your eyes only. We already know
    how powerful it can be to look at the past, and we know you’ve got
    51
    to clearly envision all that lies ahead. Now let’s create markers to help you track your progress and pave your route.
    Take a “before” photo of yourself when you start this plan, and
    then take photos at the end of each week so that you can watch the
    physical transformation occurring. You see yourself in the mirror
    every day, which can make it easy to miss physical changes, so that’s
    where the photos come in very handy for continued motiva INC.
    tion.
    Also, take some simple starting measurements. Stand up straight
    and don’t suck in or push out your stomach; just keep it neutral. Don’t
    flex your muscles either. You want to get an accurate, neutral reading
    for all of these. As you progress through the plan, take the same mea-
    surements and record them in the chart below to help you track your
    progress and keep you motivated. You’ll likely notice an improvement
    overall in muscle tone and your physical shape.
    The point is not to obsess over these numbers. Again, these are
    simply opportunities to gauge your pr BOOKS,
    ogress and pat yourself on the
    back as you feel pride over creating positive results.
    Starting
    After
    After
    After
    Measurements
    Phase 1
    Phase 2
    Phase 3
    Weight in pounds
    Around waist at
    belly button
    Around low
    STREET
    er abdomen
    (just above hips)
    Around hips at
    widest area
    Ar
    BIRD
    ound widest part
    of upper arms
    Around widest part
    of thighs
    52 | The 20/20 Diet
    Waist Circumference Warning
    Quite a bit of research has been done in the area of measuring
    risk factors for cardiometabolic diseases such as diabetes, hyper-
    tension, and coronary heart disease, and one very simple way to
    determine your own risk is to look at your waist meas INC.
    urement.
    In general, if you are a woman and your waist circumfer-
    ence is greater than 35 inches around, or if you’re a man and it’s
    greater than 40 inches around, then you are at an increased risk
    for serious