Lose 10 lbs For Summer

If you’ve ever googled “Lose 10 lbs for summer” before, then you definitely need to hear this:

Get off the internet.

There is no magic plan that will get you to lose the weight and keep it off, there just isn’t. Sexy weight loss plans sell, but they almost always end in failure. Let me guess: you tried this last year didn’t you?

June hits, the weather gets warm, & you start pulling out summer clothes to realize nothing fits the way you want it to. You’re already not looking forward to your planned vacation because you know you won’t feel comfortable in a bathing suit. Every year it feels like “well, there goes another summer” & you wonder if this is just the way life is now.

There has to be a way right?

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over & over again & expecting different results. If extreme methods didn’t work before, they probably won’t work now. Going for a walk isn’t sexy. Doing the same strength workout you did for the past few weeks isn’t flashy. Eating the same lunch isn’t exciting. But it works.

Don’t let the pursuit of temporary excitement distract you from the guaranteed success of consistently & patiently doing the same boring stuff that's worked for hundreds of years.

✅ Move your body consistently.

✅ Eat mostly whole, less-processed foods.

✅ Enjoy your favorite foods in moderation.

✅ Sleep well.

✅ Manage your stress.

✅ Surround yourself with people who build you up.

That’s the blueprint. There are no secrets. And it works 100% of the time. The only way to fail is not being patient enough to stick with it long enough to see results.

When I was a high school math teacher I used to ask my students this question to kick off this one lesson:

Would you rather have a penny doubled every day for a month, or $1 million right now? There’s actually a correct answer.

$1 million dollars sounds way more appealing. How could a penny possibly turn into more than a million dollars in less than a month? And, after 15 days (about halfway through) you are only at around $160. By this point you are thinking you’ve made the wrong decision. But, by day 28 you have $1.3 million and you aren’t even at the end. Day 29 that’s $2.6 million, day 30 $5.2 and by day 31 you’re at $10.4 million. So, what seems like a bad decision after 15 days is an absolutely baller decision after 30. The only way to fail is to quit on day 16.

I’m not saying those middle days won’t feel hard, they will. But you just have to keep showing up. Consistently and however imperfectly you need to. My buddy Steven Davis said it best on this week’s podcast episode:

“The effort is always the standard, not the outcome.”

You can’t expect to be setting a personal record with your fitness everyday or a new low on the scale every day and you shouldn’t try to. There will be limits to how much you can lift or how long you can workout, but there is no limit to the amount of effort you put into what you are capable of doing that day.

We don’t always win, but we can control our part. As long as we’re improving each day, even a little bit, those improvements will stack on top of each other. And, when we stack enough days together, we’ll be way further ahead than if we just took the easy way out at the beginning.

The boring stuff works, it just takes patience.

The entire episode “The Fundamentals Of Training with Steven Davis” covers how to set up, execute & stick with a training program that’s right for you.