Lifestyle Changes Must Happen If Weight Loss Is To Be Permanent. Losing Pounds could be one of the Toughest Goals to Accomplish…
If you never change your daily habits.
If you have to restrict yourself.
If you do not set realistic goals.
If you do not set yourself up with the proper motivational triggers.
Can Losing Weight Be As Easy As Changing Your Habits?
Every day, thousands of people decide to lose weight, to have more energy, to become more fit, to exercise more, and to eat better. Why do so many fail at these honorable goals? Why is shedding those extra pounds so terribly difficult?
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There are many reasons why losing pounds could be one of the toughest goals to accomplish. When you think about it, losing weight is a goal that reaches into almost all areas of our lives because we are changing our habitual lifestyle eating choices.
Eating, exercising, and the goal of losing weight are related to our emotional life, our physical life, our sense of self, our self-esteem, our personal and professional life, and a host of other areas that reach into almost all areas of our lives. It affects our identity…
The Problem: Enter “The Power of Habit”
One of the reasons that losing weight is so difficult is related to the power of habit. Never underestimate the power of habit.
Habits are meant to empower us, to make it eassier to accomplish tasks we want or need to complete regularly.
Our body is a wonderful and miraculous organism and in it’s infinite wisdom, sets up subconscious triggers so we don’t even have to think of these simple daily tasks.
The process of losing weight is often just breaking some disempowering habits we have developed over the years. We have to replace those old habits with new empowering actions, thereby cultivating new habits for our body to adopt.
Attenpting to break well ingrained habits is no easy task. Losing weight, and keeping it off, is connected to every aspect of our everyday life. In order to lose weight in the beginning, you must be ever conscious of what you put in your body every day, and you must constantly gauge your activity level.
If you slack off, or abandon your program mid-stream, chances are that you will stop losing weight, and even re-gain all the weight you did lose. You will return to your old patterns and probably end up a few pounds more than when you started.
In order to change your bad eating habits, you should consider keeping a food diary. Keeping a food diary makes you acutely aware of what and how much you are putting into your body. It makes you conscious of your eating patterns, and allows you to reflect on how you are progressing towards your goal.
Keeping a food diary will also help you to see if you tend to eat emotionally. You will be able to pinpoint certain foods and times that you are eating that are keeping you from achieving the weight loss goals you desire.
The Solution: Make Fundamental Lifestyle Changes (Change Your Habits)
Another major reason that so many people fail to lose weight is that most individuals fail to recognize that successful weight loss is directly linked to making fundamental lifestyle changes.
The reason that so many people’s diets tend to go awry is that “diets” simply don’t cut it. Sticking to a restricted diet for any length of time is incredibly difficult. In fact, the more restrictive your diet is, the less chance of you succeeding on any kind of long-term change.
Making fundamental lifestyle changes is the only way to keep weight off for good. So many people can easily lose a few extra pounds, but only small minorities of these individuals are capable of keeping it off.
In order to keep off the weight, you must want establish and enjoy a healthy lifestyle. You have to think beyond the cosmetic or temporal effects of losing weight. You want to lose weight in order to achieve a healthier, more fulfilling lifestyle. In short you must have good reasons, or strong motive.
And Then: Set Realistic Goals (Keep Your Motivation High)
Many people have difficulty in losing weight because they approach the process with unrealistic goals in mind. Be realistic about losing weight. So many people have a fixed number in their mind, and they don’t consider themselves successful until they reach that goal weight.
This sort of thinking usually leads to failure. Change the way you measure success. For instance, don’t gauge your success by your ability to fit into a size 6 dress or pair of pants. If you have never fit into a size 6 in your life, chances are that you are aiming too low.
Rather than having a specific number in your mind, judge your success by how you feel. You know you are successful if you can climb up a flight of stairs without breathing heavily, or if you have integrated more fruits and vegetables into your every day diet.
Setting realistic goals is extremely important because it can help keep you motivated.
Ahh, I said it. There is the ultimate easy button. Motivation makes all things difficult seem easier. And the higher the motivation level the better.
The ultimate solution: You must stay highly motivated and on task. That’s it in a nutshell . . . Oh, and this “Eat Less And Exercise More”. Simple.
So, starting out. If you are too rigid in your definition of success, you are more likely to fail. Be flexible. You will probably become easily frustrated with the slow progress you are making, and eventually give up altogether. Not good.
So, no one said it had to be hard. Make it easy on yourself. Break up your long-term goal into manageable sections.
Give yourself short, easy to achieve goals. Small successes will keep you going, and make the process of losing weight much more realistic and yes, even enjoyable once you have cultivated the habit.