The fundamentals of weight loss can sometimes feel confusing or overwhelming, but it’s well worth getting to know them.
It’s well studied that being overweight or obese can increase your risk of major health problems. These health conditions include the nation’s leading causes of death—heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and certain cancers—as well as less common ailments such as gout and gallstones. Even more compelling is that there is a strong link between excess weight and depression.
It’s also well-studied that losing weight can reduce your risk of developing some of these problems. If you’re carrying many extra pounds, you face a higher-than-average risk of 50 different health problems.
When I interned at an obesity center in NYC (ages ago) I learned that by losing 10% of your bodyweight you can significantly change your blood test results. Research shows that weight loss can control and/or reverse many of the above health conditions and can allow people to go off of medications for conditions caused by excess weight gain.
Knowing this, you would think that anyone who suffers from chronic health conditions caused by being overweight would automatically change how they eat to lose the weight and improve their health….right?
It’s sounds so simple but for many–even when they know the fundamentals of weight loss–it’s just not that easy.
Intellectually and logically it makes complete sense. But if you are someone who has struggled with weight loss, even knowing that your health (and possibly your life) is at risk, you just can’t get yourself to make a change.
You may have tried to lose the weight and succeeded, but over time the weight you lost managed to find its way back.
The question is WHY does this happen?
The answer is because when you went on a diet the only thing that changed was the food you were eating. Chances are that while you were losing the weight, you hadn’t addressed you habits, behaviors and old self-sabotaging patterns that led you to gain the weight to begin with. You didn’t pay attention to changing your old mindset.
The fact is if you don’t address this while you are adopting a healthier eating style, your old patterns will kick back in and, over time, the weight will find its way back.
Here are some key fundamentals of weight loss you need to pay attention to lose weight and keep it off:
1) Find a way of eating that is sustainable. If you cut out food groups just to lose weight, the weight will come back eventually. However, how you eat to lose the weight is how you have to continue eating to maintain the loss. This is what is means to make lasting lifestyle changes.
2) Get clear on what your habits and behaviors are. What needs to change?
3) What do you say to yourself to sabotage your efforts? Do you have negative self-talk?
4) What are your triggers? Do you know what drives you to eat when you are not physically hungry?
5) What is your overall mindset around lasting weight loss?
- Do you believe that you can do it?
- Do you carry self-doubt around achieving your goals?
- How do you think about how you take care of yourself?
- Do you make yourself a priority or do you put yourself and health on the shelf until you can ‘find the time’?
- Do you think “I’ll do it tomorrow” and tomorrow never comes?
- Is everyone else’s needs more of a priority than your own?
Take a minute and think back to a time when you tried losing some weight. Did you work on any of the above?
Eating healthy is SUPER important for losing weight and even more important to improve your health and prevent disease.
There is a ton of information on how to eat healthy online. More often than not, the clients I come across know what healthy eating and dieting to lose weight looks like.
What they don’t know how to change is their old mental programming around food that continues to work against them.
If you want to lose weight to prevent or improve chronic disease and health conditions caused by being overweight there is no time like the present to start your journey.
And remember, it’s a marathon, not a sprint. When it feels hard, keep going. You want to lose weight forever, not just for right now. Don’t throw in the towel on yourself and your health.
Be kind and patient with yourself on your journey, and if you’re ready for more support book a free call with me now.
