Statistics about weight loss success are very sobering. Newspapers and magazines claim “diets don’t work” and many people think success is out of reach. We all know someone who has lost a lot of weight only to gain it all back and then some; in fact, it’s often cited that 95-97% of people who successfully lose weight regain it within 3 years. Even more common is the person who always appears to be on a diet but never seems to lose any weight.
Me at my heaviest, shortly before I decided to lose weight.
My personal story bucks this trend. After struggling with my weight for at least 6 years, my heaviest BMI placed me in the obese category. It took me six months to lose the first 60 lbs and several years longer to lose another 10-15 lbs. Although I still experience weight fluctuations, I have for the most part successfully kept off these 70+ lbs for 6 years and counting.
Me 70lbs lighter, 5 years later.
What has been the secret to my success? Although I totally changed my eating habits and got serious about exercise, I ultimately don’t believe the specifics of my diet or training plan were most important. Rather, a few key mindset shifts helped me overcome obstacles, stay the course, and ultimately change my entire lifestyle for good. I want to share three of these mindset shifts with you this week in the hopes that you may find inspiration for your own weight loss journey.
Accept that you’re in it for the long haul.
I’ll never forget the first week of my initial journey to lose around 60 lbs. I had a sobering annual checkup with my doctor during which she informed me I was prediabetic and would need to make some serious changes to avoid a descent into full-blown Type-II diabetes. As a 19 year old, this scared the shit out of me. I had my whole life ahead of me and had no interest in managing a chronic condition that was totally avoidable.
It was just after this appointment when a friend of mine shared her aunt’s cooking blog on Facebook. The blog is unfortunately no longer running, but the thing that stuck out to me was a post from the author detailing the 10 steps she used during her own weight loss journey. These steps included things like managing calories, tracking food intake, cooking your own food, combining strength training and cardio, and reducing consumption of refined and packaged foods. For whatever reason, the simple steps on this list (most of which were things I already knew I should probably be doing) clicked for me in the moment. I finally felt I had a concrete, realistic plan I could follow that would almost certainly result in weight loss if I stuck with it.
Most importantly, I fully understood it would take me a long time to lose the weight I needed and wanted to lose. This acceptance did not feel overwhelming; on the contrary, I felt liberated from the pressure to see dramatic success right away. Something inside of me recognized if I just kept doing the right things, I would ultimately get where I wanted to go. Accepting that I was in it for the long haul gave me the courage to take the first steps forward.
Takeaway: Practice patience. Changing your physique often takes way longer than you expect. You can’t give up if you don’t see immediate results within the first few weeks. Remember that regardless of whether you make any changes, time is going to pass anyway. Wouldn’t you rather be slightly leaner and healthier after a year than to remain where you are or gain more weight?
You don’t have to change everything at once. Small, incremental changes maintained consistently will have big payoffs in the long run. Determine what your biggest problem areas are and attack those first. Once you master those changes or if progress slows, look for further changes you can make.
Be nice to yourself.
Like many people who have struggled with their weight, I used to have severe body image issues and terribly low self-confidence. I was constantly comparing myself to my (I thought) thinner, prettier friends. I told myself I was fat and ugly and would always be that way no matter what I did. Of course none of this ever helped me make positive changes. Contrary to what some believe, shaming others or yourself is not an effective way to motivate long-term change. Rather than feeling bad about themselves or their decisions, people need to believe they have the fundamental capacity for change.
As I lost weight, I developed a new kind of negative self-talk. Each time I “screwed up” on my diet, I felt powerful feelings of guilt and self-loathing. I would beat myself up for days about my poor decisions. I would force myself to dramatically reduce calories in the following days, sometimes even fasting for extended periods of time. Other times I would punish myself with grueling workouts and extra cardio. All of this extra work only fueled a negative cycle that ultimately pushed me into problems with disordered eating.
Read more: 3 Strategies to Combat All-or-Nothing Eating
Takeaway: If you fall off the wagon, be nice to yourself. Remember your success is based on the sum of many weeks and months of decisions. One bad meal, bad day, or even a bad week does not mean you are doomed to failure assuming you make good choices most of the time.
After a screw up, I encourage you to take a “clean slate” approach and get right back to your normal plan as soon as possible. Don’t worry about doing penance for your mistakes – simply focus on nailing the good habits you have been working on.
Accept that failure and screw ups are an inevitable and necessary part of change. Always look for ways to learn from your mistakes so you can handle similar situations differently in the future. Reframe failure as success – you are now a bit wiser and farther along the path than you were before. The people who experience the most success long-term are those who keep picking themselves up and continuing on after they make mistakes.
Read More: Chasing Perfection? Do This Instead.
Embrace the Process
When I think about my life now compared to when I was obese, I see a lot of big changes:
- I used to exercise rarely, now I do some kind of activity 5-6 days per week.
- I used to eat until I was stuffed at every single meal, now I monitor my portion sizes to ensure I’m eating only the amount of food I really need.
- I used to binge on junk food all the time, now I center most of my eating around protein, vegetables, fruits, and healthy carbs and fats. I am absolutely not perfect and struggle just like everyone else, but the majority of the time I make healthy choices.
These changes have allowed me to keep off the weight I lost while still enjoying life for many years.
I did not make all of these changes at once; I took things one step at a time. I tried to take a big-picture view and didn’t let myself get caught up in the daily scale fluctuations or the larger fluctuations caused by periods of upheaval and periods of calm and focus. I was not always successful with this, but over time I learned to love the process of taking care of myself. I love to train and cook. I love the way my body feels when I treat it well versus when I make poor choices. I am fully invested in the day-to-day practices that got me to this point. This is the biggest secret to my lasting success.
Takeaway: The secret to maintaining physique changes is to continue doing many of the things you did in order to lose weight. This is the hardest part for many people because they think about dieting all wrong. For some people, as soon as they get to their goal weight they celebrate with junk food and missed workouts because they “earned it.” Over time, returning to these old habits takes you back to the same old overweight you.
Long-term success requires you to embrace systems of healthy eating, training, and stress management which you can sustain on a daily basis once the diet is over. These need to be flexible enough to provide some freedom but rigid enough to keep you on track most of the time.
One more note on embracing the process: I encourage you to separate yourself from hard goals centered around losing x amount of lbs by y date. The unfortunate reality is you cannot control specific outcomes. Instead, focus on what you can control – the daily habits and practices which compound to ultimately create a leaner, healthier body. Instead of thinking of your goal weight as a destination, think of the rest of your life as a long arch moving toward better health. You have plenty of time and will never truly arrive, so relax and enjoy each step of the journey.