The reasons people struggle to lose weight and keep it off.

weight loss

To lose weight you will need patience.

The reasons people struggle to lose weight and keep it off are:

  1. They are too impatient.
  2. They believe once they get to their desired weight then that’s the end of that lifestyle (diet).
  3. They think that every day/week has to be perfect and that they won’t experience roadblocks and struggles during the weight-loss period.

Achieving your weight loss goal is going to be extremely difficult.
Weight loss isn't easy.
The statement eat less, move more infuriates me.
People that judge other people’s body composition in my opinion is naive.
You shouldn't judge someone until you've walked in their shoes.

A calorie deficit which is required for weight loss doesn't take into consideration the many struggles of life. To name a few that my clients have dealt with include injuries, work stress, family stress, having a small child to care for, emotional eating and probably the biggest one the fact that weight loss results take longer than people think.

People give up on weight loss because they have unrealistic time frames on how quickly they should expect change and that they need to be perfect every week.

Have you given up on weight loss because you didn’t see a change or drop in weight in 1, 2 or even 3 weeks?

You can achieve huge amounts of weight loss in short time frames. If for six weeks you have an extremely restrictive plan including eating a low-calorie meal plan of very bland foods, no alcohol, no social occasions and no indulgences. If you adhere to this plan 100%, I can guarantee you weight loss success.

Ask yourself this…

Would you continue to adhere to these rules after six weeks?

If the answer is no, then why would you put yourself through those six weeks to achieve a result that after six weeks you would go back to your old ways and yo-yo back to your original weight if not higher.

Does this sound familiar?

To achieve weight loss my philosophy is finding a middle ground. You will need to make lifestyle changes from what you are currently doing to achieve weight loss. As your coach, my job is to educate you to ingrain new habits and behaviours which are required for you to lose weight and keep it off long term. The drawback to this approach is that it will take a lot longer than a heavily restricted, unsustainable, short term approach.

This is where clients require patience.

There will be weeks that do not go to plan.

Life will get in the way.

However, life will always get in the way.

There will always be stress in your life, unexpected events, and it will always be someone’s birthday at work with cake, drinks and a load of calories.

Your resilience to handle the unpredictable aspects of life we get thrown and to manage these alongside the habits and behaviours required for weight loss is what will make you successful.

My advice to clients is to not focus solely on an outcome goal. An outcome goal is outside of your control. If you don't achieve it in a set time, then you'll feel like you've failed. You can use outcome goals to guide you like the bigger picture. For example, with my clients, we will target a certain percentage range or weight loss each week. This may be the outcome goal; we then discuss weekly targets/behaviours to achieve to work towards achieving the percentage of weight loss. This allows the client the ability to control the bigger picture and work on the habitual changes needed to ingrain a new lifestyle.

That way you will never be failing at weight loss because you will be working towards building up solid habits and routines that are the fundamentals of fat loss. You will also enjoy the weight loss process and be able to see yourself living this lifestyle a year from now. This provides you with the consistency to not only achieve weight loss but maintain a healthy weight for the rest of your life.

Sick of dieting every year? It’s time to stop short term fixes and commit to a long-term educational approach that supports you to make the habits and behaviours needed to ditch the diet.

Just make sure you are ready to be patient and understand that you don’t need to be perfect to succeed.

Coaching will help you with the strategies needed to help you manage your nutrition around your lifestyle. Contact me today via the get in touch page to learn more.

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Hannah Sweetman Nutrition is an online coaching service that will work with you towards your ideal lifestyle.

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