Sometimes losing weight can seem like an overwhelming problem. Maybe you've tried many times and failed. Maybe you got so far towards your target and then for some reason just gave up. Maybe the road ahead just seems TOO long.
Now this may surprise you (and even irritate you a bit) but in most cases, weight loss does not have to be as difficult as you think it is, if you approach it in the right way.
What set off this blog post is an email I had from a lady a couple of days ago. Let's call her Annie for the sake of anonymity. She described a whole lot of issues and explained that she had been trying to lose weight for two years and had been "floundering".
Now that is not unusual - floundering is what many people do when it comes to weight loss but that whole feeling of looking at your weight and thinking that it is a huge (even insurmountable) problem has to go if you are going to tackle it and succeed.
You see you didn't wake up one morning 20lb or 50lb or 100lb heavier than you were the day before. You got there by one small decision at a time - the extra cookie here, a bigger portion than you needed there, a snack you didn't really want but it was "around", a meal out where you ate too much, a few drinks, a "yes" to the offer of cake when you meant to say "no", a "couldn't be bothered to exercise today".
You'll know your own weaknesses and issues - and if you are overweight, chances are you have multiple habits which got you where you are today.
But instead of seeing the whole of your weight problem as one big, impossible-to-tackle issue, try breaking it down into the decisions, the situations that make you gain weight. Each of those decisions I mentioned above can be tackled if you are focused and vigilant.
You won't succeed in making the right decision 100% of the time but you can certainly make enough of them to change your body and your life one decision at a time.
Think through and put in a place a strategy for dealing with each of those issues or problems one by one. Then keep focused on using your strategies until they become simply the way you behave. That is the way to change your habits long term and keep weight off.
Of course a drastic diet will give you drastic (maybe even fast results) - but chances are you'll not be able to stick to it as long as it takes to reach your target and what's worse, you'll still be left with the problems that made you overweight in the first place after you come off the diet - because no one can stay on any kind of rigid diet forever.
Result: rapid weight gain undoing all your efforts.
Better to confront your issues one at a time and succeed forever. Please do this even if you opt for the drastic diet!
I'll be looking at Annie's issues and helping her to devise some strategies over the course of the next week or so - and I'll share any that may help you here on the blog.
Meanwhile think about your own issues and how you could tackle them one at a time.
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