Create a plan for controlling your weight that is as unique as you are.

Your goal here is to create a strategy list—a priortized list of strategies you would like to implement in the Designer Way. The first few items in the list are the strategies you might consider implmenting in your first spin.

 Let me guide you through a series of questions that will help you create your strategy list. The questions help you set goals. They help you figure out where you are in your life and where you want to be. In short, they lead you through a process of introspection. The end result of all this hard work is a very personal and practical list of strategies for controlling your weight. And later, as you discover more strategies you would like to try, you can add those to the list too.

You may not consider a strategy list as a real weight loss plan. A typical plan is a detailed set of instructions on what you should do in every situation. That’s the exact opposite of what I mean by a plan.

The chance of anyone following complex plan over any length of time is about the same as me setting a new world record in the marathon and playing the lead in major motion picture—all in the same year. Not likely.

Even if you could create and follow a detailed plan, it would never work because your life is always changing. You will change jobs. Your body will change. Your favorite coffee shop may invent a new irresistible calorie bomb of a dessert. You may have children or your children may leave the nest. You get older. You may get married or divorced. You may move or your neighborhood may change around you. You may get injured or sick. You may heal from an old injury that has been holding you back.

A set plan can never keep up with your life. People think they can fix plans by making them more and more complex to handle more and more situations. But making plans increasingly complex always fails in the end, because a plan can never be as complex as real life.

That’s why the Designer Way will never fail you. It is simple yet always changes. It always responds to what’s happening in your real life as  it unfolds.

Strategy List Interview Questions

It’s time to gather all the information you need to create your strategy list. Please follow these steps:

1.      What is your reason for losing weight? Getting in touch with why you really want to lose weight could be a big help in staying on your diet. See the Why do You Really Want to Stay on Your Diet? strategy for some help.

2.      Decide which threats apply to you. Take a look at the threats again and make a list of those you marked as threatening you. Knowing your most dangerous threats should give you a better idea about which strategies might help you the most.

3.      What is your target daily calorie budget? If you plan to count calories as a strategy, you’ll need to know this information. You’ll also need it to calculate your calorie deficit. See the How Many Calories Can You Eat Each Day? strategy and the Weight-Proof Your Portion Control Safe Zone chapter for help.

4.      What is your target calorie deficit? You’ll need to figure out your calorie deficit before you can run your first spin. It will help you decide how many fewer calories you need to eat and how many more calories more you need to burn, which is information you need to know before you can select which strategies to implement. See the How Much do You Want to Lose in a Spin? strategy for help.

5.      What is your feedback system? You’ll need to know the result of your strategy efforts so you can evaluate their effectiveness at the end of each spin. See the Use Feedback to Control Your Weight strategy for help.

6.      Which areas in your life need a Safe Zone? Perform a slip-up survey in each zone. Figure out how you can make each zone safer for your diet. See the Weight-Proof Your Life chapter for help.

7.      Visualize solutions to your automatic eating scenarios. Confronting any problems you have with automatic eating will help you decide which of the strategies might be useful to you. See the Visualize Your Own Automatic Eating Scenarios strategy for help.

8.      How extreme do you need to be? You’ll need to decide how extreme you need to be when implementing any particular strategy. Having a feel for how hard losing weight is for you will help you select which strategies to try. See the How Extreme do You Need to Be? strategy for some help.

Thinking about all these issues was probably difficult. Many of these questions touch on subjects we would often rather avoid, but they do provide a solid foundation for creating your strategy list.

Create Your Strategy List

After completing the interview process, you should have a pretty good idea about your goals and your greatest threats. Look over all the strategies in the book and use any insights you’ve learned from answering all the interview questions to decide which strategies make sense for you.

Make a list of all your selected strategies. Sort the list so your highest priority strategies are listed first. When trying new strategies, it makes sense to implement the most important first.

You are under no obligation to try a strategy on the list. You can always remove them. Be as detailed or as simple as you would like when creating your list. You can always add more strategies as you learn more, but you need to start somewhere.

Keep your strategy list up to date with any new discoveries and goals. As you find new strategies you would like to try, add them to your strategy list.

Start Running Weekly Spins

With this list of initial goals and strategies, you are now in the perfect position to start running your first Weekly Spin. This is a really exciting time because it’s the spins that really help to control your weight.