Hi! I’m Donna Reish, IF teacher, weight loss coach, blogger, and half of “The Minus 220 Pound Pair” as my husband and I have lost over 220 pounds together (160 of that in the past couple of years through the Weight Loss Lifestyle habits and strategies I teach!).
In this episode, I present the many benefits of the First Four—my first steps for weight loss and lasting life changes!
There are many, many steps and stages to weight loss and weight management. To some, there are too many. To others, there are simply a couple—and anyone who says otherwise is making it too complicated.
The truth is that there ARE many steps and stages—but success comes from not doing them all at once. Success comes from incremental changes that last forever. (This is the reason that people who strive for weight loss for a really long time {not stopping and starting and gaining and losing but really keep working at it consistently} eventually reach their goal. Research bears this out.)
So in today’s episode, I want to sell you on the idea of truly implementing the First Four!
1) Drinking water
2) Sleeping 7-9 hours a night
3) Implementing some form of timed eating (a definite start and stop time for food)
4) Deciding ahead of time what you will eat each day
First, I describe what those are (and give you my free First Four Daily Journaling Pages!). Then I go through the many benefits of implementing these as lifestyle changes that will lead to weight loss and eventual weight management.
There are many benefits to the First Four for life in general. Any time we make positive health changes, they have ripple effects. The First Four will impact our self-integrity, our ability to create more success in other areas, and or health and wellness in general.
They also have added benefits of being something we can do easily; something that is before us every morning in a three minute planning time; and something that can ground us when we feel scattered.
For our weight loss efforts, these four go far—water fills us up and flushes out fat and toxins. Sleep…oh, glorious sleep….helps us withstand cravings better, helps us feel rested and energized, helps us to eat fewer calories overall, and diminishes hunger.
Timed eating gives us a definite start and stop time that results in eating less. It is somewhere between an instant gratification and a delayed gratification, which helps people stick to it.
Planning our food types, amounts, and times ahead of time is an amazing help to losing weight. We can plan foods we enjoy. We know what is coming next or soon. We can balance our food for the day to stay within our deficit. And we can plan something for tomorrow that we thought we wanted today but didn’t plan for.
The First Four is the first of many incremental steps that have led to my husband and I losing 220 pounds together and keeping that weight off!
