The RED DOT and Living Our Best
We do weight loss really well here at Eat Like a Bear — really very well.
If you poke around this website and into our community, the social proof of our success in weight loss may be unmatched. I don’t spend much time defending it or comparing, because the evidence around here speaks for itself. We measure our overall community success in pretty bold ways, such as our count of our “Century Bears” (people who have lost 100+ pounds since finding us.) As of December 2022, we have 188 Century Bears. 🙂
(I will add some social proof to the bottom of this page in case you’ve missed it, but keep reading for now.)
This is a way of eating that can be done on super-low budget and is completely accessible to anyone out there.
But weight loss is merely one goal.
Let’s look at weight loss itself. Picture the goal on a scale, basically from big pants to smaller pants.
If you want to be able to fit in your pants, we very likely are your go-to community.
The Three-Day Challenge has driven MASSIVE amounts of success in this goal. If you’ve been around the community for a while, you’ve likely already done the challenge. (Find it here regardless.)
The fact is, I KNOW you can achieve this first goal. We have a huge amount of evidence that what we eat for weight loss here at Eat Like a Bear is on point.
(The social proof below represents thousands of success cases in our few short years as a community.)
However, there is a second dimension that is important for our longer-range goals — what I describe as our own “internal battle.”
You know that voice inside telling you “it’s just one doughnut,” “just eat it because you know you will anyway,” etc?
And then you just fight and fight until you either eat it or you don’t.
If you don’t your pants still fit, but you end up all bruised and bloodied from the fight, figuratively speaking. If you eat it, your pants get all tight, you are bruised and bloodied AND you’re likely feeling some level of remorse and shame.
You can’t win either way and that battle makes it very difficult to live your most vibrant life.
As for the internal battle — that’s actually yourself in there — a part of you — and you need to work at getting right with that part of you.
It is a universal battle we all share.
It’s an internal battle, a constant negotiation with your self. To win the battle so that you can live your best, is the negotiation of your life.
In my case back in the fall of 2017 and into 2018, as I lost 140 pounds and got to my lowest adult weight, I was winning that internal negotiation for the first time in my life, applying strategy that I had simply never considered applying before. Those skills have brought me here, nearly five years into maintenance, even despite many challenging circumstances in my own life.
What I eat has been critical, but it is the strategy that wins the long game.
Consider that along the way, in working on the “pant size problem,” each of us need to work on this other core dimension — developing strategies to help us move toward that internal peace that will help us live our most vibrant lives.
The Two Dimensions and The Red Dot
Put these two dimensions together and we find the world of “the red dot.”
In the world of the red dot, we are in constant battle with ourselves and our daily decisions AND our pants are too tight.
(I can’t imagine any of us know about that….)
We might lose the weight and stay fairly embattled, working our way into that yellow dot area. Our pants fit better. Our pants are smaller. But the battle continues and when a bad day hits, we are highly likely to ricochet right back into that red dot area.
We all need to be working toward that green dot. I am just introducing the concept here — quiet that battle inside of you about eating the proverbial doughnut.
Quieting the Internal Battle
How do we quiet that internal fight? I expect that’s where my trained expertise comes into play.
Can you learn something from me about your own internal negotiation?
Probably so.
My Ph.D. is in political science and, more specifically, in social choice theory and strategy. It took decades for me to apply my academic training to my pants size, but I did so and ended up in quite the place, living better than I’ve been able to (really, ever).
As a social scientist with no medical training, don’t look to me for a prescription for one of these new weight loss medications.
But you probably do want to look right here for leadership on this key point of losing weight AND quieting that internal battle.
It all comes down to what my sister said to me in early 2022 (somewhat famously now). She had gained some COVID pounds and then was facing some weight-positive medications. I pointed out that she really didn’t have that many extra pounds.
She exclaimed: “I’m sick and tired of always worrying about being fat!!!”
The pounds were not really her core problem. It was the worry.
It was that internal battle that has dogged her for nearly as long as we’ve been sisters. That’s the stuff of “the red dot” and “the yellow dot.”
Living Your Most Vibrant Life
I encourage you to make a longer-range goal for yourself, and that is not only to get to a weight that will support you living your best and most vibrant life, but to get to that goal in a way that quiets your internal battle with food.
As you dig in to all of these materials here, you might want to know about something I do on purpose around here leading this community. I design the community’s content around maximizing us all living our most vibrant lives (as represented here by that green dot).
The free content I put in social media videos is designed to this end. As people consume that content, most people focus on the “what to eat” message, and that is important to be sure. However, the psychology content is also critical as we seek to move from that red dot to that green dot. So, as you enter the Three-Day Challenge, I do recommend that you take some time to make use of the additional content.
There is also premium content I have designed that takes you much deeper.
I designed the Big Bear Blueprint course to teach the “what to eat and when” message in the context of implementation psychology.
It’s the course we all needed years ago when this community got started. It is the course that would have most definitely made my own path easier.
—–>Lean into the Big Bear Blueprint and get out of that red zone for good! (CLICK!) <——–
But, again, let’s focus first on the “what to eat and when” questions.
If you’re just getting started, start with the Three-Day Challenge (here). It’s completely free. It can be done on a budget (as can all of this). It is by email and you can unsubscribe at any time.
The Three-Day Challenge is designed to help you dive in and jump-start your weight loss. That jump start then fuels your path, helping you forge right ahead to your long-term weight loss goal, all along the way living your “Big Goal” and out being awesome.
As you reach snags and that internal battle heats up, I want you to know that is 100% normal. We all go through it. Do not be ashamed by it. Hang tight and lean into the content around here.
The Social Proof I Promised
Do click around and explore the real people in our stories. These may be our top three pieces of evidence to date.
(1) The Century Bears
One measure of our community’s success is our “Century Bear” count. It took less than three years to welcome our 100th. Here’s the photo. (Read about it here.)
(2) Eight National Features
Our community members have been featured eight times in Woman’s World magazine, seven times on the cover. I’m holding all of them in this photo.
(3) Recognized Viral Impact
I was highlighted by Meta (the company that owns Facebook) as a Facebook success story because of the impact of the Eat Like a Bear community as a result of my viral video, “A Postcard from Yellowstone.” There are a lot of viral weight loss videos out there, but the distinction of “A Postcard from Yellowstone” is that it was not just inspirational. It inspired actual weight loss. Here’s Meta’s statement.
Awesome
I started with the 3 day challenge in March of 2022. My thinking was “I can do ANYTHING for 3 days.” I followed the ELAB Facebook page closely and picked up tips and strategies from others there. Along the way the pounds fell away and a new way of thinking about food hitched a ride in my brain. I hit my goal weight a week ago. I think about food differently now. It no longer controls me. I don’t delude myself by thinking that I can go back to my old way of eating. I have learned along the way that I am not a person who can eat anything they want at any time and be a normal weight. I have learned that, for me, food (specifically sugars and simple carbs) is an addictive substance and needs to be treated as such. I love the way I feel now. I love how well my mind works. I love how very happy I feel! I wish I could clearly express how I feel. Happy isn’t a strong enough word. I didn’t think I would ever be a normal weight again, but I am. It is amazing.