Keeping a positive mindset is extremely important when you are in the weight loss journey. You need support, encouragement and also a positive attitude towards your goal.
How to Failure-Proof Your Weight Loss Mindset
Weight loss is one of the toughest challenges on the planet. It’s the number one goal on New Year’s Day and it’s also the one that most people give up on within just a couple of weeks.
There’s a reason for this. While everyone often talks about calories and diet and exercise, the truth is that weight loss is a mental challenge and not a physical one. The battle needs to be fought in the mind before you see success in the physical form.
Millions of people go through immense emotional and mental stress when trying to lose weight. Years ago, Oprah Winfrey was very open about her weight loss struggles and so on.
It takes a toll on your emotional well-being. To succeed in your weight loss journey, you need to develop a failure-proof mindset. You sense of self will need to be positive before you even start.
Let’s look at a few ways you can strengthen your resolve so that you keep going forward even if the situation looks bleak.
1. Use Photos
The biggest illusion that trips most people up during their journey is that they expect to lose more weight than is possible. You must understand that weight loss is a slow progress.
Even if you starve yourself or train for ten hours in the gym daily, you’ll not lose massive amounts of weight overnight or even in a week. Your body works on its own schedule and it can’t be forced.
Take photos of yourself when you first start on your weight loss journey and take new photos every 3 weeks or so. This will help you to keep track of your journey.
On days when you’re feeling down because progress doesn’t seem to be coming fast enough, you should always look at your older photos and appreciate how far you’ve come.
Being grateful for your progress is the first step to lifting your spirits. Never be too hard on yourself. Weight loss is hard enough without you beating yourself down.
Give yourself a pat on the shoulder for coming this far and keep going. You must be proud of yourself and look for the good in the situation – Reward yourself from time to time.
2. Keep a Journal
A journal will help you to vent your frustration and also serves as a ‘mirror’ that reflects your thoughts. You can analyze your progress and make notes about where you slipped up.
By studying your slip-ups, you’ll discover patterns in the way you think and behave. If you correct the patterns that are causing you to fail, your chances of slipping up will be lower.
For example, if you notice that you tend to binge on nights when you stay up late watching TV, you’ll learn to go to bed early to prevent this from happening. Understanding how you behave is one of the keys to staying disciplined and losing weight successfully.
3. Take Things Slowly
As mentioned earlier, it’s imperative that you understand that this a journey… and depending on how much excess weight you carry, it could last anywhere from 3 months to even 9 months or longer.
Once you know that it’s going to take that much time, you’ll be less stressed and go about it in a slow and steady way. Never let the amount of time it will take scare you off. The time will pass anyway.
If you get started now, in a couple of months, you will look and feel like a brand new you. This feeling is priceless and can’t be bought. Go slow, appreciate your own positive efforts and keep going. That’s how successful weight loss is done.
How to Keeping Your Spirits Up When the Scale Numbers Don’t Go Down
Looking at the weighing scale can be one of the most exhilarating or disappointing experiences depending on the situation. If you’ve lost 5 pounds, you’re happy and over the moon. You’re an unstoppable force to be reckoned with.
But what happens if the following week you see no results after all that dieting and exercising?
Most people lose hope and feel like throwing in the towel. This is the case for most people trying to lose weight. It’s an emotional rollercoaster. Everybody wants to see their weight dropping steadily.
The moment their weight doesn’t drop, or horror of horrors, it goes up – they feel like a failure and all their efforts are in vain. The reality is that your body is adjusting as you go along.
You may lose a couple of pounds every week for 4 weeks and suddenly the weight doesn’t drop for 2 weeks. This is known as a weight-loss plateau. There are 2 reasons why this could happen.
Either you’re training too hard/eating too little or your body is adjusting to the new weight. If it’s because you’re training too hard, rest more and tone down your workouts so that your central nervous system gets a break. If you’re eating too little, eat more and only aim for a caloric deficit of 500 calories a day.
During times like these, it’s important that you keep your spirits up so that you stay the course. Most people give up, not because the diet is tough, or the workouts are tough.
They just ‘lose it’ mentally. They lose the drive and motivation. The tips below will show you how to stay true to yourself and find happiness during this journey that is fraught with emotional highs and lows. Positive affirmation can help you immensely to keep your spirit up.
• Don’t Weigh Yourself Often
This is probably the easiest tip of the lot. Only weigh yourself once a week on the same day at the same time. For example, at 8 AM on Mondays. That’s it. Do NOT weight yourself daily.
Your weight fluctuates daily due to your water intake and other factors. Once a week, or even once every 2 weeks will do. Give your body time to adjust and make ENOUGH progress so that it’s reflected on the scale.
• Asking Yourself Why You Started
Your why is the most important thing in this journey. Why did you start? Are you sick and tired of looking fat? Do you want a body that turns heads?
Do you wish to be slim enough to fit in your old wedding dress? Have you just gone through a breakup and need to shape up to go out on dates?
What is your why? – Knowing it will keep you going even when every bone in your body is telling you to quit and the scale numbers seem to be creeping very slowly.
• Find Your Motivation
Some people find motivation by looking at photos of athletes, Instagram fitness models, etc. Others get inspired by listening to motivational speakers… and there are some who find Shaun T’s Insanity Max videos exciting and challenging enough to fired up.
You need to find what lights your ‘fire’ and keeps it going. Look for it when you’re feeling discouraged because your weight is stagnant.
All you need to do is quiet your disappointment and understand that while the numbers may not have changed today, they will probably drop the following week – and if they don’t, then they might the week after that.
Your goal should be to stay the course and make sure that you’re doing what you need to. If your diet is dialed in and your training is good, you will lose weight.
It’s all in your mind. Stay strong mentally and you’ll find your strength physically.
Motivating Yourself When You Slip Up on Your Diet
There’s no denying the fact that when it comes to weight loss, your diet is the most important factor. You cannot out-exercise a poor diet. Like they say in the fitness industry, “Abs are made in the kitchen.”
While you may not be striving for a set of six-pack abs, the food you eat, and drink has a direct impact on your weight loss. So, if we looked at weight loss, in theory, it’s really simple – just eat clean and eat less calories than you expend.
Right?
Yes, it’s that simple… but… and a huge BUT… it is NOT easy. Most people trying to lose weight struggle to change their diets. It’s as if they are fighting with themselves every single day.
This can be emotionally draining and depressing. It’s common for people to feel lousy and weak when they cave into temptations. They feel like a loser for not being ‘perfect’ with their diet.
The truth is that this happens to EVERYBODY. Slipping up on your diet is extremely common. The mistake that people make is that they discard the diet for the day just because they ate something they shouldn’t have.
For example, if they were doing good on their diet till late afternoon and suddenly caved in and ate a doughnut as a snack, they lose motivation and decide to just eat whatever they want the rest of the day.
The end result is that end up eating a lot more than they should have. While the doughnut was a small slip up and still a manageable one, if you go berserk and eat a ton of other junk food, you would have undone several days of dieting and exercise.
Aiming for 100 percent compliance is unreasonable and unrealistic. You should not aim for perfection. The goal is to keep going even if you occasionally slip up.
Acknowledge the mistake and make corrections. Using the example above, that could be reducing portion sizes for dinner or just cutting out the carbs for dinner since you already ate the doughnut.
Throwing the entire diet or even giving up on your weight loss journey just because of one slip up is unwise. Look at it this way – if you dropped your mobile phone, you’d pick it up and dust it off and keep it safely in your pocket. You wouldn’t keep smashing it on the ground just because of one accident.
Treat yourself the same way. Don’t bash yourself just because of one small slip up. It doesn’t mean that you’re mentally ‘weak’ or lack discipline. When trying to change your diet, you’re actually trying to break habits that you’ve adopted for years.
Changing your eating patterns and food choices is a Herculean task because these are the strongest habits we have. We eat several times a day over many years. It’s usually the same food at the same times. You may like to check out Noom. Noom is a well-known program that through the use of cutting-edge technology, is able to accurately monitor your progress. Noom provides expert advice and analysis to keep you on track with a personalized weight-loss plan.
You can’t expect to change overnight. You’ll have to approach it in a slow and steady manner. Take pride in the small improvements and successes. When you slip up, promise yourself to do better.
Analyze what caused you to slip up and change the conditions that weaken your resolve. Make slow measurable progress in a reasonable time. If you do this daily, after a couple of months, your eating habits will be different.
You’ll prefer nutritious food. You won’t need to eat as much to feel satiated… and you’ll have a much better relationship with food. By then, your excess pounds would have melted off and you’ll look and feel fantastic. It all starts by not giving up when you slip up. Stay on track.
Disclaimer: This website is written by a regular human being. I am not a Health Professional. Please get professional medical advice for your health needs.