This creator says yes and that she did exactly this while she ate the reduced calorie diet that she developed in 2009 called Q.U.A.A.D.
“Ultimately losing 52 pounds and gaining these ‘abs of steel’ makes most people presume that I work out all the time. But the truth is, I don’t. I walk around the block three times a day and I eat by QUAAD,” explains Juhl Khallen, the creator of Slim Metabolics’ Be Slim Training.
That’s impressive. How long did it take to lose the weight?
“The first forty pounds came off in four months. After that I never wanted to go back to where I’d come from, so I stayed on QUAAD at a slow weight loss level. The next twelve pounds came off over the course of a few years.”
And you didn’t exercise?
Don’t be silly. Almost everyone exercises. Whenever you walk or move your body, you’re exercising. I very definitely exercised. First, I walked on a tread climber at home and I sweat like crazy. But I found that walking outside was actually more effective. So I took to walking two miles around the neighborhood every morning. Between this and eating by QUAAD, I lost the first forty pounds.
That’s just light activity, which is the perfect amount of exercise. It allows us to stay on our diet and lose weight at the rate of about two pounds a week.. Pretty much anyone can do it.
(Smiling) Now, if you’re asking if I went to a gym and took hardcore exercise classes and did tons of sit ups to lose weight and get my amazing body, the answer is no, I haven’t been to a gym since 2008. I would never overexert myself like that again.
Most people don’t understand that heavy exercise is not necessary for weight loss or a toned, well-defined body. Reduced calorie intake is the key!
Strenuous exercise actually causes most people to go off their diet and start binging which is what causes most weight gain and yo-yo diets. If I had done that, then I wouldn’t have been able to stay on QUAAD.
The most strenuous exercise I do is Bikram Yoga three to six times a year. And today, although I’ve easily maintained a fifty-two-pound weight loss, and my blood pressure is now that of a professional athlete, I walk far less than I did when I was in weight loss mode.
To be clear, heavy exercise is necessary if you’re trying to bulk up and attain super-human results like six-pack abs or compete in a Mr. Universe contest. And it can help keep your skin a bit firmer as you age. But if you’re just trying to lose weight and get in shape, most people should stay away from hardcore “gym” exercises and instead focus more on eating the right number of calories to lose weight.
I know it sounds counterintuitive, but this is just how permanent weight loss works for people who aren’t addicted to working out. And I never liked working out, so I don’t.
Was it easy to change your eating habits?
That’s a great question. First, I want to point out that easy is relative. I mean, how hard is it to have no control over how much you eat and what you look like? People claim that living like this is taking the easy road. To me, it’s the hard road.
If we’re being honest, we often tell ourselves it’s easier to overeat and be overweight when the truth is, it’s hard. Most people don’t realize how much effort they put into maintaining their current eating habits until they change these habits.
Setting up my satisfying meal windows and sticking to them was surprisingly easy. But initially, at certain times of day like before and after dinner, it was hard to be so disciplined.
For this, I developed ways of thinking about food cravings and eating that made it easier to stay on QUAAD and hit my goal weight.
So even when I was just starting out on my weight loss journey, even though part of me said it was hard, it was actually easy to do. I felt so much better eating this way, that changing my eating habits became easy and worthwhile far more than being overweight ever was. Now I am truly happy in my skin.”
Where does thinking thin come in?
“That’s your body image. How you internally think about yourself while you’re eating or when you have an unnecessary urge to overeat, or binge. Most overweight people have an unhealthy body image accompanied by a sense of guilt or inadequacy about their body, although the opposite is actually true.
You should always love your body because it is what takes care of you and allows you to live in this world. If you’re busy hating it, telling it that it’s not good enough, what do you think you’re going to get but a body that looks and acts like that? It’s these feelings and the internal image of being heavy that are actually driving many overweight people to overeat.
So the question becomes how do you change this? By thinking thin, of course! The logical way to do so is to get under your hood and in your head. Revamp how you see yourself. Get clear on exactly what you want to look like. Get in touch with how you will feel after you have this body. Make these things more important than the negative images. Then, begin relating to yourself as this thin person. The sooner you start acting and thinking the way this slim person does, the sooner you will be that slim person.
Does that thin person eat too much because they’re upset? No. So, will you as this thin person eat because something didn’t happen how you wanted it to, or because someone else is stuffing themselves in front of you, or because you don’t want to hurt someone else’s feelings? NO you won’t. You’ll handle it as the thin you would: respectfully, tactfully and joyfully without compromising your goal of losing weight and taking care of yourself.“
That sounds hard.
“Not really. What we think is hard is usually only because we have this fear that we’ll fail. So we think it’s easier to be lazy, stay overweight and do nothing. But how easy is it to be afraid of what you could be or to use fear as a reason for not accomplishing your dreams?
When you follow this how I teach, it’s simple. A few second process that is easy. Much easier than it is to overeat and be overweight.”
How so?
“All you really need is to be aware of what you want and what you don’t want. Be open and willing to change – and of course follow my directions (laughing).
When you eat by QUAAD, you’re eating the perfect number of calories for you to lose weight and you feel satisfied eating less. You know that hunger pangs and urges to binge are just mental habits.
And when you realize that these habits are more a byproduct of specific ingredients used by food companies and manipulations that advertising executives use to stimulate different aspects of your imagination than they are necessary to your actual survival, well then those habits lose a lot of their power.
The more you practice your learned motivation, which is step 1 of Be Slim Training, the more your go-to feelings and body image become those of the thin person who lives inside you. After a while it becomes your second nature to think and eat thin.
Before you know it, you’re feeling great and looking at a much slimmer version of yourself in the mirror. That’s easy. The results make it all worthwhile.”
Have you ever been called a dreamer or told that what you are proposing is impossible?
(Smiling) “It’s been said. Usually by overweight people who think they know how to lose weight but obviously don’t or people who exercise excessively to maintain their weight. The truth is, there are plenty of naturally thin people who may not knowingly practice what I teach, but they do so nonetheless.
Just the other day, I met a beautiful woman who happens to be slender. She asked me about what I do and then we started talking about diet and being slim. Without any prodding, she said, ‘You know, Juhl, I think being thin comes from the image I have of myself and how I think about myself. I think of myself as thin and so that’s how I tend to eat and thus I am slim.’
I was in the middle of preparing for this article and had just written the home page introducing Be Slim Training so the serendipity was almost as shocking as how similar her words were to what I’ve been teaching and practicing for years now. I also have a girlfriend of many years, a petite woman about 5’1” and maybe 110 pounds who has proudly proclaimed on more than one occasion: ‘This body was built on burgers!” Notice she didn’t say burgers, fries and a shake. . .
What these women have naturally done for their entire lives, I taught myself to do when I was thirty-six years old. There’s no reason why anyone else can’t do the same and find similar seemingly miraculous results. You have far more power than you think. If you’ll do your best, I’ll help you achieve the rest.”
QUAAD: Quarter Until Automatic Awareness Diet
QUAAD is a simple, flexible, reduced calorie diet that is based on time tested research and evidence. It’s revolutionary in that it creates satiety without overeating and it encourages a faster metabolism. It is the creator’s experience that over time, eating by QUAAD and following the steps as guided in Be Slim Training leads to longevity, a healthy body image, better fitness levels and exceptional health.
You can learn more about using QUAAD and the other slim factors in Be Slim Training here.