Developing Happy, Healthy Habits for Deep Transformation
Diets are like new relationships. It starts out exciting, you have long term weight loss on your mind, but after some time you realize it’s going to take some level of ‘work’ to keep it going…
Relationships may be long term, but diets are certainly not designed to be.
So, what happens if a diet goes well? It then becomes a battle to maintain it whilst not dieting. If you want long term weight loss results, I can promise you one thing, a diet won’t get you there.
When you think about going on a diet to lose some weight, first get ultra clear on why it is you want to lose the weight. Is it to feel and look better in your clothes, to feel fitter for the kids or grandkids?
Once you know exactly why it’s important to you to lose weight, imagine what it will feel like after you have reached your goal. Maybe you will feel happier getting dressed in the morning, enjoy clothes shopping more, feeling fitter and more confident…what else?
So now we have your mind in one place – excited and feeling ready to do this and get the weight down, then we have your body who is used to certain habits and behaviors and are wired to keep them that way. It’s that internal contradiction that sees you struggling to keep up with the diet.
The thoughts feelings and habits that you have built up until this day have been built physically in your brain. Starting a new diet and hoping your willpower doesn’t let you down, then berating yourself when it does, is the long and hard way out of this.
But if I want long term weight loss and fast, surely adjusting my diet is the first thing I should do?
Only when the reason you are doing it is for the greater good of yourself and not just weight loss. If there’s one thing I know, losing weight on the scales does not make you happier.
The diet market has convinced us that when the number on the scales go down, we will be happier and healthier. Coming from experience and working with hundreds of women who have done the same, weight loss isn’t actually the thing that brings the happiness, neither is it something we should focus on.
Focusing only on weight loss is a dangerous method for several reasons:
- You don’t always know what the weight is that you are losing – it may not necessarily be fat, but water and muscle instead.
- Sometimes you won’t lose any weight at all because you may have lost fat but gained water.
- It can easily lead to obsession over numbers and encourage people to skip meals thinking their numbers will go down faster.
- It’s not an accurate measurement of health or happiness so why do we judge ourselves on it?
- Just like calorie counting diets, focusing on losing weight on the scales encourages people to make choices based on numbers rather than their own personal health and wellbeing. I know because have been there!
Long term weight loss should be a biproduct of a lifestyle that really suits your mind and body, not the result of a diet.
So, instead of aiming to go on a diet to lose weight, shift the aim and attention to WHY you want to feel better in or out of your clothes, or get fitter, or improve your flexibility, strength and muscle tone.
Once you do that, you will see that your mind and body lose the internal contradiction. They both start to agree as you take your new actions and make new habits, because your ‘why’ makes sense.
Losing a number on the scale means nothing, except likely stress to your body. Another pressure to add to life. Life is far too short to be unhappy in our body.
When the focus is on weightloss instead of your ‘why’ it takes your attention away from being happy and healthy. You find yourself making decisions based on what the scales would say, instead of what you really need.
I challenge you to start a new relationship with you. A new way of thinking, a new aim, and new results. Make your first new habit change to ditch the scales.
Leave a comment if you are willing to ditch the scales and start training your body to obey your mind when it comes to making healthier lifestyle decisions.