In One Year …. You Need to Know THIS about the Eclipse

In ONE YEAR… You need to know THIS.

(Herein lies an important message for the Eat Like a Bear community and the whole world. 🙂 Thank you for putting up with this entire extraordinary and very long story.)

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Have you seen the success in weight loss we have here at Eat Like a Bear?

Our eating is specific and on-point, but the secret to the success of our community lies right here in this story.

In fact, we’re about the blow the lid off our own community’s success rate!

You’re going to want to hear this!!!

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As some background, our secret is all about how we set our goals and how we pursue them. We call it the “Big Goal” in weight loss. It’s not about our weight on the scale or the size of our pants. It’s not about what we’re going to look like.

What we’ve looked like never did really matter and never did touch our hearts. That’s pretty clear to me.

Our Big Goal IS about what we will be doing one year from now when we are out living our most vibrant lives.

I urge everyone to find a Big Goal that touches your heart. Picture the sights and aromas that go with it. Imagine the complete physical experience of your goal and stay focused on THAT. Start living in it today.

I spoke about the Big Goal on Spectrum News in Los Angeles a couple of months back. I’ll embed that right here for the curious. (This copy was recorded with an iPhone of the TV footage. Spectrum was on a skeleton crew during the holiday and never posted this clip in social.)

I also recently wrote about the very beginnings of my own Big Goal in the story about the Ozark Gravel Road (here — CLICK!).

Weight Loss Secret Found on Ozark Gravel Road

Back in 2017 at my high weight, my own Big Goal was to hike with my kids. I could see giant sequoia trees from my window in California’s Giant Sequoia National Monument but I was limping around the house with an injured knee at 280 pounds.

That was my starting place.

I could picture my Big Goal and I was ready to fight for it.

I had missed quite a bit of life at that high weight including what I call “the Wyoming crickets.” This story is all about the crickets in Wyoming during the total solar eclipse in August 2017 and the very beginnings of the Eat Like a Bear community.

The Wyoming Crickets of the 2017 Eclipse

In the minutes before totality in the August 21, 2017 total solar eclipse, as the earth was going dark in the minutes before the moon completely covered the sun, I stood with my family on a grassy field in Douglas, Wyoming. My 15-year-old son announced that he would leave the group quickly to go out into a larger open field.

He wanted to see what was happening in that field.

He hurried off.

My spirit of adventure would normally have me running out into that field with my son, but I was still limping in August 2017, weighing in at 260 pounds, down 20 pounds from my high weight of 280.

I was so desperate to lose weight that I had gone through approval for bariatric surgery and was determined to have it in January, in about four months from that eclipse date. (A surgery I would never have and no longer qualify for…)

As my teenage son reported back, in the minutes before totality, that Wyoming field was filled with crickets jumping and chirping. The crickets quieted to silence in the two minutes that the moon completely covered the sun.

I did not see the crickets but I cherished the story and I was grateful that I was able to spend two minutes standing under that moon and sun, holding the hands of my children as we watched the sun’s corona dance around the moon.

Our entire group was silent.

Tears streamed down my cheeks in those moments, a connection with nature too incredible to communicate.

New Beginnings

They say that an eclipse is a time of new beginnings and an opportunity to set new goals and intentions.

For two minutes in Wyoming, my whole heart was determined never to miss the moments of running out into those fields with my children and those chirping crickets.

I was determined to return home and get a whole lot of weight off my injured and over-burdened knees.

Before Returning Home: The 2024 Eclipse Concept

The entire eclipse experience was so impactful for us there in Wyoming that we discussed what we would do in 2024 for the next total solar eclipse.

On April 8, 2024 a total eclipse would be observable across a large path in America’s heartland, from south Texas up into Maine. Our Wyoming group had ideas about where to go and what to do, but inspired by my son’s experience with the crickets, I offered this idea:

“Let’s take the next six years to identify the best natural place on the planet to view the eclipse, one that offers a diversity of geographic features. Let’s invite all of the cool people we know — all of our friends and family.

“We will form a large group but then break off into distinct little locations that may offer unique experiences. A few people in our group might want to view the eclipse near a creek, some in a meadow, others with cattle or horses.

“We will break off to view the eclipse and then gather back together afterwards to share our unique viewing stories.”

At that time, I imagined that we would be inviting a couple dozen people to camp with us on BLM land somewhere south of Missouri.

Leaving Wyoming in 2017

We dispersed after that August day, heading back to our various homes. My little crew of four (my husband, two kids, and me) drove home through Yellowstone National Park on August 23, 2017.

I will never forget the date because we happened to take a photo that perhaps you’ve seen.

I have really very few “before” photos. This particular photo exists because I was trying to be a good sport of a mom, taking a photo with my son in his excitement at visiting the 45th parallel on the northern edge of Yellowstone National Park.

Our arms are out-stretched because we imagined that we were each standing on a different side of that 45th parallel line — the line that marks the half-way point from the equator to the north pole.

Had I imagined that over 5 million people would see the photo, I am certain I would have never taken it.

This Yellowstone photo is the “before” photo in the 2018 Facebook video “A Postcard from Yellowstone,” the video through which many community members have found the Eat Like a Bear community.

All of this happened way back before I had any idea I’d ever lose this much weight, much less be leading a weight loss community that would spring up around my story.

Yes, this is Quite a Before/After Eclipse Photo!

To cut through a whole lot of the story (because most of you reading know this), here’s a cheat sheet:

• I lost 140 pounds (!?!?!!)
• A community formed around my story (!!?!) (Read the origin story here.)
• I had not planned to lead a weight loss community **ever** and wondered what my message should be. I was deep in thought on that question during a cross-country road trip in August 2018, when we re-created that 2017 Yellowstone photo. The “after” photo had me completely emotional. On the drive home I stopped at a Utah thrift store to collect my head and, instead, I ran into a woman who looked just like I did the year before. I returned home and made the video “A Postcard from Yellowstone,” which would become the most impactful video in weight loss in social media. (Read the Postcard from Yellowstone story here.)
• The community grew through friends and family referrals, in a slow viral way. (Read about the virality here.)
• We began to count our “Century Bears” — people who lost at least 100 pounds since finding Eat Like a Bear. By May 2021, we hit the 100 Century Bear mark and surprised our 100th, Sondra, on her doorsteps north of Orlando. (Read about that here.)
• We’ve since been featured on 8 magazine covers and 7 news segments. (!?!!)
• Meta itself has recognized the impact of the video “A Postcard from Yellowstone.” (!!?!)

This is Meta’s feature:

Setting Your Intention is Apparently a Powerful Thing

I stood under that eclipsed sun in 2017 and set my intention to return home and change my life.

I would get out and hike with my family.

I would never miss the crickets again.

Six years later, I am more physically capable these days than I have been in many years.

That is amazing!

I set my sights well into the future, into my life one year hence: out hiking, taking in the vivid colors and textures of the forest, taking in the aroma of pine and cedar, feeling the sweat and dirt on my brow.

I stayed focused on that goal and continued to measure my own progress in weight loss by this question: “If I stay focused and lose more weight, could I hike better?” That question and focus landed me at my lowest weight as an adult.

Your Life in One Year

As you read this, I challenge you with this question: What will you be doing one year from now, living your most vibrant life?

That is your own Big Goal and I want you to set it this week.

I want you to picture what you will be doing in April of 2024.

I want everyone in the Eat Like a Bear community to focus on April 2024 and what you will be doing in your new life.

That is your first assignment.

Make your goal big and bold and life-changing.

Picture it right now.

You’re setting that goal today, whenever it is that you find this story, and then you’re going to start living in that goal right now and start making it happen.

All of those little daily decisions that are so difficult and that have also landed you at a high weight? Those decisions are much easier when you keep your mind focused on your Big Goal.

If your goal is to hike and you can only limp, your assignment is to limp around a trailhead and picture your life in one year.

Take in all of the amazing sights, sounds, and aromas that nature has to offer.

Take in the point that nature welcomes you wherever you are and however you come.

Take that in and live in that with all of the rest of us, all year long as we prepare for April 2024.

Because…. in April 2024 I will have another important assignment for you.

Along the way…

Yes, in all of these months leading to April 2024 you may have a series of little goals and check-points that keep you on track along the way. You can lean into our Ridiculously Big eating model that has a huge amount of social proof behind it. It’s even an extremely frugal way of eating, so you can save your coin in the next year and use it for gas money to get to the eclipse. 🙂

What on Earth? The 2024 Total Solar Eclipse

If you’ve gotten this far, you might remember that I had a second intention in August 2017: To find the best place on the planet to view the 2024 eclipse and to invite all of the cool people I know.

What I could have never imagined is how large my friends and family network would grow in those six years and the potential many of us would have to change our lives in 2024.

Consider this question: If one little person could stand under the 2017 eclipse, change her life, and thousands of people could follow that same life-changing path, what might happen if thousands of people observe the 2024 eclipse together, all setting our intentions for ourselves and for each other???

What if we break off into little clusters, noting all of the wonders that nature has given us, and we gather back to report our stories?

What might happen?

I have no idea what might happen, but I am determined to find out!

Here’s what I do know: Each of us has time in the next year to make sure we don’t miss the crickets of 2024, wherever they may be.

That is my own goal for our entire community and I am putting a whole lot of chips on the table right now. Most of my time in the next twelve months leading this community will be focused on this community-wide goal.

Where on Earth? The 2024 Total Solar Eclipse

The band of totality for the 2024 eclipse, which will stretch from southern Mexico to Texas, Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Vermont, and Maine, will be geographically accessible to well over half of the Eat Like a Bear community, within a day’s drive or less.

Some people like me in California will travel a good bit longer to make it into the band of totality.

Anyone who can get to that band of totality should do so, wherever that may be, however we can each work it out.

Do it for yourself and do it for this community, because I’m going to have a second assignment for you on April 8, 2024, wherever it is that you are on the planet.

(Your first assignment is your Big Goal and I think you already have an idea what your second assignment is going to be.)

Where am I going to be on April 8, 2024???

Where will be in international headquarters of the 2024 eclipse?

Where is the very best place on planet earth to view the 2024 total solar eclipse?

It’s time to save the date and to work on your first assignment. You’re about to get an invitation….

Watch LIVE April 5 at 9 am Pacific, 11 am Central:

(Update) The Buffalo National River Watershed

Today, April 5, 2023, I invited the entire Eat Like a Bear community to join me in the Buffalo River Watershed in the Ozark Mountains of Arkansas.

Why is this the best place on the planet to view the eclipse?

The diversity of natural micro-climates? Yes.

The dark sky? Yes.

The symbolic nature of a river showing us a path forward? Yes.

The symbolic nature of American folk culture, of returning to the core values of hard work and independence? Yes.

Yes, it’s all of those things, all bundled up in one symbolic location in the heartland, the Buffalo National River.

Today marks the beginning of the Year of the River at Eat Like a Bear, as we all work on our path forward.

The biggest question I get in this announcement is about the chance of cloud cover. I have an important message on that point.

The Ozarks offer as low a chance of clouds anywhere in the United States, albeit in a season of clouds. It is true that seeing the sun’s corona dancing around the moon is super-cool and we should all try to experience it.

However, our community is thinking about April 8, 2024 a bit differently than most.

All of our community’s resources in the next twelve months are focused on each of us reaching our own individual Big Goals for 2024.

At Eat Like a Bear, your “Big Goal” is what you will be doing in a year from now, as you’re out living your most vibrant life. It’s not what you’re going to look like, your weight on the scale, or the size of your pants. Those typical sorts of weight loss goals simply don’t touch in a deep enough place to keep us focused on making daily good decisions for a year or more.

Yes, we lose weight, but we also lose canes and walkers and crippling arthritic pain.

There is just some real serious inspiration coming out of our community and we’re about to completely crush the next 12 months, each of us focused on our Big Goal for April 2024.

You will see us hit the Ozarks in the first days of April of 2024 to celebrate our achievements together.

The sun’s corona will be a mere bonus.