Free The Big Fat Truth: The Behind-the-scenes Secret to Weight Loss by J.D. Roth

about a third of his body weight in three months so, in fact, he’s not weak—he just needed the opportunity to prove it to himself. But what’s especially heartening about Panda’s story is that he eventually gathered up the strength to talk to his parents about things he had bottled up inside for years. This is exactly what I’m talking about when I say that dropping pounds can change your life in amazing ways. “The weight-loss process proved to me that I was strong, and not just physically strong,” says Panda, “but mentally strong. Mental strength is a lot harder to build. I think our minds might just be the weakest muscle we have.” To me, that was such a deep thought. It was the first time I have ever heard someone say that, and it makes complete sense. Work out that muscle and your problems will be solved!
    Panda: Before
    Panda: After
    When you say “I can” to resisting a cookie, and “I can” to running a 5K race, and “I can” to telling your friends that you don’t want to eat at Greasy Joe’s Rib Shack anymore, it’s just a small leap to being able to say “I can” quit this lousy job and “I can” tell my spouse that I want to be treated better and “I can” follow my dream of becoming an artist. It just bleeds into every part of your life. When you become an “I can” person, every glass becomes half full and life improves exponentially.
    Let me just tell you one more story about someone who has an unbelievable can-do spirit. We had a contestant on The Biggest Loser , Moses, who blew out his knee within the first week of the show. He couldn’t do anything that required being on his feet, which meant no running, no walking—there really was very little that he could do to burn calories. And that was a big problem because, in order to stay on that show, you have to drop pounds each week. The Biggest Loser is all about the weigh-in. Moses also did not want to let down his daughter Kaylee, his partner on the show. But in my opinion, he was done; we were about to eliminate him.
    Moses shadowboxing
    So what does this guy do? Fold? A few weeks before he might have played the victim card and said that it was through no fault of his own that he couldn’t continue. But not this time. This time, he came up with the idea of sitting on the edge of his bed and shadow boxing for 12 hours a day. Some switch in this guy’s mind had flipped, making unbelievable commitment possible. Sweat poured off him in rivers. The bed was soaking wet. He definitely didn’t say, “I can’t.” That’s what most people would say. Here’s what I say: If you want something, you will figure out how to get it, just like the shadow boxer did. Desire leads to bright ideas. Put another way, desperation is the greatest motivator.
    It helps, too, if you start thinking of yourself as someone who is powerful, competent, and capable of extraordinary things. You are!
    To me, one of the most inspiring guys ever was the college basketball coach Jimmy Valvano, who sadly died of cancer at the age of 43. In one motivational speech he gave, Valvano tells the story of how, as a 16-year-old at basketball camp, he heard a pastor he admired say, “The Lord must have loved ordinary people because he made so many of us.” That disheartened Valvano—he had thought he was special! But then the pastor went on to say that, “every single day, in every walk of life, ordinary people accomplish extraordinary things.” That became Valvano’s rallying cry: You don’t have to be some spectacularly talented person with a will of steel to do something remarkable. It’s not extraordinary people who do extraordinary things; it’s ordinary people who do extraordinary things. That can be you. That is you. Just add the word “extra” to your “ordinary” life, and go do something amazing.
    The people I talk about in this book who changed their lives are no different from you. They are ordinary people with ordinary families and ordinary