Drop Two Sizes Read online

  Taking the focus off of the scale and off of the mirror and onto how your clothes fit improves body image because you see the changes happening right before your eyes. A 2011 study conducted at the Technical University of Lisbon in Lisbon, Portugal, was done with 239 women over 12 months working on improving their body image. As the participants improved their body image, eating self-regulation became easier. We have to take a different approach than stepping on the scale, which only results in destructive, negative mind-sets leading to poor body image and making it harder to change habits long term.

  If you’re ready to take a completely different approach—one that has been proven to work over and over again to help hundreds of women—and drop two sizes in 12 weeks, this book is for you! But there’s one catch: You are not allowed to step on a scale. The scale is no longer a valid indicator of whether your body is changing. In fact, it’s one of the primary culprits behind you not reaching your potential physically and mentally.

  This book is laid out as a challenge, not a diet. As you’ll see below, there’s a big difference!

  A Diet

  You go “on” a diet, like a switch, eventually turning “off” the diet.

  A diet is not something you plan to do long term. It is strict, extreme, and meant to get results, not let you have a life.

  You aim for a number on the scale. Once you hit that number, the diet is over.

  It doesn’t matter what you lose, as long as the scale goes down and you hit the “magic number.”

  If you do have a weak moment and go “off” your diet, it usually leads to beating yourself up and a spiral of destructive behaviors as you continue to “blow your diet.”

  A Challenge

  You will change old habits and build new behaviors each day and week until they are part of your daily regimen.

  The challenge may feel tough at first, but after the first 30 days, your new behaviors will become a way of life.

  Your daily routine can be flexible. The first research study to evaluate self-regulation with weight loss and weight maintenance over 2 years, conducted at the Technical University of Lisbon, showed that one of the keys to sustained results is to end emotional eating (the “on” and “off” pattern) and instead allow flexibility to realistically stick to your new lifestyle long-term. You’ll learn about the 90 percent rule and how to enjoy splurging when you choose to.

  The challenge is a kick start to thinking differently about yourself, your weight, your health, and the rest of your life—as the new you.

  Think of this challenge as a journey, like driving from Point A to Point B. At first it may feel familiar, like starting the ignition of your car. The difference is that this time you’ll finally reach your destination. Point B is that glorious moment when you slide on those hot, super-flattering jeans and step out looking and feeling fabulous—for the rest of your life. The key is that the end of this book is not the end of your journey!

  “I can give you solid reasons (excuses) as to why I shouldn’t have committed to Drop Two Sizes: I work full time; I’m getting ready to go back to school; I have four kids and a new puppy; and I recently quit smoking. But now that my jeans fit I know I can do anything I put my mind to. I can’t wait to take on life’s journey at full speed.”

  —LISA OLWELL, DROPPED TWO SIZES IN 8 WEEKS

  When my first book came out, I had already started to use clothes as a measurement for weight loss. I used the phrase “Your Thermometer Jeans,” which told you when you’re hot and when you’re not. I ran the first official Jeans Challenge right after I wrote my first book and watched as every single one of the participants dropped two clothing sizes! I also realized how useless the scale is as a way to measure your weight loss progress. So many faces lit up as women went through the challenge and saw their bodies shrink before their eyes when they fueled their bodies with the right foods and lifted weights. I knew I had something I wanted to share on a broader level. Since then I have taken hundreds of women through the challenge and have landed on some very significant findings.

  YOU WILL SHRINK, EVEN IF THE SCALE DOESN’T BUDGE

  Really? The scale doesn’t move and you shrink? Absolutely. I have tracked the progress of hundreds of women (some of whose stories are featured in this book) and have seen over and over again instances where the scale doesn’t budge—but they dropped two sizes and fit into a whole new wardrobe.

  How can that be? If you have lost muscle from a weight loss program or crash diet in the past, you probably have below-average lean body mass. Your body needs to build muscle to be healthier and, yes, thinner. Because of this, your body will respond to strength training by dramatically increasing your lean muscle in a very short period of time while at the same time losing fat.

  A study done at Queen’s University in Canada tracked 54 women in four groups: Group one dieted and lost weight; group two exercised and lost weight; group three exercised without weight loss; and group four was a weight-stable control. The women who exercised and did not lose weight lost the same amount of fat as the diet group who did lose weight. The difference? The exercise group now had added lean muscle that makes keeping the fat off much easier in the long term, along with being fitter at the end of the study. The study concluded that exercise without weight loss is associated with a substantial reduction in total and abdominal obesity. The numbers on the scale do not have to go down to lose fat and get smaller!

  YOU’LL GET SLIM AND TONED, NOT BULKY

  I used to tell female clients who were afraid of bulking up not to worry about gaining muscle. I’d explain that their bodies wouldn’t gain muscle as easily as a man’s because they didn’t have the same levels of testosterone. But I was wrong: They needed to gain muscle in order to transform their bodies. I would take a client’s body fat percentage. It would often be fairly high, with relatively low muscle (which is probably why they hired a trainer!). As they started the program, their body fat percentage would start to come down, even though the scale wouldn’t budge. This often caused frustration, and I heard many times that women didn’t want to gain muscle. Guess what? Women do gain muscle and, in order to tone up and slim down, they should! In fact, most women have such a low percentage of muscle to begin with that gaining just 10 pounds of muscle will get them up to normal levels, fire up their metabolisms, and help them shed fat to reveal the bodies they want and keep them long-term.

  In a research study in Denmark, 27 participants on a calorie-restricted diet without exercise lost, on average, 19 pounds in 8 weeks, or about 2.38 pounds a week (this is typical of most weight loss programs). Only 68 percent of it was from fat. The other 32 percent was lean muscle mass. For every 13 pounds of fat lost, they also gave up 6 pounds of metabolically active muscle. Extrapolating this out over 12 weeks would mean a loss of 24 pounds total: 16 pounds from fat and almost 8 from muscle. Most women have done more than one calorie-restricted diet in their lifetimes, so multiplying that by two means they have lost 16 pounds of muscle (and that’s only from two diet plans). How many calorie-restricted diets have you embarked on in your lifetime?

  What does this mean? Your goal is to get your lean body mass, or muscle—the very thing you are terrified of building because you don’t want to get too “big and bulky”—to start increasing as fast as possible in order to get your normal metabolism back, which will help transform your body. This is exactly what will happen during this challenge, which is why you are not allowed to watch the scale.

  Clothing size—not the scale—has also been proven as an accurate indicator of your overall health. Research studies in the United Kingdom looked at a number of health markers without looking at the scale and found that women who wear larger clothing sizes (over a size 16) are at an increased risk for health problems such as heart disease, cardiovascular disease, cancer, and diabetes. Clothing size is the new health and fitness indicator, not the scale.

  YOU’LL BE MOTIVATED TO ACHIEVE REAL RESULTS

  If I’m taking your scale away, how wi
ll you know if you’re making progress? You are probably used to starting a diet and watching the pounds melt off on the scale. This is what you’ve been programmed to use as your indicator of progress. As I’ve mentioned previously, it’s also exactly what got you in this situation in the first place—some of those pounds melting off are actually metabolically active muscle. But when nothing else is working, it’s time to do something completely different.

  In general, women need external feedback when it comes to changing our bodies. Now that you know the scale is no longer a useful tool, how else will you see your body’s improvement? You could look in the mirror, but this isn’t an accurate tool either. Most of us look in the mirror and see every flaw, no matter how much weight we’ve actually lost or how toned we’ve become. I see it over and over again. How many of you have “felt” fat at some point in your life, then looked back at pictures and realized you really looked fantastic? At the time you couldn’t celebrate your accomplishment because you were focused on the negative. Research has shown that women who focus on themselves in the mirror can develop a negative body image, and other research confirmed that what women see in the mirror is unrelated to their percentage of body fat (meaning that women with less body fat may see a reflection that they view as having higher amounts).

  The mirror will not work to measure your progress, and neither will the scale. This is why this book is different—and how it will help you finally succeed in creating the body you crave. Your clothes are the best, most accurate measurement of how much your body is changing. Clothes don’t lie. They either fit or they don’t! And you will get smaller and fitter, despite what the scale says or what you see in the mirror.

  YOU’LL NEVER YO-YO DIET AGAIN

  A woman and her 19-year-old daughter joined our program. After a few weeks, the daughter had lost pounds on the scale but the mother had not. Frustrated, the mother wanted to know why her daughter was losing weight but she wasn’t. I asked her how many diets or weight loss programs she’d done in her lifetime, and she replied, “Hundreds. You name it, I’ve done it.” How about the daughter? She had never dieted before; in fact, this was her first time joining an exercise program. She had never gone on a calorie-restricted diet and lost precious muscle mass, only to gain the weight back—while her mom had repeated this cycle, in her words, “hundreds of times” (or at least, quite a few).

  If you think back to what we discussed earlier in this chapter, you’ll realize that losing muscle mass “hundreds of times” adds up to a lot of lean muscle lost and a sluggish metabolism. But as soon as she joined my program, the mom started fueling her body properly and lifting weights, restoring her metabolism and getting fit. It just wasn’t showing up on the scale.

  There is an inverse relationship between the number of diets and weight loss programs a woman has done in her lifetime, and the amount the scale will go down when she starts one of my programs. The more crash diets or weight loss programs you’ve done over your lifetime, the less likely the scale will budge. But that’s okay!

  Research conducted by the Mayo Clinic in May 2011 showed that weight loss does not equal improved body composition—in other words, just because the scale goes down doesn’t mean you have less body fat. Their results showed that improvement in body composition may go undetected in almost one-third of people whose weight remained the same and in one-third of people who gained weight. That’s a lot of people who walked out feeling like they failed because the scale went up or stayed the same, even though their body composition had actually improved. The scale is no longer a valid indicator. Get rid of it!

  In addition, a research study conducted at the University of Nebraska showed that by adding strength training, even with a calorie deficit, you can gain muscle. This study put participants on an 800-calorie-per-day liquid diet (note: I do not recommend this) along with a strength training program, for 90 days. The average weight loss over the 90-day period was 35 pounds, and all of the participants increased their amount of muscle significantly because they included strength training. Adding muscle helped them look more defined as they lost weight, rather than getting smaller—but still flabby. This shows that weight training can increase muscle mass (and therefore boosts metabolism) even during severe energy restriction and large-scale weight loss. Remember: Even if the scale doesn’t budge, you can get smaller and gain muscle at the same time.

  YOU'LL THINK AHEAD, PLAN AHEAD

  Pull out your calendar and look over the next 12 weeks. What do you have coming up? Any vacations? Special events? Anything preplanned that you’ll need to strategize around to be able to commit 100 percent? Mark on your calendar anything you will need to pay special attention to so that you can fully dive into this plan, no matter what the circumstances. Highlight any events you are looking forward to where you can start rocking your new clothes! Visualizing yourself in a hot outfit or with energy to burn will keep you motivated and provide an important benchmark for success.

  The day-by-day road maps beginning are laid out for the entire 12-week challenge. Flip to that section and check it out to get an idea of what you are committing to. Days 1 through 84 are explained in detail so you can mentally prepare. I recommend printing out the Workout Calendar and posting it above your desk or in your kitchen. You’ll start to enjoy seeing all those days crossed off as you get closer to wearing your favorite jeans or dress!

  Each day you will focus on a habit. While I ask you to focus on only one per day, over time, you’ll start to build patterns of positive action. These seemingly small tasks will snowball into a lifetime of healthy behavior—not to mention the ability to wear anything you like! I will include a checklist each day, including actions like:

  Get psyched by visualizing yourself in your skinny jeans.

  Challenge yourself with the workout for that day, whether it is a strength workout, a metabolic workout, an interval workout, or a day off.

  Plan ahead for your meals: Figure out your next 24 hours and pencil in what you plan to eat in your journal.

  YOU'LL COMMIT TO MOVE

  While it’s possible to lose weight without exercising, this plan specifically uses strength training to build lean muscle and transform your body. You will need to move—but I promise, you’ll enjoy it! Now that you have thought through your next 12 weeks, decide realistically how many days a week you can commit to working out. Keep in mind that this plan is designed to be somewhat flexible to fit in with your lifestyle. You must commit to a minimum of 3 days a week to get results, but I strongly recommend you commit to 4 days a week if you can.

  Compared to sedentary women, active women tend to have lower body fat and significantly higher resting metabolic rates. Commit to moving as often as you can while also allowing for recovery. You will have active recovery days, where you will continue to be active in a way that will still allow your body to recover.

  Take a minute to write down this sentence in your journal or post it where you can see it every day:

  “I commit to working out ___ days a week and will do whatever it takes to make that happen.”

  YOU'LL BANISH THE WORD BUT

  One of the biggest challenges many women face is actually the simplest exercise of all: end all negative body-bashing thoughts and excuses. Any time you use the word but you have completely discounted whatever commitment you just made to yourself. For example: “I am going to cook at home this week, but I don’t know if that will work because we have a really busy week.” You put a good intention forth and then took it right back with that pesky word but. BUT stands for Behold the Underlying Truth. Instead, practice using the word and . “I am going to cook at home this week, and we have a really busy week.” Now those two things can coexist. Instead of discounting the good intention, your

  brain recognizes that you need to come up with a solution to the issue of cooking during a busy week.

  Other offenders? Try, kinda, and sorta. Start to catch yourself anytime you use one of these words. All you’re doing is giving
yourself an excuse and undermining your progress. “I’ll try to get to the gym three times this week.” How about you will ? Start to change your patterns and soon it’ll become easier to stay on track.

  When I ask, “Are you following the nutrition rules and menus from the plan”? I often hear, “Most of the time.” What I have consistently seen is that when a client says “most of the time,” she is following my advice about 70 percent of the time. Now, 70 percent may feel like “most of the time,” but the truth is that it’s not enough to see results. This means it is time to bump up your efforts to achieve 90 percent—or “almost all of the time.” It’s that extra effort that will make all the difference.

  YOU'LL TAKE THE VOW

  A 12-week study conducted at Florida State University in 2011 with 109 overweight participants looked at the consequences of focusing on the goals they were working to achieve for the entire 12 weeks, compared to a group who focused on the progress they had already made while pursuing a weight loss goal. The group who focused on their goals was twice as successful. They reported higher levels of commitment to their goals and ultimately lost more weight.

  Pull out the pair of jeans or the cute little black dress you are going to work toward fitting into and hang it somewhere within easy reach. Imagine yourself getting into it without a struggle. Now, take a “before” picture of yourself. As you’ll see in so many of the inspiring stories in this book, a photo truly can say a thousand words—and you’ll be happily surprised when you reach your goal and have the evidence to prove it! After you take the picture, sit down with the following words and say them out loud: