Let me set the scene and you can tell me if this sounds like you…
You are ready to jump into the latest and greatest workout + diet routine in attempts to lose the unwanted weight. This time it involves early morning runs and eliminating all sugar and carbs. You hate running and have a huge sweet tooth, but that’s ok, you can do it! You can convince yourself that you LOVE waking up at 4 am to go out in the cold and trot down the trail. And it’s TOTALLY POSSIBLE to never eat your favorite cookie or pasta again. You’ve got this!
And for a month or two, you do. Every day you fight the ongoing battle inside, you resist the urges. You work sooo hard to be good and stay on your plan. You try to summon all the willpower available. But after a while you start to slip a bit. You start eating off plan here and there and you decide to skip a few of those early morning workouts…
And then you get on the scale. Nothing’s happened – nothing’s changed. WTF?! You’ve been busting your ass and for what?! To be miserable and hating life with no results to show for it?
So you think, why even bother? Why even try? I’m clearly doomed to be overweight forever…
I mean, after all you are X years old, with X number of kids, and you’ve always had thick legs or a pudgy tummy and having a nice body just isn’t in the cards for you…
So you give in and give up because, after all, you must have been kidding yourself to think you’d spend the rest of your life eating kale 3x/day and working out at 4am.
so why doesn’t this scenario work?
The reason the exercise and diet plans you’ve tried in the past have failed is because they are all action based. Instead of doing or eating A, replace it with B. This depends on willpower.
Willpower is trying to force your body to do something AGAINST what your brain is actually telling it to do.
Your brain says, I don’t like waking up at 4am to go to the gym. I want to eat 47 cookies and willpower is just trying to RESIST those thoughts for as long as possible.
Problem is, while we may be able to do this for a period of time (in which we may see some corresponding results on the scale,) we CANNOT do this forever. Willpower is like a muscle and will eventually begin to fatigue and will always end up giving out – the brain always wins. This constant battle also tends to make you feel miserable in the process – who wants to always be at war with themselves?
This is why long term transformation doesn’t come from willpower, it comes from changes inside your BRAIN. Welcome our hero, MINDSET MANAGEMENT, ta-dah!!!
so how do you lose weight successfully?
Why aren’t you getting the results you desire? You aren’t taking the proper actions. You are taking an action that doesn’t serve you instead.
Why are you taking that misguided action? Because of your emotions or the way you feel which guide your actions.
What makes us feel a certain way? People tend to think our feelings are derived from our circumstances. For example: Something bad happened to me today, I feel depressed about it, so I’m going to eat this cake and drink a bottle of wine (resulting in over eating, over drinking and remaining overweight.)
The truth is, all circumstances are NEUTRAL. They are neither good or bad. They are just facts.
It is our THOUGHTS about our circumstances which actually spark our feelings or emotions. It’s our judgments about our circumstance or the meaning we assign to our circumstance which set the whole system into motion.
Your THOUGHTS
cause your
FEELINGS
which drive an
ACTION
which creates your
RESULT
This is why the action based diet + exercise plans don’t work. You cannot just dive straight in to modifying the action level, you have to start at the top with modifying your thoughts in order to get the system to work as a whole.
When we can actually alter and modify the thoughts and beliefs we have and the messages our brain is sending out, THAT is what creates long-term lifestyle change.
It allows you not only to lose the weight, but to keep it off forever. And you get to do all of that without being in a constant fight with yourself. Sounds better, right?
This is what I am teaching in my new
Signature Coaching Program:
Weight Loss Thru Mindset.
I currently have 3 spots available for new clients!
Well, you just described me perfectly. Sounds like you have a great program that is bound to work!
Hahah, that’s amazing! Thank you so much, I’m super excited about it 🙂
Sometimes I forget how important mindset is to my weight loss journey. Great read!
Yes! It made all the difference for me! Rooting you on in your journey!!! xoxox
And all of this is exactly why diets fail. Healthy eating as a lifestyle is always best
Yes! And it becomes a permanent lifestyle when you make the change in your brain, not just in the action. You’ve got it!!!
Great article! I loved how you addressed the mental blocks we set up to block our commitment to health and fitness routine. That mental discipline can be hard to start and to maintain. That first week is the hardest!! I had been a competitive bodybuilder in my late 20s and through my 30s. I had great discipline and commitment for many years. I haven’t been able to get it back for whatever reason. I’m hoping one day it will reappear…I’m optimistic it will! ??
That’s amazing and takes a TON of mental discipline – wow!!! Just define the goal or result you’d like to have and work backwards from there to the thoughts and feelings you’d have to have to take the aligned action to create that result!
Sustainable is so tough but so important! I love how you said will power gets fatigued. Didn’t think of it that way but so true
Yes! Willpower will always give out eventually, no matter how hard we try!
I’m so glad somebody has spelled this out for me. I’ve always thought something along these lines about my own experience, but couldn’t put it into words.
Oh I’m so glad you found this helpful!
” It is our THOUGHTS about our circumstances which actually spark our feelings or emotions”
I love this! I find that those mental blocks are so hard to push through sometimes, but once you do you feel so much freer!
Yes! That blew my mind when I realized that all circumstances are actually neutral. It’s our thoughts about our circumstances that set everything else into motion. Literally a game changer!!!