3 Days to Bust Any Excuse, 3 Weeks to Easy New Eating Habits, 3 Months to Total Transformation MARIA KANG The material in this book is for informational purposes only and is not intended as a substitute for the advice and care of your physician. As with all new diet and fitness regimens, the nutrition and fitness program described in this book should be followed only after first consulting with your physician to make sure it is appropriate for your individual circumstances. The author and publisher expressly disclaim responsibility for any adverse effects that may result from the use or application of the information contained in this book. Copyright © 2015 by Maria Kang All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Harmony Books, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House LLC, a Penguin Random House Company, New York. www.crownpublishing.com Harmony Books is a registered trademark, and the Circle colophon is a trademark of Random House LLC. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request. ISBN 978-0-553-41967-2 eBook ISBN 978-0-55341968-9 Book design by Rae Ann Spitzenberger Interior photographs by Mike Byerly Cover design by Jess Morphew Cover photograph by James Patrick v3.1 TO MY MOTHER, CAROLINE KANG, FOR BEING MY BEST FRIEND AND INSPIRATION CONTENTS Cover Title Page Copyright Dedication Introduction PART 1 WHAT IT’S ALL ABOUT 1 My Story 2 The Power of Three PART 2 S.P.E.E.D. 3 S.P.E.E.D. Toward Your First Goal S.P.E.E.D. Explained Using S.P.E.E.D. to Realize Your Goals: Some Examples Thoughts Become Reality 4 Get Ready! Get Set! Go! Your Body Composition Your Vital Statistics Your Overall Fitness Level Your Nutritional Baseline 5 The No More Excuses Rules 6 Take Action The Core of Your Workouts Some Core Truths Let’s Talk About Strength Let’s Talk About Cardio Let’s Stretch! Put It All Together Seven Sample Home Workouts 7 The 80 Percent of Your Effort The Truth About Diets The 30/30/30/10 Diet Plan Let’s Talk Calories Meeting Your Caloric Needs Put It All Together Three Meal Plan Options PART 3 S.T.R.I.V.E. 8 S.T.R.I.V.E. Toward Continued Success Troubleshoot Your Struggle Develop a New Strategy 9 What’s Your Excuse? Excuse #1: I Don’t Have Time Excuse #2: Eating Healthy Is So Expensive Excuse #3: I Don’t Have a Gym Excuse #4: I Don’t Have Any Support Excuse #5: I’m Too Tired Excuse #6: I Love Food Too Much Excuse #7: I Don’t Have Good Genetics Excuse #8: I Lack Motivation Excuse #9: I Don’t Know Where to Start 10 Mastering Your S.T.R.I.V.E. Focus on Progress, Not Perfection Some Principles and Some Examples PART 4 S.C.O.R.E. 11 Your New Normal The Road Ahead The Person You Have Become Mistakes You Shouldn’t Make The Maintenance Plan 12 S.C.O.R.E. and Keep Moving Speculate on What Worked for You Celebrate Your New Self Operate from a Position of Strength Rejuvenate, Rest, and Reward Yourself Evaluate Your New Potential Conclusion Acknowledgments Appendix Posture Quiz and Stretches for Better Posture Strength-Training Exercises for Chapter 6 Stretching Exercises for Chapter 6 Grocery List Index INTRODUCTION What’s YOUR EXCUSE for not having the body that you want? Are you unmotivated, tired, or frustrated? Do you lack time, energy, finances, or support? What’s holding you back? What’s preventing you from being healthy, fit, and confident? There are so many different ways to answer those questions. If you’ve been on this roller-coaster ride before, then you know what I’m talking about. You love food. You’re too tired. You lack energy. You have no willpower. You don’t have time—and the list goes on. I know exactly how you feel. But these are excuses. Excuses validate our choices. They let us off the hook and give us permission to fail. While psychologically soothing, excuses limit our ability to create opportunities to progress toward personal health. What if I told you that the only thing standing in the way of you and the body you want is a single excuse? Would you confront it? Would you commit to overcoming it? That’s what this book is about. I want you to bust through these excuses and empower yourself. I want you to rewrite your story and feel empowered to be anybody you want to be. Are your excuses valid? Sure, some of them probably are. Can most excuses be overcome? Absolutely. This book is not about making you feel guilty for how you look, or ashamed of the choices you’ve made. This book is about getting you to a place where you love your life, love your body, and love your health. And in order to feel that way, you have to bust through the excuses that might stand between you and your best body. That’s what we will do together over the course of this program. We will review your excuses, combat them, then attack them. I provide a simple set of rules to follow that will have a revolutionary impact on your ability to achieve your goals. I also present simple and flexible ways for you to understand fitness, nutrition, goal setting, and time management. Not only do I give you some simple workouts and easy recipes that make fitness feasible, but I also offer a maintenance plan for your new normal—the person you become when you’ve taken the path to fitness and good health. After all, it is often harder to stay in shape than it is to get into shape. As a busy working mom of three young sons, who were born in 2009, 2010, and 2011, it wasn’t easy for me to get back into shape. After giving birth to my first son, I gained 35 pounds, my muscles were gone, and my midsection looked like a deflated balloon. Regaining my physical fitness was hard. In fact, it was really hard. There were days when I needed to wake up at the crack of dawn to fit a workout into my schedule. There were days when I was tired or unmotivated, when the last thing I wanted to do was prepare the day’s lunches and dinners so my family and I would have healthy foods at hand. But even when I had no energy or I felt overwhelmed by my responsibilities, I pushed myself to do it anyway. Sure, there were times when I missed workouts, slept in, or splurged on a piece of chocolate cake. But I never gave up. I never lost sight of my goal: getting into the healthiest shape I could. Reaching any lofty goal isn’t going to be easy—and if you think this No More Excuses plan is going to be a cakewalk, then let me tell you right now that it will not be. But setting a goal for your health and achieving it is worth the effort. Whether your aim is to fit into a certain size pants, to eliminate a health risk, or to change your energy level, reaching that goal will make you feel physically, mentally, and spiritually amazing. The first step in realizing your fullest potential is to make a choice. We make a thousand choices every day that either help or hinder us in becoming successful in reaching any weight-loss goals. After all, we know eating fried and sugary foods is unhealthy, we know physical activity is vital, and we know we can really make fitness fit into our lives if we truly want it there. Busting your excuses boils down to figuring out what you really want. Why is this endeavor important to you? It’s important because this is your own path and your own body. This vehicle isn’t going anywhere until you get into the driver’s seat. Once you know your why for wanting to attain your best body, figuring out how to do it becomes easy. You need to identify the reasons that will keep you disciplined in this journey, and then make it your choice to prioritize your goal, no matter what obstacles arise. And obstacles will arise. All of a sudden, it’s pizza night at home. It’s a lunch potluck at work. You feel lack of personal support. You catch a cold or burn the midnight oil working. Your life gets busy, your efforts become half-hearted, and your results—well, there’s not much in the way of results. I have been on this path more times than I can count, but I’m here to tell you that you can break away from that path. I want to help you develop your own No More Excuses plan to take your life to the next level. This book isn’t (just) about how to eat right and exercise. It is also about learning how to achieve the goals you’ve set for yourself, no matter what else is going on in your life. It’s about believing in your abilities and giving yourself permission to succeed. It’s about getting to know YOU: your strengths, your weaknesses, your excuses, and, most of all, your motivation. Motivation is the key principle in this journey. If you examine the lives of those who are in incredibly good shape, you will see an invisible energy constantly pushing them to stay disciplined and train harder. That energy is motivation. They might be motivated because their career depends on their physical body and beauty, as is the case with so many celebrities and models. Or maybe they’re motivated because their personal identity is tied to having a fit body (the way athletes need to be incredibly fit to succeed). For us “normal” people, though, motivation comes from setting higher expectations for ourselves and in believing we can meet those expectations. Over the course of this program, we are going to examine what motivates you, and we are going to clear away the distractions that get in your way. Some of you might want to look amazing in an outfit, or be able to walk confidently into a room without feeling physically insecure. Others might want to get healthier to avoid diseases or escape the torment you felt as a child for being overweight. No matter what motivates you, the first step in achieving your goal is to take action and identify your motivations, whatever they may be, and create a way to hold yourself accountable. This is not about shame or guilt; nobody is going to scold you if you don’t succeed. This is about understanding your motivation, embracing your goals, and realigning your world to succeed. Let me tell you about some of the things that have motivated me. In my early twenties, I feared childbirth would destroy my body. I was a young and athletic personal trainer who won several beauty and fitness contests. At the gym, older women would constantly react to my fit physique by saying, “Wait until you have children.…” So after I gave birth, I was motivated to prove that motherhood didn’t have to change me and I could even make myself better. I created a flexible but disciplined workout and diet plan, executed with persistence and reflected on weekly—and it worked! Another motivation was my desire to feel confident in my skin. In my mid- twenties I struggled with binge eating and I watched my weight balloon. My metabolism was damaged from years of yo-yo dieting, and my weight no longer responded to any diet or exercise program. It was exhausting to run, my clothes didn’t fit, and I was embarrassed to go swimming. I wanted to feel sexy, firm, and fit again. I was motivated to achieve the firm body I’d had in my early twenties and avoid the frustration I felt in being overweight by my mid-twenties. I was motivated by the pleasure of success and the pain of failure. You need to be, too.