Keto, low-carb, vegan, carnivore, Mediterranean, intermittent fasting–how many diets have you tried and abandoned?
How many times has your stomach slimmed down only to expand out again like an inflated balloon?
How many times have your friends and family commented on how much weight you’ve gained lately and how terrible you look? (And why do Chinese people love talking about this so much???)
And the question you’re really here for–Does weight loss have to be so hard?I can tell you the answer right now: kind of.
Look, I’ve been fat most of my life. I get it. I’ve rotated between the fat closet, the less-fat closet, and the almost-skinny closet pretty much since the day I was born. I’ve fallen for every temptation under the sun, and then still managed to find space in my stomach for seconds. I am Gluttony’s most faithful handmaiden.
But somehow, during this past year, not only have I managed to lose 20kg, but I’ve managed to keep the weight off, too. (For reference, I’m 158cm, athletically built, 52kg.)
How did I do it?
Well, I’m not going to tell you, because I don’t think it really matters all that much. And that’s kind of the point I want to get across–there are no perfect diets, there is no magic formula, there is no hidden path. A diet is a diet and whether it works or not is up to you.
What I will share with you, though, is what I’ve learned from finding healthy habits that work for me, and how you can build a strong mindset to help you push forward in your progress. Regardless of what your dieting plans are, there are three things you should keep in mind if you want to make weight loss feel easier.
1) Know what you need
Your bodily composition is different from mine. May be your genetics and family history are different from mine. Your habits and cravings and weaknesses are all different from mine. You are you, and as simple as that sounds, it’s something people tend to forget when following a plan.
Any healthy diet can be good, but no diet can be good for everyone. You need to know what diets work for you and for your lifestyle. Parts of some diets will work perfectly for you, and parts of others will not. Experiment, keep an open mind, and take notes of what works for your life and what doesn’t.
Instead of trying to find one perfect diet that you can follow religiously ’til the end of your days, try to learn from different diets and see how they fit into your life. Play around with them like a puzzle. If you play with the pieces long enough, you’ll start to get a picture.
With that said, you need to follow a plan, and you need to know why you are following a specific plan. What are your goals and priorities? If you trying to control your blood sugar levels? Are you trying to maintain a healthy body weight? Are you trying to improve your exercise performance? You’ll need a different plan for each of these scenarios. What worked for your friend won’t necessarily work for you. What worked for your favorite celebrity won’t necessarily work for you.
You are you. Don’t forget that. The only perfect diet is the one that works for you.
2) Make it a part of your life
Any worthwhile weight loss plan will require at least some level of personal sacrifice. Now here’s the thing: sacrifice can be good and it can be bad. It’s good when it makes you feel empowered, and it’s bad when it makes you feel miserable. Try to find out what sacrifices make you feel empowered, and stick with those.
Once you’ve chosen what sacrifices you’ll make in your life and you have a solid plan in place, do your best to embrace it fully. Instead of dreading the sacrifices you’ll have to make, invite them into your life. Try it together with your friends or loved ones. Talk about it, read about it, learn about it. Be willing to adapt your life around it. Invite it into your home and your workplace, and stand firm when people try to challenge you. Give it an honest try and see what results you get from it.
But whatever plan you choose to follow, it can’t be all easy, and it can’t be all hard. If the plan is too easy, then you’ll probably have the same results you’ve always had. If the plan is too hard, you’re going to hate every single day that you follow it. Any change you make has to be something you’re willing to make a part of your life. In other words: a lifestyle change that you can maintain not just over the course of a few weeks, but a few decades.
Welcome the new habits into your life and allow them to change you for the better.
3) Stop obsessing over it
How many push-ups will I have to do if I eat this cake? How many meals will I have to skip if I eat this pizza? What excuse can I use to avoid going to the family gathering where there will be lots of unhealthy food? Why am I such a failure and why can’t I just have perfect control over myself at all times like a robot programmed specifically for weight loss?
Really, just stop. Just stop and stop and take a good long look at yourself. Do you really want to live like this?
Doing exercise is great, but not when you force yourself to do it.
Skipping meals can be good to give your body a break, but can be toxic for your mind if you force yourself to do it when you don’t want to.
One excessive meal, no matter how unhealthy, isn’t going to kill you.
You’re a person, and if you never make mistakes then I can tell you right now that you’re almost certainly dull and dry and every manner of uninteresting.
Instead of obsessing over every little detail, take a long-view approach. If you eat a piece of cake today, do you really think it will make a noticeable difference a year from now? If you miss a workout today, do you think your muscles will know the difference a year from now? Of course not. Just get back to your good habits and move past it. But if you skip your workout and eat a piece of cake every single day for a year? Well, then you play a dangerous game, my friend.
Obsessing over little details drains you of energy that could be better spent in other, more productive places. Treat your mental energy like currency, and be stingy with how you spend it. Spend it on high-quality fuel and skip the junk that will only leave you feeling bloated. Know what’s truly valuable and worth being concerned about. Focus on the things in your life that can really make a difference over the course of a lifetime. Forget about the hour-to-hour mindset, and focus on the decade-to-decade mindset.
Making weight loss work for you
So much of weight loss is simply learning to propel yourself towards healthier habits and healthier ways of thinking and living. Learning about your body and the ways that you’re unique. It’s about pushing yourself to be better. It’s about focusing on things that add value to your life.
No matter how you choose to start losing weight, just remember that weight loss is a journey with peaks and valleys. And along this journey, you’ll find more joy if you focus on the positive things you can do, and focus less on the negative things you may have done. After all, it’s the accumulation of all the positive things that you do each day and each week and each month and year that make the difference and define you, not the minor hiccups along the way.
Focus on building good habits and routines and stick with them as much as you can, but have the strength to forgive yourself when you can’t.
Whether weight loss feels easy or hard all comes down to the mindset that you approach it with. Build a mindset that prioritizes restriction and self-shaming and you’ll never be satisfied. Build a mindset that prioritizes growth and curiosity, on the other hand, and you may just see your way through the other side of the tunnel.
The great irony is that while weight loss is focused entirely on the body, it’s arguably the mind that plays the biggest role. Learn to make it work for you, and you’ll find your journey moving a whole lot easier.
