It’s no secret that losing weight is a struggle for many. Despite being well-informed about nutrition and healthy eating, sticking to our plans long-term remains an uphill battle.
At any one time a whopping 43 percent of us are estimated to be trying to lose weight, yet the desire and the knowledge don’t always translate into lasting results. Knowledge about which foods you ‘should’ eat doesn’t necessarily translate into behaviour. As a long term Fitness Professional I’ve seen first-hand the vast gulf between knowing what to do and actually implementing it consistently over time.
Food is meant to be enjoyed – it connects us, allows creativity and love to be expressed, and can be delightfully delicious. Deprivation and rigid rules often backfire.
The truth is that sustainable weight management isn’t just about what you eat, but about how you think about food and, most importantly, how you think about yourself.
Tips to manage your weight for life –
Here are my tips on how to manage your weight for life, without a single piece of advice on what to eat.
Diets Don’t Work – Habit Changes Do Diets, in their traditional sense, can help us achieve our weight goalsbut they don’t teach us how to stay there. Many people think that once they have rigidly followed a plan and lost weight, they will be able to keep it off. But losing weight on a diet does not teach you how to keep it off.
What you need to do instead, is focus on identifying (and intentionally repeating) the new daily choices that you will have to normalise and master in order to maintain your weight loss long-term, whether that is regarding portion control or avoiding snacks, for example.
It’s Ok To Feel Hungry Every So Often Factor-in – and accept that – discomfort and cravings will be part of the process until you have adjusted to your new habits and responses. Reframe the pursuit of designing and embedding a new way of eating as an opportunity to learn transferable strategies for more impulse control and self-belief.
If changing your eating habits and managing your weight remains the greatest lifelong challenge you face (a reality that causes my highly intelligent, accomplished and impressive clients to question everything from their intelligence to their worthiness) then learning to withstand short-term discomfort will equip you with a proven tool kit of transferable impulse control skills.
If You Have A Blip, Don’t Give Up
Seasoned dieters often develop a “feast or famine, all or nothing” mentality. Their repeated unsuccessful attempts to lose – or keep off – weight leave them trusting themselves less, choosing more punishing plans, and beating themselves up when they don’t manage to keep up their plans perfectly.
Not only is their self-talk unrecognisable from the compassionate, encouraging motivating messages they would give a loved one facing the same challenge; it’s also unwise, unhelpful and delays results.
Learning to forgive yourself quickly and treat minor, human blips as a temporary deviation from your wellbeing plan (not a personal failing and catastrophe that sets about a string of sabotaging “I’ve blown it until Monday” food choices) ensures that overall, you make more helpful choices than unhelpful ones in the pursuit of weight loss.
Learn to trust in yourself more than your plans. Assume and accept going in that the process of changing habits will be filled with moments when you will find creative, compelling reasons to give up. Instead of colour-coding strict guidelines meticulously on a “fed up” Sunday evening, focus on how you will talk yourself into making choices on the spot that you will be proud of the next day.
Make It Easy For Yourself To Make Good Choices It’s common to create our plans when we have reached rock-bottom. It can be difficult to imagine in those moments how anything other than a combination of rules and desperation could be required to make any habit changes required to achieve such valued, important and meaningful goals.
We should assume that regardless of our long-term desires, habit change will be difficult, and we should do everything in our power to create an environment that makes it easier to take difficult but helpful choices in the short-term.
This could mean ensuring the healthy meals that we want to normalise have been planned in advance or that our gym kits are packed and ready to go and we have made appointments in our diaries for our workouts. In the same way, we can make it harder for ourselves to make unhelpful choices.
Start At The End
Quick-fix diets that promise short-term results can be tempting, especially when we are frustrated by past failures. It’s easy to believe that being delighted with ourselves for having lost weight will suffice when it comes to the knowledge we will require to maintain it.
It’s unwise to lose weight through methods we can’t realistically sustain. Instead, imagine you have already lost the weight and create a balanced, sustainable plan to maintain it. While results might be slower, mastering the choices and habits for long-term maintenance helps avoid the disheartening feeling of not trusting yourself to stay at your goal weight.
Adopt The Eating Plan That Focus On Addition Not Restriction The “addition diet,” also known as the “add, not subtract” approach to healthy eating, is a method that focuses on incorporating nutrient-rich, wholesome foods into your meals and snacks rather than emphasizing what foods to eliminate or restrict.
This approach encourages a positive and sustainable relationship with food by quality lean proteins, vegetables, fruits, whole grains, dairy, nuts, seeds, and other unprocessed ingredients to your diet.
The idea is that by filling your plate with nutritious options, there’s naturally less room for empty calories, which can lead to weight loss without the feeling of deprivation often associated with traditional diets.
It’s about creating a balanced and satisfying diet that includes the foods you enjoy while meeting your nutritional needs.
Add Before You Subtract It may be discouraging to think about removing sugar or processed foods from your diet. Yet, by the time you add the bounty of options nature has provided, you will not have room for artificial and refined products! Truly, an addition diet is an abundant way to eat!
Treat Your Body Like A Child That Needs A New Routine Adjusting to new eating habits will come with urges and cravings. Change, even if desired, involves periods of adjustment where you will want to revert to old habits. It’s important to anticipate these moments and push through the adjustment phase.
Rather than beating yourself up, adopt a kinder approach. Think of your body as a child needing to be soothed and guided through new routines until they become the new normal. This balance of firmness and kindness helps manage difficult cravings and urges, allowing you to maintain new habits more effectively.
Focus On Strengths, Not Shortcomings Concentrating on negative outcomes or bad habits isn’t enough to keep us on track. Instead, focus on your strengths and capabilities. Remind yourself of how capable you are of making difficult choices. Prepare for moments of doubt by reinforcing self-belief and acknowledging your achievements. Positive self-talk and confidence in your ability to make the next best choice are crucial for long-term success.
Learn how to control your impulses, and teach your body a new routine. After all, its not just about losing not only the weight but the mindset that got you there.
And remember…when it comes to your health and fitness, “something” always trumps “nothing.”
