My morning went something like this:
8:20 am
My text to Mike: "Tutty, can you please go into the bathroom and send me a pic of your progress? I want to prove that Treat Yourself works for dudes too."
Mike: "Like a shirtless pic? Like a selfie?"
(Haha, I knew right then that he so did not want to do it. But I know in his mind he was battling because he knows I need it for either another book, the blog or work.)
Julie: "Yay! Thank You!"
(Did you notice I jumped the gun. I pushed him over the hump and basically said thanks before his true answer?!)
Mike: "I'll try :P "
Julie: "Awww, thank yooooou!"
Let me clear some things up here- I don't know why I call Mike, Tutty. I started to call him that about two years ago one random day. My family tends to give nicknames out a lot. My dad used to call me "Duddy" so maybe it's a spin off of that, who knows. Also, I was taking a chance with this text. I knew he was at work and today was demolition day at Arcadia University. All the students left for the summer so the special projects crew has to rip apart apartments. Needless to say he is very busy. I also thought he would be very shy about doing this for me, he is never one to boast and he doesn't like attention. Come to think of it, I'm the same way but when you are the only one in the room behind your computer it makes it a little less scary to post on social media. Sometimes you have to let the sweat run while you push "publish". Taking chances is rough sometimes. #truth
Anyway a little while later I received this picture. I apologize if it is a little blurry:
Now, I am going to confess something. Mike and I have being living the "Treat Yourself" life whole-heartedly for about 2.5 months now. We have been trying to do every single thing I wrote in the book to prove that eating right (but also treating yourself from time to time) really works! Since I wanted to capture the true difference, I took a before picture of both of us. Here is his:
Can you see the difference?! I think he looks fabulous! He was at Spartan practice at BAWS Gym the other night and I had all of them run about a half mile outside while holding a medicine ball (that is torture by the way). It was very hot out and at our gym, when people get hot, it is not rare for them to peel off layers. In a respectful manner of course. Off came Mike's shirt and it was so evident all of the work he has been putting forth. At home I notice differences in his body, but that one night at practice, everything was just popping out. I became very excited for him! While he was running past me exhausted with the medicine ball, I exclaimed, "You look AMAZING!" He let out the most dry, exhausted and painful, yet happy, "thanks," I have ever heard.
His numbers: He lost 5lbs, 2.5% body fat and 2 inches in his waist... in 10 weeks!
Ok, so what has he been doing to make such a difference? He has mainly changed the fact that he does not go back for seconds at dinner time. Except for when he asks if he can because he is still hungry. I then ask what he had to eat that day and if it wasn't much, I would say yes. Oh my gosh, I sound like I'm his mom. But for the sake of really getting results, he wanted to do it right and always asked my advice. He also cut down on pasta, rice and potatoes at dinner time. We mainly make a protein and two vegetables. Last night was not the best example, but we had sausage, steak tomatoes and corn. He also cut some calories during lunch time. I make his lunches every night so I did this by using olive oil mayo on his sandwiches instead of regular mayo. He uses A LOT so I'm sure I saved him about 100 cals right there. Also, I put one less slice of cheese and used wraps more than bread. I would always give him a piece of fruit and then one other snack in his lunch as well. That snack would always be a "treat yourself snack," meaning a couple cookies, flavored pretzels, gourmet meats, left over desserts from a special dinner, etc. And lastly I made him eat breakfast every morning. Before he would grab a banana and go. That is entirely too little for his metabolism. I started to make both of us overnight oats the evening before so that when he woke up in the morning he could just grab it out of the fridge and go.
Exercise wise, he added one workout to his weekly schedule. Every Tuesday night he would show up to Spartan practice. That is a tough 45 minutes of work, but other than that his main calorie burn is done during work because he is always walking, lifting or swinging a hammer.
Now, if you really think about it... that is not too much that he changed. What has stayed the same? Every Thursday night he has a couple beers with his buddies. We also always go out to dinner at least one or two times per week and he orders whatever he wants. He eats dessert a couple times per week after dinner too. Last night he had ice cream with chocolate sauce and he still has a can of soda a couple times per week. And finally, he will sneak a mid-morning snack of a 7-11 hot dog once in a while. The bugger. ;)
I asked him if this has been hard for him and his response was, "um... not really." Why has this been such a success for him? The changes have been done in increments so it wasn't a huge change all at once. I think having someone to do it with helps a lot as well. His food was always prepared in advance and he really followed the "Treat Yourself" advice as much as he could. When he knew he shouldn't really eat something, he wouldn't. When he knew he could have a little dessert everyday he would and then he would move on. He didn't obsess over anything and he didn't dwell. He did everything matter-of-fact and I am so so proud of him!
After the wedding Mike and I may or may not have a project in the works for all of you :) Stay tuned!
Random bits:
Mad Max the movie was ridiculously good! I give it 5 stars. I was on the edge of my seat the whole entire time. I highly recommend you see it on the big screen.
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