On your weight-loss journey, a lot of us are used to yo-yo dieting. We will commit ourselves, lose a few kilos, stop making progress and then gain it back just to start all over again. I did this up until my early 20’s when I decided to lose 70kg and never go back.
Here are 3 things I tell my clients to avoid if they want to do the same thing.
1. Avoid Setting Unrealistic Goals!
When we are full of motivation we think we can conquer the world. When we set unrealistic goals for ourselves we are only setting ourselves up for failure. Take steps. For example, if you work from home and average out 3k steps per day we tend to jump straight to a 10k step goal. We might start the week off strong but by the end of the week we might feel tired. This might result in us not reaching our goal. When we don’t reach this goal we feel like we’ve let ourselves down and quickly get the ‘why bother’ mindset. This is where our unrealistic goals come back to bite us. So, instead of jumping the gun and trying to push yourself from 3k steps to 10k, start off smaller. Push for 5k and stick to that for 2 weeks before trying to give another slight increase. This will be more beneficial to us further down the line as we are less likely to become demotivated so fast.
2. Avoid Ditching All of Your Favorite Foods Overnight!
Yes, this does include chocolate. While we want to opt for more whole foods that are not processed our body will be used to these overly process foods. Chances are we will crave them. So, rather than getting rid of them just to binge eat them further down the line (and again leave yourself feeling demotivated), start off by limiting the amount of these foods you have. When you do have them, pair them with more nutritionally valuable foods.
Take oats for example. I love my oats with berries and honey, but sometimes during my menstrual cycle I will literally wake up craving chocolate. Then, I allow myself to have a small kinder bar in my oats. Having a small amount with a filling meal will 1 get rid of that craving early in the day and 2 help fill me up so I don’t immediately want to finish another bar.
3. Avoid Aimlessly Going to the Gym!
This is something I did a lot. I would go in on random days and do random machines or random HIIT classes. Once I got a personal trainer for just 4 weeks I had a plan in place that I could rinse and repeat for a few months so I could actually start to see progress in the gym. This helped so much with my motivation as I finally felt I was achieving something and making progress. This motivation helped me to keep on track on all aspect of my health and fitness journey as I had something else to feel good about if the scales didn’t drop every week.
Everyone will have something that works for them and not someone else so if you feel nothing has worked for you so far – try ask yourself on a deeper level why that was? Chances are something didn’t suit you and your lifestyle which left you feeling unmotivated. Identify these scenarios and adjust your plan accordingly even if it means you get 5k steps instead of 10k, small steps of progress over time will add up to much more than 1 giant step forward and 2 small steps backwards.
