Putting Your Weight on Project Status

It will be from your commitment to set a personal standard for yourself – one that says you will not quit and you will not push aside your goals for a trimmer, healthier body – that your success will follow. You must be willing to reach for what you want and reach right now. To e in Project Status means that you do not neglect to take care of yourself first, and now is the time to start doing that.

Take this essential first steps that will help you reach the peak of your effectiveness, and lay the groundwork for constructive, lasting change.

Step 1:
Determine your get-real weight.
Step 2:
Check and record your current weight and waist measurement before you start.
Step 3:
Clear your environment of low-response cost, low-yield foods (they are foods that you just gulp and gain – easily digested, overly convenient, and requiring little or no preparation on your part.

Low-Response Cost, Low-Yield Foods:
1. Invite and promote fast, uncontrollable eating.
2. Need little or no preparation time.
3. Require little chewing or effort to eat. The food slides down your throat, and you barely have to chew it.
4. Melt in your mouth.
5. Can be too easily eaten straight from a package or container.
6. Are highly processed.
7. Are light on nutrition.

Examples of Low-Response Cost, Low-Yield Foods:
1. Cookies, candy, and any high- calorie, sweetened snack foods.
2. Salty foods such as potato chips, pretzels, taco chips, nuts, and other packaged munchies.
3. Sweet rolls, pastries, and doughnuts.
4. Cakes, snack cakes, pies, and other baked sweets.
5. Presweetened, sugary breakfast cereals.
6. White bread, white rolls, white buns – anything that is not whole grain.
7. Crackers that are not whole grain.
8. Cold cuts.
9. Ice cream and high-sugar frozen desserts.
10. Quick-fix prepared foods such as pizza, fried entrées and dinners, and microwaveable sandwiches.
11. Syrups, jams, and jellies.
12. High-fat spreads, peanut utter, and dips.
13. Sugared soft drinks and beverages, including flavored coffees.
14. Alcoholic beverages.
15. Any packaged food in which sugar is listed as one of the first three ingredients.
16. Any food that can be classified as “junk food.”
17. Any food that you habitually binge on.

Step 4:
Stock your kitchen with “high-response cost, high-yield foods” (are foods thus hunger suppressors, meaning they can control and curb your hunger.

High-Response Cost, High-Yield Foods.
1. Take time and effort to fix.
2. Require a great deal of chewing and ingestion energy.
3. Cannot be eaten quickly.
4. Suppress your hunger and curb your cravings.
5. Are not “convenience foods” in any sense of the word.
6. Supply a healthy balance of vitamins, minerals, fiber, and other nutrients.

Examples of High-Response Cost, High-Yield Foods.
1. Poultry, such as chicken and turkey breasts (prepared without skin).
2. Fresh, frozen, or canned seafood (nothing that is breaded, however).
3. Lean cuts of meat.
4. Fresh eggs.
5. Fresh fruits and vegetables. Frozen fine too, since they’ve been chilled immediately after harvesting and may contain more nutrients than fresh produce that has been sitting on the shelf or in your refrigerator. Canned fruits and vegetables are acceptable, but may contain high levels of sodium.
6. Whole grains and cereals such as brown rice, bulgur, oatmeal, rice, barley, an millet.
7. High-fiber cereals. Although a packaged product, these cereals are specially formulated with added fiber-a hunger-suppressing ingredient in high-response cost grains and cereals.
8. Reduced fat or fat-free dairy products such as skim milk, low-fat milk, sugar-free yogurt, and low-fat cheeses.
9. Healthy fats such as olive oil, canola oil, and nuts and seeds. These fats appear to delay hunger and help you feel more satisfied after eating a meal that contains them.

Step 5:
Prioritize exercise into your life.

Step 6:
Create accountability.