 What is up, everybody? This is Chris from the Rewired Soul, where we talk about the problem, but focus on the solution. And if you're new to my channel, my channel is all about mental health. So if you would like to join me on this journey of trying to improve your mental and emotional wellbeing, make sure you subscribe and ring that notification bell. Two things. First one I'll tell you before it happens. But my beautiful, lovely girlfriend Tristan is sick and she's relaxing on the couch with her tissues and medicine. So if you hear some coughing or sneezing in the background, just send her well wishes, all right? You can even send a Get Well Soon card if you would like. Or leave a comment. She'll go through them, won't you? Yeah, she will. Second thing. I just wanted to send out a big thank you to everybody who has been subscribing to the new channel and supporting that channel. Over there, I'm doing more commentary, trying to see what we can learn from people in the YouTube community and everything like that. We are about to hit 750 subscribers and I just started the channel this month. So thank you for all of your support. All right, but anyways, I wanted to talk a little bit about my weight loss. A lot of you who follow me on Instagram and Twitter, you've seen me give updates about the progress over on Instagram. I've been hopping on and doing stories just about challenges, successes, things I've been trying. And as far as like mental and emotional wellbeing, like obviously a lot of it's tied into our physical appearance. I've been a bigger dude my entire life but I've learned to love myself, right? But a couple of things, two major things. Like, one of the reasons I'm working on my health is because I wanna be around for, you know, not only my beautiful girlfriend Tristan but also my amazing son, you know, my friends and family, right? I am at an unhealthy weight and even though I've been sober for over seven and a half years, like over 150 pounds, back at my highest, 200 pounds was put on during my drug addiction. It's been seven and a half years and I keep going through these diet exercise cycles which I fall off of, you know what I mean? So it's something I've struggled with for a long time but the second major thing is eating better, exercising, all these things are one of the key components to improving your mental health, right? Something I've done to motivate myself to go to the gym is this helps with depression and anxiety. There is scientific evidence that this stuff helps, okay? I'm gonna talk a little bit about, you know, exercising everything in a little bit but I wanna talk about three main things that have been helping me which might help you if you're on a weight loss journey like I said in the title, I'm down 20 pounds so I just wanna talk a little bit about what I've done. Maybe it can help you too, all right? So the first thing I've done, I have a love-hate relationship with the app, My Fitness Pal, some of you are familiar with it. Basically, for those of you who don't know, it's an app where you log in like, you know, your foods and everything and then you can also add your friends on there and you know, there's like weight updates and everything like that. The main reason I use it is so I can be more mindful of what I'm eating, okay? So like, I'm an eyeballer, I'm like, ah, this is probably X amount of calories, this is probably X amount of calories, do do do do, right? But when I'm forced to put everything in there, I really get to look at it, right? And I look at like, oh man, Chris, you kind of spoiled yourself at breakfast, eat a smaller lunch, you know, you know you're cooking this for dinner or like last night we went out to eat with my son and Tristan's little cousin and everything like that. So like, logging in my calories, I can look at that and then like when we went out to eat a lot of restaurants have the calories and everything but real quick to make it very clear, we hardly ever, ever, ever, ever eat out, all right? Like maybe once or twice a month, what do you think Tristan? Like maybe once or twice a month on a good month, right? We went to Los Angeles a couple of weeks ago and if I'm being honest, completely fell off the diet there but when I got back, I got back on track, which is huge for me because I'm the type of person, this is one of the reasons why I can't do drugs or alcohol again. When I fall off, I just get a case of the screw-its and I just keep doing it, right? That's been one of the issues in the past. Like I'll start a diet like an idiot right before like Thanksgiving and Christmas, you know? But anyways, with logging the calories, two things, one of them is about every other week, I reduce my calorie intake by about 100 calories. So I'm a bigger dude and I started out at about 2,700 calories, then I jumped it down pretty quick to 2,500 calories and now it's down to 2,300 calories, all right? And I forgot to mention this at the beginning but my goal by the end of 2020 is to lose 50 pounds and even then I'll still be overweight but I think it's achievable when you're this big, you just shed those pounds off, baby, all right? So by the way, if you're a smaller person, don't be upset if you don't lose weight the way my big self is losing weight, it is easier to lose weight when you're this big, okay? But anyways, I forced myself to put in the calories. Like there's so many times when I'm like, whatever, I don't feel like doing it but then I will take all the ingredients, I'll add it up, you know, just to make sure I stay disciplined and stay in the habit. Also, I've been tracking my water, you're supposed to drink like a gallon a day. I don't think there's been one day when I've drank a gallon but as Tristan can attest, I used to drink no water, okay? Like my water intake was whatever water was mixed in with the coffee. So on a good day, I'll drink like, I don't know, 100 something ounces, right? But usually I'm between like 60 and 80 ounces which is a little bit less than a gallon, something like that. I think a gallon's like 140, 150. Who cares, all right? This video is going way longer than I thought. Next, I read a book, it's a short book. I heard it recommended, I think from a Freakonomics, yeah, Freakonomics book. This book is called The Shangri-La Diet, right? And I was really interested in it because as many of you know, I'm into psychology and this was a psychologist who found a weight loss plan for him and anytime I see something called The Blank Diet, I'm like, eh, right? So I started reading it, the method sounds insane but the science he uses to back it up makes sense. Basically it is using sugar water and tasteless oil like extra light olive oil to decrease your appetite, right? And I started reading this book on a day when I ate a decent amount of calories like for that time of day and I found myself starving. So I started doing it, I started playing around with it. It says to like adjust like, you know, how many tablespoons of oil you're drinking or how much sugar water you're drinking. I had some tips in that book and for the first few days I definitely noticed what it really helped me with which I stopped doing and I need to do it again was taking a tablespoon of that olive oil before I go to bed because I'm a night eater and I haven't done it this last week and I've caught myself night eating again, which is terrible. So if you want you can check it out but to be honest it's been a couple of weeks, two to three weeks and it's hard to explain. It's hard to explain how this diet works but basically you're supposed to do it like an hour before you eat. A lot of it has to do with flavor profiles and like it's kind of tricky because say I'm like really, really hungry and then I'll be like, okay, I'll have a tablespoon of oil or some of this sugar water but I'm like already really hungry. You know what I mean? So you can check out the book if you want to. There's a ton of blogs and everything like that. I think it's helped curb some of my appetite but the last thing I'll talk about is mindful eating. Okay, mindfulness has been a theme throughout this video but mindful eating. So I am, one of my subscribers related this to Kirby the Nintendo character, we're just inhale stuff. That's kind of how I ate. I just shovel it in, right? So what I'm trying to do is practice more mindful eating which is slowing down, right? Slowing down, really observing the smells, the taste, the textures, you know, the craving for more because I've realized a lot with my eating. I want more of the taste rather than needing more to be full. So I've been really like trying to cut down my portion sizes and then sit there and be mindful and see like, am I still hungry? And that answer is no. You know what I mean? And that answer is no a lot sooner than my brain tells me it is, if that makes sense. So it's all about slowing down. And if you want to try that, they suggest like at every meal just take like three or four really like mindful bites, right? Like you take a bite, like you smell it, put it in your mouth, just see how your mind and your body, your mouth salivating, reacts to it, chew it, swallow it, and then be really mindful of how it goes down in your stomach, how you're feeling, are you craving more because you're hungry or you just want the taste. And just do that for like three or four bites and set your fork or whatever it is down in between bites. Cause a lot of us take a bite, we hang on to it before we're even done chewing. We're just, you know, so slowing down has really helped me a lot. But I got back into mindful eating because I reread this book called The Craving Mind, one of my favorite books. When the Shangri-La diet wasn't doing as well, curbing my diet, I'm like, wait a second. This is supposed to help suppress your appetite. But if I just slow down eating, that'll help. You know what I mean? So the last thing I wanna talk about is exercise. For January, and like the beginning of February, I was doing really good going to the gym at least three to four times a week, either like mainly for cardio. Like I would do like 30 minutes on the treadmill, the elliptical, I'd get a little bit more of a workout. But I haven't been going and a lot of it is like, you see me do a lot about work-life balance and everything. I've kind of been prioritizing working instead of going to the gym, right? So like in the morning before I go to my full-time job, I'll like make a video or I'll write some articles or I'll do whatever it is, right? So my goal is to carve out 30 minutes to get my butt in the gym like I was. You know what I mean? But anyways, if you have any weight loss tips, anything that works for you, let me know down in the comments and make sure you leave a comment because I'm starting something new and it starts right now. So what I'm gonna start doing is at the end of the video, I'm gonna read a comment from the last video that I really liked. So the last video was about 30, it was 30 reasons that survivors don't speak up or go to the police, right? But anyways, I really like this one. All right, it's from Scar Stains and it says, this inspired me to enter a CSA, Child S Abuse Support Group. Sorry for that, but YouTube has been demonetizing the heck out of me. Thank you so much. I absolutely love this. Like, my channel isn't here to fix you. I don't know all the answers. I barely, you know, sometimes I'm barely holding myself together. My goal with these videos is to get you to do something, not everything, just do something. So I love this Scar Stains was like, this inspired me to go to a support group. Like, that's dope. Like, one of the biggest things is that we feel so alone in our struggles. So just go out there and find a group. You can find them online too. Ton of Facebook groups just do a little little quick Google search, whatever you're struggling with, whether it's depression, anxiety, trauma, whatever it is, go get you a support group, baby. I also encourage, you know, therapy, sometimes medications and all that kind of stuff, all right? So thank you, Scar Stains, for leaving that comment. All right, but anyways, like I said, down in the comments below, if you have any amazing weight loss tips that you wanna share with me, let me know, okay? But if you liked this video, please give it a thumbs up. If you're new, make sure you subscribe and ring that notification bell. And thank you everybody who's been subscribing to the new channel. It is, I think, up there, maybe, or up there. It's somewhere, click on it, go subscribe. I do a little bit more commentary type stuff. But thanks to all my patrons. Thanks to everybody who buys my books. Thanks to everybody who buys merch from the merch store. You're all awesome and I'll see you next time.