Recently, I had a 62-year-old guy reach out to me and tell me...
"I need to lose 50 pounds...Quick!"
His tone of voice and the determined look in eyes had me convinced that he was serious about making a change.
He went on to tell me about his recent diagnosis of type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, and a herniated disc in his back.
Basically, he was a mess.
"I think it's great you want to work on getting your health back" I told him.
"But I'm curious, what happens after you lose the 50 pounds?"
"Well, umm, I guess I'd need to figure out how to keep it off." He said.
"Have you ever lost weight and gained it back before?" I asked.
"Yeah, many times. So I guess that's a problem I definitely need to figure out."
"Yeah, that makes sense" I replied.
"What have you done in the past to lose weight?" I asked.
"Well, I lost about 50 pounds when I did MediFast about 10 years ago" he told me.
(If you don't know what mediFast is, it's a program where you basically drink ONLY meal replacement shakes for multiple weeks at a time.)
He continued, "I also lost a lot of weight when I did Keto."
"Okay, gotcha" I said.
"Well, let's see what we can do to help you get some great results...but also KEEP those results."
This conversation is pretty normal in my world.
With so many men over 40 struggling with their health, I find that most of them have "tried stuff before, got results, but couldn't hang on.
Is it lack of willpower?
Is it a lack of motivation?
Is it laziness?
In some cases...maybe.
But most guys I talk to simply went down the wrong path.
Guys are problem solvers.
And when they have a problem, they seek out answers.
Which is great on the surface, but the problem is we tend to put less thought and consideration into solving the big problems in our lives because Google, Youtube, and AI is more than happy to do much of the thinking for us.
They'll instantly serve up loads of information that has been bought and paid for by advertisers and deliver it right into your brain.
And when you see that article, website, or social media post telling you it's possible to lose 50 pounds in 8 weeks...And it's backed up with thousands of testimonials showing that it works...
It's super easy to go all-in, pay the money, and get started.
Problem solved, right?
Little did you know, though.
You were tricked.
Advertisers are playing into your First order thinking brain.
First order thinking is best described as making a decision without putting much thought into the future consequences of your decision.
It's the quick and easy decision that seems good right now.
Much like the gentleman I referenced in the beginning of this email who jumped into mediFast.
It definitely worked...Or did it?
The long game was never considered.
He certainly wasn't going to live on shakes for the rest of his life.
The secondary cost of his decision was that he possibly hurt his health and crashed his metabolism, despite losing the weight.
He also wasted his time, energy, and money doing something that was destined to fail.
There is a much better way to approach these complicated problems. (Building health is a complicated problem..but has a fairly simple solution. Watch this to learn more)
I'm referencing a tactic that very successful people use to achieve amazing results in many different areas of life.
It's a way of thinking through problems using "Second order thinking".
Second order thinking is working from the future to make smart decisions today.
Basically, it's envisioning the future results you'd like to see and then doing some thoughtful consideration about what you should start doing now to manifest that future.
In other words, if you want to be 50# lighter, have a strong back, and reverse your type 2 diabetes, a thoughtful decision right now might be something like taking daily walks and cutting down your consumption of Coca Cola.
Will this get you 50 pounds lighter in 8 weeks...probably not.
But these are very reasonable habits for someone who LIVES the life of a healthy, fit person.
Second order thinking requires more thought, more consideration, and more time, but it's the BEST way to change your life rather than just your next 8 weeks.
