I recently coached someone who was trying to lose weight. Last year she started exercising regularly and eating better. Then, in the fall of the year, she got buried in work and stopped exercising. Over the next six months she gained 15 pounds.
Now she is exercising as much as she was this time last year, yet she has not lost any weight. Her times for the 5K races she’s been doing are better than they were last year, which surprises her as she weighs more than she did then.
The good news is that she is healthier and more conditioned than she was this time last year.
The bad news is that she is going to have to exercise more if she wants to lose weight.
She’s reached that plateau that we always hear about in regard to weight loss. It’s true, your body does not want you to lose weight—it’s a survival mechanism. Back in the day, when we were living in caves and trying to avoid tangling with saber-toothed tigers, lost weight meant increased risk of death. That’s not true today, but our bodies didn’t get the memo.
Most people cannot lose weight by decreasing calorie intake alone. In order to do that, we’d have to slash our intake by 30% per day. For busy people that is not an easy (or necessarily healthy) thing to do.
For healthy weight loss, we need to decrease our calorie intake and add exercise—and, if we are already exercising, we need to exercise more. If we can do that, eventually we will get off that dreaded plateau and be headed toward our natural weight.
After our conversation, armed with a little more information, my client is motivated to continue to add more exercise to her daily routine.
Another commitment she’s made to her own health and well-being is to examine her thoughts about her body and her weight by journaling about these topics. This will help bring her to an awareness of any unconscious thoughts that may be sabotaging her weight loss efforts. Once her thoughts become conscious, she can choose whether or not she believes them.
Lastly, my client committed to stop multi-tasking while eating. She is no longer going to catch up on reading or email while eating. She is going to sit down and eat until she is satisfied and then she’ll stop. Studies show that we eat significantly more food when we eat in front of the TV, for example.
While many people may want to commit to just one of these changes, my client is ready to kick-start her weight loss and is excited and enthusiastic about the outcome. She has made the commitments to herself, but will also keep me posted on her progress.
Simple changes, while not easy, will help my client reach her weight loss goal in a way that keeps her healthy and feeling good.
What information do you need to reach a goal? How can you find it?