Seriously now, what’s your fear when it comes to weight loss? We know that many of you, whether you want to admit it or not find the very idea of losing weight to be quite the daunting task. However, if you are fearful of losing weight, you really need to evaluate if your fears are rational or not. And this goes for guys too, even men can get fearful over weight loss – I know, I have been there too at one time.
So, what is it in the first place that gives us apprehension about losing weight and achieving a healthier body?
Have you ever thought about how the fear of weight loss is by nature in no way a rational thought no matter how you study it?
It is past time for you to get over your fears today, and get on with living a healthier life that you can actually enjoy.
I have encountered people who have expressed the desire to lose weight when they learn what I do. Without fail they will begin telling me about the diets that they have done in the past along with the one they might be currently on. The underlying theme with them all is the need to change their mindset for once and for all. At David’s Way to Health and Fitness, we teach people to drop the diet mindset and that healthy weight loss and management must come from a permanent change of lifestyle. When you break it down, this task is nowhere near as daunting as some would make it out to be.
Facts!
Food won’t fix our emotional, stress and habitual eating. It won’t fix our compulsive and binge eating.
You and I both know how much temporary comfort we derive from stuffing our faces with junk foods when our stress meters are pegged into the red zone. The worst thing we can do when we are feeling emotional, and or stressed, is to reach for foods that will only bring temporary comfort while contributing to more of our misery in the future.
Instead, with your doctors approval, you should consider beginning a new exercise routine that will help to clear your mind from negative thoughts. Walking at a brisk pace is perfect for this, and it costs you nothing but a little bit of time during the day.
Food won’t get to the root cause. It won’t address the psychological and mental barriers we might face.
When we have mental or psychological issues, we truly must face them head on, and sometimes with assistance from professional help. Like alcohol and drugs, food will only bring us temporary relief from our woes, but it will never repair our problems. Resorting to comfort foods is really nothing more than burying our proverbial heads in the sand.
One thing I want you to consider, those comfort foods we always turn to will also add to our anguish when we get those awful cravings we know as being “hangry” – that feeling when you are so ravenous that your hunger begins making you angry until you get something to eat. I know from my own personal experience that when I got “hangry”, I could eat a five gallon bucket full of salad and still not be satisfied until I ate something loaded with simple carbs and fat.
Everyone has a story, and yours is not likely to be unique no matter what you may feel.
Food certainly won’t change our behaviors and habits. And it won’t change the way we think and react to food.
When life becomes uncomfortable, and we are feeling our emotions, it becomes too easy to just quit. But then, at some point we will inevitably get sick of ourselves again, only to begin another worthless diet and proceed to continue this vicious cycle once again.
The more times we repeat the vicious cycle of yo yo dieting where we will always fail, it becomes too easy to procrastinate getting serious about our health and weight.
Procrastination is the process where we overthink things to the point of not doing anything about them. We can readily come up with a plethora of reasons why we shouldn’t do something, rather than find reasons why we can do it instead. Everyone is different and our thoughts make us unique, however there are common thinking patterns which make weight management feel impossible. Here are five stumbling blocks that most people go through when it comes to weight loss.
1. Unrealistic Expectations People who procrastinate may not have a realistic view of what success is. They think that it was easy for their friend to lose weight. They assume that friend was stronger than them, or had more time to do it. If you think that it is easier for your friend than yourself, you would be wrong. It is a simple and basic fact that to be successful it is important to overcome frustrations and to remain focused on your long-term goals.
We all encounter bumps in the road – it’s almost impossible to make changes to our lives without them. However, just because you encountered some bumps in the road, you should never give up on what’s meaningful to you.
2. Fear of Failure Many people have an irrational fear of failure and will base their self-esteem and self-image on their accomplishments. It is not uncommon that people find weight loss to be a daunting task, therefore rather than risking failure, they quite often will do nothing at all.
Fear of failure is a huge and all too common roadblock to weight control. To combat this, you need to aim your attention to only the positive steps you’re making towards getting healthy. For instance, you should pat yourself on the back when you didn’t give in to a craving.
Celebrate the positive and learn from the negative.
3. Perfectionism Many people have an idea of how certain things need to be carried out when it comes to weight loss. Their thinking can be very rigid and can in fact stop them from getting results. Regarding weight loss, people will have unrealistic expectations to lose a unreasonable amount of weight every single week without exception.
Life does not work like that and our bodies are not robots. Folks who have this all or nothing attitude often abandon all their good intentions when they do not see the result they aimed for. With healthy weight loss, we all encounter peaks and valleys. The line from 300 pounds to 150 pounds is not straight in the least. There will be minor setbacks and plateaus for everyone. You are not a special snowflake, you have to understand that weight loss requires preplanning and adjustments to your caloric intake on a regular basis.
4. Negative Self-Talk Try to avoid statements like, “I should lose weight or I should get started on my diet”, as these types of statements usually don’t work. Quit talking about it and just get on with doing something about your weight. Negative self talk can make you feel resentful, guilty and prevent you from getting started with your weight control plan.
Change your new self-talk to a more positive approach such as: “I choose to be slim, happy, and healthy. I know that what I weigh and how I feel is entirely up to me”.
5. Lack of Motivation In life, our motivation goes up and down. But motivation is not key to your weight loss. What is key is that you have discipline, and that you continuously work towards improving it each and every day. We all experience days or even weeks where we are not as focused as we should be. Learning not to panic when this occurs is vital to successful weight management. Discipline will help you to remain calm and provide useful insight into why your motivation may have taken a dive. When you are feeling less motivated, start thinking about why you wanted to get your weight down. Use those reasons to build upon your foundation of discipline.
Now ask yourself, ‘why am I scared of losing weight?’
Also ask yourself, ‘what do you have to gain from staying the same?’
Healthy Weight Loss with David’s Way to Health and Fitness
You can buy our new E-Book to help with your weight loss needs by visiting our David’s Way Book Sales menu tab. For the low cost of $4.99 US, you can get your copy of Healthy Weight Loss with David’s Way to Health and Fitness, where you will find our weight loss philosophy, nutrition and health information, the history of dieting going back to the 1800’s and a good sampling of our healthy recipes! This is a great bargain my friends, and the proceeds help to keep our website free to all.