Bread Sugar Walk: An easy way to improve your overall health

If you’re like 73% of Americans, you’re overweight, obese, or severely obese. Still, even if you’re not in that majority, at some point in your life, you’ve almost certainly tried and failed to improve your diet or routinely exercise. Me, too! That is, until I developed Bread Sugar Walk.

What is Bread Sugar Walk?

 

Bread Sugar Walk is a simple and focused way to improve your overall health. It’s an easy-to-understand, quick-start, and scalable diet and exercise plan. In particular, it works great for people who really want to lose weight, but also have a tough time breaking their unhealthy habits. I can’t wait to share it with you!

When put into action, Bread Sugar Walk looks like this:

Cut a little bread and sugar out of your diet; exercise a little more, even if that only means walking; then, over time, cut a little more bread and sugar, and exercise a little more; and so on.

Right away, you can notice this health hack does not force you to cut 100% of the bread and sugar out of your diet immediately, always, and forever. Likewise, it doesn’t force you to make colossal changes to your busy schedule so you can fit in three backbreaking hours/day at the gym. And it certainly doesn’t require you to commit to spending countless hours researching and mastering a confusing, complicated, and daunting routine.

To the contrary, instead of beginning with unreasonably high expectations, Bread Sugar Walk only asks you to introduce small, agreeable, and scalable shifts that can drastically improve your overall health. And it’s all centered around two fundamental principles.

A health hack with a strong core

 

At the heart of this health hack are two basic foundational concepts, which you’re probably already familiar with:

• Firstly is the basic principle of The 80/20 Rule, which can be applied to many things in life, including your health. To be sure, when it comes to an individual’s overall health, there are plenty of factors that contribute. However, as you’ll see below, embracing Bread Sugar Walk will have the knock on effect of causing other areas of your overall health to be enhanced, like your mental health, sleep quality, and sex life. So, based on my own experience and research, if we narrow all of those health factors to the two most important, then apply The 80/20 Rule, diet is clearly the 80 and exercise is the 20. With that in mind, Bread Sugar Walk stresses diet much more than exercise.
• Secondly is the importance of developing mini-habits. When you take small, realistic, achievable steps towards your goal of being a healthier person, you’ll be more likely to develop long-lasting, good habits and your success will be inevitable.

When you combine these two concepts, it will become a lot easier for you to be better than yesterday!

Of course, if you’re one of those few people who are dedicated personal trainers, extreme health nuts, or committed athletes, then Bread Sugar Walk will seem oversimplified. But for the rest of us normal people, this health hack works really well. Particularly, you’ll find it to be attractive if you’re the kind of person who really wants to be healthier, and you’re not sure where to begin.

To help get you there, I’ll share how this health hack worked for me and the importance of having the right mindset.

How did Bread Sugar Walk effect me?

 

I’d describe my past diet as the so-called American Diet. For the first 32 years of my life, I ate a lot of bread and sugar, not to mention all of that delicious sugary bread!

Then one day, I got on the scale and saw a number that I was not comfortable with. I also noticed a lot of my clothes weren’t fitting anymore, even the larger sizes that I’d recently purchased.

In that moment, for the first time in my life, I decided to make a positive change in my diet. I switched from drinking a number of sugary drinks to exclusively drinking water. Well, OK, and an occasional beer, too!

Over time, I also realized that people who advocate for “the right portion size” are off the mark. Actually, I learned which foods to reject and now I can basically eat as much food as I want to. Furthermore, because of the focused simplicity of Bread Sugar Walk, it’s easy for me to have a healthy lifestyle and, whenever I want to have a “cheat meal” or take some time off from exercising, I’m forever in a great position to do so.

Looking back, that first small change in my diet set me on an eye-opening journey that has vastly improved my overall health. Plus, along with a modest and personalized exercise routine that I designed, I look and feel better today at age 44 than I did in my mid-20s. And those old clothes I mentioned above? They fit like a glove again!

But if I’m going to help inspire you to get similar results, we need to talk about your mindset first. It’s time for some tough love!

Get rid of your crutch

 

If your diet resembles what mine was, it’s probably time for a reality check. The truth is, if you’re still using “the American Diet” excuse as to why you haven’t adopted a healthier diet, then that’s a weak excuse for your struggles. It’s a temporary crutch, not the end of your story. Again, my intention is to inspire you, not to put you down. So, toss that crutch aside and stand tall because I know you can do better!

At the end of the day, you’re an individual. Consequently, your diet is your diet, it’s not part of some collective called the American Diet. It’s true that you’re part of some larger collective of people who all have poor diets. But that doesn’t mean you’re incapable of changing your individual eating habits. To that end, if you put that unhealthy food into your cart at the grocery store, you’ve already lost. And the moment you order that unhealthy food when you go out to eat, you’ve already lost.

Going forward, I encourage you to deeply and fully realize that your diet is a product of your own individual choices, and that those choices have a massive effect on you. After you’ve come to that realization, you’ll have the power to make better choices at the grocery store, as well as when you decide where you eat out and what menu items you choose.

Inescapably, no matter what your diet choices are, whether you choose the American Diet or not, you will always accept personal responsibility for your diet choices. Naturally, the consequences will also surely be yours and only yours, not those of a larger collective.

Now that you’ve adopted the right mindset, it’s time for you to head to the launchpad!

Why most people fail and how you can avoid joining them

 

Any major life change that’s overloaded right at the onset is more likely to see long-term failure. As evidence, 70% of Americans said diets that require strict rules never worked for them and 90% of people quit going to the gym because they didn’t have the right mindset when they started. Unfortunately, far too many diet and exercise coaches try to push intro-level folks too much, too soon. By doing so, they’ve failed as counselors to countless well-intentioned people who sincerely wanted to live a better life.

In stark contrast, as I’ve emphasized above, Bread Sugar Walk is certainly not an immediate, gigantic, reorganization of your entire life. In short, the best way to get started is to just start!

Stated differently, if you shoot for the stars on your first attempt, you’ll probably miss, then quit. On the other hand, if you slowly introduce small and reasonable life changes, you’re much more likely to achieve victory. More importantly, it will be a long-lasting victory. Just remember those mini-habits we talked about above, jump in, and get going.

Every success story began somewhere. And since you already know how Bread Sugar Walks works, your success story will begin right when you cut a little bread and sugar out of your diet and exercise a little bit more, even if that only means walking.

With that said, let’s dig in to the first part of this health hack: Bread.

Cut a little bread

 

Let’s set the table! To begin, cut small portions of the most obvious breads out of your diet, including slices of bread and buns like hamburger, hot dog, and hoagie buns. Additionally, when you’re ready, cut a little bit of pasta, cake, cookies, muffins, doughnuts, cereal, pancakes, waffles, English muffins, other pastries, and the saddest cuts of them all, pizza and beer!

But why should you try do reduce the bread in your diet as much as possible? Here are a few examples and links to further reading:

• Broadly, there are two types of breads. Traditional bread is made with grains that have been planted and cultivated the same way for thousands of years with no manipulation by modern man. Thanks to that purity, traditional bread can be eaten in moderation. By contrast, modern bread uses a different variety of wheat, uses different yeast, has a shorter rise time, has additives, and is more refined. As a result, modern bread has a vastly reduced nutritional value and can lead to many health problems.
• As FlabFix correctly points out: “If you suffer from digestion problems or irritable bowel syndrome it is best you steer clear of bread. If you are the sensitive type, eating wheat bread can result in abdominal pain, bloating, diarrhea and constipation.”
• Along with sugar, which we’ll get to in the next section, many forms of bread weaken your immune system. And especially if you share the belief of our overlords that coronaviruses like COVID-19 are the largest threats humanity has ever seen, then you should definitely cut some bread out of your diet!
• Do you enjoy drinking a good beer, like I do? If so, remember to drink in moderation because each beer will have the same effect of eating three or four slices of bread!
• What about your performance in the bedroom? If you eat less bread, you’ll probably have a better sex life!
• But my favorite reason to cut bread out of your diet is because the government told the world to eat a lot of bread, and we’ve all got a little bit of a rebellious streak in us, don’t we?
• Also, there are plenty of other dangers to eating too much bread, such as diabetes, depression, nutritional deficiency, and more.

However, if you’re not much of a reader, grab a healthy snack and watch What’s With Wheat?, a great documentary that explores the truth about bread.

Now that you’ve learned more about part one of Bread Sugar Walk, let’s move on to part two: Sugar.

Cut a little sugar

 

As I outlined with bread, let’s establish the obvious sugars to begin trimming from your diet. At the top of the no-no list are those delicious-but-devastatingly-bad-for-you sugary breads like cookies, cake, and many cereals. Additionally, reduce the amount of sugary desserts in your diet, like ice cream, candy, and most yogurts.

Next, focus on what you’re drinking. Resist the urge to add sugar to anything you drink, like coffee or tea. But if you’re like me, your biggest wins will come when you reduce your intake of sugary drinks like juices, lemonade, and of course, sodas.

One of the least noticeable sugar culprits are condiments and sauces, which usually contain sugar. So, consider exchanging sugary condiments for better options like mustard, hot sauce, and vinegar. Spices are good, too, but read those labels carefully because some of them have added sugar. Also, steer clear of those sugary salad dressings and substitute alternatives like balsamic vinegar.

Lastly, be sure to check the ingredients in your foods for added sugars like fructose, sucrose, and the most infamous of them all, high fructose corn syrup.

As for a list of reasons to reduce sugar from your diet, in case you didn’t get the memo, sugar is bad for you:

• A massive number of health problems can be caused by eating too much sugar, such as acne, cancer, liver damage, tooth decay, diabetes, and the number one killer worldwide, heart disease.
• In several ways, cutting sugar could improve your mental health, too.
• As you reduce the sugar in your diet, you’ll also probably give more pleasure to your partner in the bedroom!
• And for those who need more reasons, here’s a gigantic list of 146 reasons sugar ruins your health.

Still not much of a reader? Well then, grab a healthy snack and watch any of these documentaries that explore the truth about sugar.

Before we move to the next part, I need to emphasize something important. Whenever I talk to people about not eating bread and sugar, I’m often asked, “But Vince, what do you eat instead?” My response is always the same: “Pretty much everything else!” In other words, if you’re tempted to overthink or overcomplicate Bread Sugar Walk, just refocus on the simplicity of cutting two foods from your diet and you’ll be on your way to an everlasting, healthier lifestyle.

Now, let’s move on to the part you’re probably dreading most of all: Walk.

Exercise a little more, even if that only means walking

 

If you’re like most people who want to lose weight, you’re not looking forward to the ‘exercise’ part of Bread Sugar Walk. Well, cast those fears aside! As with Bread and Sugar, Walk doesn’t mean that you should immediately hit the gym for three hours/day and try an HSP + planche push-up + 90° push-up combo on your first day.

Instead, go at your own pace initially, even if that means beginning with an easy and short walk. Just like with Bread and Sugar, you can make small advances when you’re ready and increase the intensity of your exercise routine little by little. For example, if you have the option of taking the stairs or an elevator, consider taking the stairs instead; see stairs, take stairs!

At this point, I’m guessing some of my readers need a little more motivation to get going. To help get that fire started, here’s a quick review a few of the benefits of regular exercise:

• Let’s build with the most obvious points first: regular exercise can help you lose weight, it’s good for your muscles and bones, and it can increase your energy levels.
• Interestingly, scientists have proven that even a slight increase in regular exercise can help improve your memory, reduce pain, reduce your risk of chronic disease, as well as increase your relaxation and sleep quality.
• As neuroscientist, Wendy Suzuki, pointed out in her TED Talk, even with minimal effort, “exercise is the most transformative thing that you can do for your brain today” because exercise can actually make your brain physically larger!
• Plus, as you lose weight, you’ll get more compliments from the people who are in your life the most, which can help your self esteem.
• By the way, did I mention exercise can also improve your sex life?

By now, I’m sure it’s easy for you to understand how to take incremental steps with the diet element of Bread Sugar Walk. However, if you need some ideas for the exercise portion, let’s get you pointed in the right direction!

Finding the best exercises for you

 

Thankfully, there are a lot more helpful people on the internet than there are toxic people. As evidence, plenty of great people continue to give great advice through informative exercise videos every day. Take advantage of the generosity of those experts and binge watch some fitness videos!

In fact, that’s what I did while I was traveling. Due to my nomadic lifestyle, I didn’t always have access to a gym. Since I still wanted to stay fit, I watched a ton of fitness videos and developed a convenient calisthenics routine, as well as a separate routine for those times when I had access to a gym.

The exercise routine that I developed for myself is the best exercise routine for me. Now, it’s time for you to craft the routine that’s best for you. You can begin by watching some of the videos below. Then craft your routine and feel free to add and remove exercises over time.

• One of my favorite YouTubers is Dominik Sky because his videos are always informative, positive, and encouraging. Whether you’re looking for beginner or advanced level calisthenics exercises, check out his Upper Body Pressing video, his Upper Body Pulling video, his Core/Abdominal video, and Leg video.
• Another channel that inspired me was Calisthenic Movement. They have a mountain of beginner-level videos for you to sample.
• If you’re looking for even more examples of exercises, run a search for best beginner calisthenics exercises and save a playlist of your favorite videos. When you’re ready, use different parts of those videos to build the best routine for you! Of course there are plenty of exercises to do at the gym, too!

Remember what we talked about earlier and don’t hesitate because the list of exercises seems never ending; the best way to get started it to just get started. Even if you can only do five push-ups at first, that’s five more push-ups than you did yesterday!

Life after Bread Sugar Walk

 

For my regular readers, this post was a stark departure from anything I’ve written before. More than anything, I’ve written this post to reach out to overweight people and inspire as many of them as possible to easily start living a healthier lifestyle.

As you’ve learned, you don’t need a doctorate degree in human biology to cut a little bread and sugar from your diet and exercise a little more. Bread Sugar Walk can be summarized with two beautiful words: focused simplicity.

Due to that simplicity, when I’ve told people about Bread Sugar Walk, they’ve often been skeptical of its effectiveness. Every time that happens, I just point to my over-the-hill six-pack abs and say “scoreboard”. Immediately, their firm skepticism melts into awkward silence, then acceptance.

If you’ve been skeptical of health hacks before, and you’ve struggled to turn the corner, what will your life look like after you stop being skeptical and you adopt Bread Sugar Walk?

Better than yesterday!