The Monster on Your Bathroom Floor

by Phil Kaplan

OPENING NOTE:

On Thursday, July 25, at 7 PM,
I’ll be conducting a 90-minute online seminar
sharing insight about weight loss, betterment,
and health that you’ve never heard before. 

The webinar will open with “the 8 Reasons for Weight Loss Failure.”

REGISTER TO ATEND FOR FREE

You can get the complete list here:

THE 8 REASONS

In this BLOG POST I’ll explain the first of the eight Reasons.

REASON #1:

You Focus on Weight, in Partnership with the Evil Devious Scale!

In most cases, with most things, we cannot establish a blanket determination as to whether the thing is good or bad, benevolent or evil.

Want some examples?

OK.

Alcohol, good or bad?  Hmmm.  Not a simple answer.

Chocolate?

Fire?

Rain?

Sometimes the judgment will come from experience, other times from circumstance.

Whether ice cream, bananas, heat, or cold are good or bad “depends.”

There is one exception.

The object I’m referring to as the exception has several forms. 

It may lie on your bathroom floor with a dial that moves when you step upon it, or it may be digital with 3 digits that respond to your weight under gravity.

There’s also the steel one at the doctor’s office where you slide those metal weights along their calibrated guides to find balance and determine your weight.

Whether it’s made with springs, electronics, or plates and levers, it’s bad. 

Especially if you’re using it to judge the progress of your diet, exercise, or weight loss program.

In this new world of sophistication, AI, and mobile intelligence, the vile unnerving scale can only do one thing. 

Tell you how many pounds you weigh
under gravity
at a given moment in time.

If weight loss is a goal, that’s the last thing you want to assess on a daily basis!

In fact, for most who have been seeking, and struggling, and yo-yoing for years, that nasty evil device is nothing short of a torture apparatus, a heartbreaker, an alluring yet dangerous attraction that will certainly crush your spirit on any given day.

Here’s why.

Your body is made up of water, organic materials (bone, cells, and organs), muscle, and fat. 

The scale cannot distinguish between them.  

In that lies its toxic effect.

If on a Monday, your exercise and diet result in a 2-pound water loss, the “scale experience” is a celebration.  Two pounds have gone away!  It’s the equivalent of a reassuring hug.

And if the following day, Tuesday, you reduce another pound or two, again the scale spirits applaud you.

Wednesday, you skip breakfast, take a walk, and get right on the scale and lo and behold, you seem to be winning!  Another pound lost!

The upset happens later in the week, when you get up on that scale, the source of your recent joy, and the number hasn’t change, or worse yet, you’re heavier!  And so the emotional spiral and turmoil begin.

Here’s what you NEED to know.

The initial weight loss, water loss,
is temporary and meaningless
in the quest for
LONG TERM WEIGHT REDUCTION. 

As the week progresses, a bit of muscle catabolism (the body consuming muscle tissue for fuel) leads to reduction in pounds, but is detrimental to strength, health, function, and metabolism.

Yet, as the body feeds off of its own metabolically active tissue (muscle), the scale brings a smile.

It’s deception.  It’s illusion.

It’s Bad. 

Very bad.

Let’s dig just a bit into physiology and simple science.

A QUICK AND VITAL BURST
OF METABOLIC EDUMACATION

The body is predominantly water, and we are capable of sweating, peeing, or eliminating 4 or 5 pounds of water in a day. 

Sweat, urination, digestive health, sodium, electrolyte balance, use of diuretic drugs and supplements (including caffeine) and stored and released glycogen are all variables contributing to water retention of loss.

When you begin reducing sodium, refined carbohydrates, sugars, and grains, because you’re “eating better,” you’ll quickly lose water which creates the illusion “the diet is working.”

In the first few days of a restrictive diet the scale may show a reduction of 5-7 pounds.

If you continue on a calorie restrictive plan, and you increase caloric burn through walking or aerobic exercise (the generally prescribed weight loss plan by doctors who don’t know any better), you’ll begin to sacrifice lean body mass, and the scale continues to prompt celebration.

You walk, you sweat, you seek momentary fulfillment by stepping on the platform that is now bginning to control your life and emotions, and if your morning walk resulted in "a good sweat," the  scale is now worthless. 

Still, it calls you, and you obey.

You're about to end this destructive relationship once and for all.

The biggest challenge, when you do this “the right way,” reducing “energy disruptors,” consuming frequent nutrient-dense meals, and integrating strategic exercise, the volume of glycogen (stored fuel obtained from “good” dietary carbohydrates) stored as an energy reserve in muscle tissue increases. 

This is good.  It allows for positive adaption, well fueled workouts, brain sharpness, and metabolic power.

Simplified, glycogen is “fuel” stored in the muscles and in the liver.

For every gram of glycogen you hold in tissue, you attract approximately 2.4 grams of water. 

This has no relationship to fat weight, thus when you’re eating well, boosting metabolism, and increasing the body’s fat burning capacity, there are times that your “well-fueled” condition results in greater muscle water density, and when you get on the scale, you glance at the number and feel as if everything went haywire, as if you’re out of control.

Even though, seconds earlier, you were feeling great!

In that phenomenon lies the scale’s evil power.

Because this practical bit of metabolic science is rarely explained to the perpetual dieter, the sense of “I’m losing, I’m losing, oh shoot, I’m gaining” creates emotional turmoil, alterations between hunger and binging, and a repetitive sense of failure.

Here’s ONE MORE THING you need to know. 

That’s what happens. 

To dieters who rely upon the scale.

It’s the pattern that allows diet centers to thrive despite the fact their customers fail!

This isn’t unique to you. 

Reliance upon the scale is the greatest trick of the diet industry. 

The sense that “you failed” leads to abandonment and the flawed conclusion, “the diet worked when I stuck to it.”

It didn't.  Unless by "worked" you mean tricked you by cannabilizing tissue and slowing metabolsm ensuring the next round will be more difficult.

In the diet industry, retention is minimal, recidivism (return after perceived failure) is astronomical.

It’s the only industry that succeeds because it fails!

With the Metabolic Reboot, you will lose fat without loss of lean body mass.  Over the course of the program (7, 21, or 56 days depending upon the version you choose) you will absolutely lose weight . . . even on the scale. 

The global mistake isn’t “weighing yourself,” it’s weighing yourself too often and reacting to the changes.

When you “do it right,” you first notice energy stability.  That’s an indication blood sugar is stabilizing which biochemically allows you to lose fat.  Consistently.

Within a short time your clothes fit differently. 

Other people notice. 

Those are clear indications “it’s working.”

Really working.

The best first exercise, when you begin a Reboot Program, is to weight yourself, once, then take a sledgehammer and smash your scale. 

Weigh yourself again in 7, 10, 14, or 21 days, once, as a gauge, and then stay the course, limiting your weighing to periodic time increments.

“But Phil, I smashed my scale!  How do I weigh myself?”

Three options.   Borrow a friend’s scale, find a public scale (often in grocery stores), or the third option is the best. 

Don’t. 

Just continue to improve, boost metabolism, and love the changes in the way you look and feel.

ADDED NOTES:

1. The Reboot Programs introduce a fail-proof concept called Circadian Nutrition which is ideal for increasing metabolic efficiency as you healthfully coax ongoing fat release.

2. “Doing it the right way” doesn’t demonize any nutrient and doesn’t require an avoidance of carbohydrates. The Circadian plan draws a clear distinction between “natural slow-release carbohydrates” and “energy disrupters” which are to be avoided.  On select days you learn to manipulate (not eliminate) carbs to prompt added fat burning without creating any residual weight gain.

FIND ALL OF THE EIGHT REASONS