Boil the Frog

By Dennis McVicker

The primary appeal that Boil the Frog will have, for most people grabbing it off the shelf or off the internet, will be the step-by-step guide on how to lose the weight you want to lose. However, this book will actually surprise you about how it dives deep into the very depths of your mind to find where you got lost and show you how to come back, even from addiction.

It will show you how to find who you were before the world told you different and about why you behave a certain way, but most importantly, it will show you how you can fix it. Boil the Frog shows you how to strip all that away and become the person you were supposed to be, to be the best version of yourself.

Take this book home for the weight loss, it really can help you with that, but keep it as a guide for life in general and pay it forward. Help others as it helped you, share your success, and together we can all become the best versions of ourselves.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Jul 5, 2022
• ISBN: 9781662478901

Book preview

Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night

Dylan Thomas

Do not go gentle into that good night,

Old age should burn and rave at close of day.

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,

Because their words had forked no lightning they

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright

Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,

And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight

Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,

Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Welcome

Are you ready to save your own life? Are you ready to quit the very things that are ruining your life? Are you ready to see an impossible situation and understand that it’s not only possible, it’s likely that you can complete it?

If you answered yes to any or all those questions, congratulations on taking the first steps to a new you! Sound impossible? I can guarantee you that it’s not. It just seems overwhelming, but don’t worry, I’ll show you how to be able to look at situations that look like it is impossible (and I’ll show you how to take this word out of your vocabulary) and be able to take it one little step at a time.

Before going any further (read the whole paragraph before putting this book back down), let me say a couple of things, I am a US Navy Veteran. As such, I cuss like a sailor. I use foul language, bad words, or cuss. In person, I swear a lot; however, I did not drop one F-bomb in this book, and I’m proud of that, but I do throw in the occasional cuss word for emphasis. I use them as they should be, as expressive words. Some words you just can’t substitute. I did keep it at a minimal because I know some people are offended by them, so I promise it’s only used when necessary.

Also, the other thing I want is to encourage those of you on the fence that have had failures in the past. These kinds of setbacks can create skepticism that new things can work for them, But the past is where that is, and that’s exactly where it belongs. Right back there in the past, a memory; dust in the wind (Thanks, Kansas!).

You are making a conscious decision right now to change your life, perhaps even save your life. So put a wall up, in your mind, and put that wall directly touching your back, right behind you. There is no backward now. Now, you can only move forward toward those doors of possibility. If you are not there yet, don’t worry; you will be.

Your mind is the engine to everything, and it functions in the exact manner you have it set for. It’s up to you to get into your own head and reset the controls back to default at first, then into super mode. Once you harness its power and take control, you will understand that you have had this power your whole life yet you have chosen not to use it—yet. Those days are over.

Once you open yourself to the idea that you can succeed in anything you do, the infinite becomes possible. What you used to find impossible was really just feeling overwhelmed at a vast problem you were staring at with no idea even how to start. Very simply, you start where you start and just do the rest until that seemingly impossible task gets chipped away, and then all of a sudden, it’s completed.

You’ll understand that now is what matters, and actions—not words—are what matter. The procrastinators have stolen this phrase and reversed it, but it’s time for you to say the correct way:

Don’t put off until tomorrow what you can do today. (Benjamin Franklin)

The first thing to understand is that this is not a program that has universal steps that apply to everyone. Everyone’s situation is different, and every program will be different. Mostly because it’s not actually a program in the sense of the word; they are daily goals you set for yourself. Put them all together and it appears to be many steps, but it’s just goals. Goals that are completely achievable because you set them yourself, based on your own performance.

Very simply stated, this will work for you because you only have to be better than the person you were yesterday. Some people will have to start extremely slow; some will be able to go big right away. Your current situation will not stop you from doing this! I don’t care if you are one of those people that have to use an electric cart to get around the grocery store. You can do this too!

Today’s effort is tomorrow’s body. If you want to be lazy today, that’s the body you will have tomorrow. Everything you do is based on your effort. You put in the work, and you get the results. Nobody is doing this for you, and that is something that you should be very proud of. Break the habits of I can’t and change that to I can, or at the very least, I’ll try until I can. Allow the idea that you can become fertile in your mind, and it will grow exponentially.

I want this is in bold, so you all see this. I want you to find a way to see this phrase daily. Print it out, embroider it on a pillow, take a picture and make it your screensaver, or make it your phone lock/home screen. I don’t care how you do it, just read this every day:

The only person you are competing with is the person you were yesterday.

So now that you know you have no excuses, there is no reason not to save your own life, right? So are you going to read this and act or are you going to read this and get discouraged? Either way, understand this. Not one thing on this Earth, or other planets for that matter, is stopping you from being healthy but yourself. That’s the first thing you need to get right mentally. You are in this situation and purchased/borrowed this book because your life decisions have made you afraid for your own life enough to act, and I salute you for it, because that is a terrific motivator.

Moreover, you don’t have to do this alone! There are social media support groups that are set up (just for people reading this book!) where we can all show our successes and give support to each other so you can make it happen.

There are walkers and there are talkers. Action-takers and storytellers. What kind of person do you want to be? I choose to walk, literally and figuratively. Thanks so much for joining the many of us that have chosen to take control of their life and congratulations!

Quick Note About This Book

Honestly, until it was written, I thought this book was just going to be about my weight loss journey. However, once I started writing it down and showing it to people for their feedback, I think we were all surprised that it dove much deeper than that.

I will definitely go through the steps I took to get the weight off, but you have to understand, just as I realized when I wrote it out, that it’s about your entire life as a whole. The weight loss is just an effect of Boil the Frog.

The navigation of this book (on a timeline basis) will go back and forth, skipping around my journey in a non-sequential order. I was struggling with what to do about this until I realized that’s okay. This book will go in order a little bit and then reflect on other things. I can’t blame it; my mind is working just like I asked it to, which will make sense to you later.

Bottom line, I wanted to let you know, that yes, I know this book skips around a little bit here and there on my journey; however, the tangents I make and the roads I lead you through are extremely relevant.

I didn’t want to just say, This is what I did. That’s pretty uninteresting, and frankly, it’s evolved into being much deeper than that. So please enjoy the twists, turns, flashbacks, flash forwards, creative thinking exercises, critical thinking exercises, comfort zone exercises, my tough love trying to motivate you, me calling you out on your excuses, me calling you fat, me calling you lazy, etc. you get as you go through this book.

Of course, you can also always just do what I do and read the whole book to make up your own mind about how you want to use the information before acting. I tried not to add filler, though I do repeat important concepts so you can understand how important those points are. I wanted the core concepts to be simple and easy to understand and implement. I didn’t want this to be long-winded for the sake of making a longer book. This book will be exactly how long it needs to be to get you the ideas and concepts you can use right now to change your life little by little each day until six months from now, people will not recognize you from top to bottom. Well, probably your face, but that’s it.

So while I tried to take you straight through my journey, it didn’t end up that way. You’ll learn that obstacles and problems are just road bumps to be felt, passed, and forgotten. With that all being said, please enjoy your journey through my journey.

The Fabled Boiled Frog

I have not been able to find this actual experiment (allegedly conducted in the nineteenth century), where it was done, or if it was even done or something somebody made up and sounded good. However, the premise is true if you know how to apply it to everyday life.

The fabled boiled frog experiment is as follows (and don’t really do this for real. This is a metaphorical expression as far as everyone is concerned. Do not actually boil frogs! Not even gonna say please—just don’t): the premise is that if you place a frog into a boiling pot of water, the frog will instantly jump out, and most likely be burned in the process. If you put a frog into room temperature water and slowly increase the heat, the frog will stay in the water until it is boiled to death.

Pretty morbid idea to begin with; someone must have been really bored in the science lab. I can just imagine walking in there and saying, So…what’s the end game here fellas? But again, I haven’t been able to find this actual experiment, nor would I want to—what a horrible idea (but interesting concept nonetheless). Most likely, it’s is another one of those pop culture phenomena that turn falsehoods into truth just from their popularity, also known as the Mandela effect.

The Mandela effect occurs when a person believes that their distorted memories are, in fact, accurate recollections. They can clearly remember events that happened differently or events that never occurred at all. The bottom line is that the Mandela effect does not involve lying or deception, just misremembering.

In actuality, the frog couldn’t actually jump out of a pot of boiling water because of the protein in its skinny legs would solidify and it would be stuck, so I fully understand that this is not a real thing, but the idea and notion, when changed into an ideology, is unbelievably effective. Regardless of how the fabled frog tale came to pass, its premise, when properly applied to your life as a whole, is relevant to everything. Including diet and exercise—especially these because they are the very things people quit the most.

Now, I know, based on mathematics and science and the laws of probability, that at least half of you reading this have tried something else and it didn’t work for you. It’s just a universal certainty that I’m willing to lose face on if it’s incorrect. Here’s why.

When people decided to do something which they have been putting off, they are trying to boil the frog by just throwing it in the pot. They go all in. I’m going to cut out this from my diet, I’m going to exercise daily, I’m going to this, going to that—it’s always the same, usually.

If you succeeded going this route, congratulations! This is only going to help you more. However, if you did not, here is the premise you need to understand before you even get started.

Mental preparation is the beginning of this, and not fast-boiling the frog is the biggest part of this. The number one reason that diets and exercise regimens fail is that people strain themselves because they went too fast at the beginning, and when they don’t see the results they want right away, they just quit.

How do you overcome this? That’s right: You don’t flash boil the frog; you give yourself the best chance to succeed, and besides, you feel great after. After the initial shock to the system (which usually lasts about one to two weeks), you start to feel better little by little each day. A week goes by, maybe two, and you decide to turn up the heat a little bit.