How to Keep Weight Off

You can learn to lose weight and keep it off for the rest of your life if you adopt some good habits. We often stop, re-evaluate our lives and then briefly make family a priority, you make work a priority, you make tv a priority, why not your health or well-being?

Why not make a long-term commitment?

Everyone can tell me how much money they made last year, but few could tell me their blood pressure.

There is a process most people are unwilling (or unknowing) to take in their attempt to lose weight and keep it off. It is a process of change, not an overnight success.

Doing something for a month or 3 months is not an effective plan or long-term strategy, it’s short-sighted. We need to teach ourselves how to adopt healthier habits into our every day lives in a way that works for each of us.

How often do I hear others tell me, they are just going to cut this or that out for a month to lose 5 lbs? Every week.

3 months later we are starting over because they missed a step towards change. Doing something for a month or two is not a commitment, it’s an experiment. Choosing to work to achieve something and maintain it after the fact, that’s a commitment.

We all want something now, not 6 months from now but if you go into a plan with a long-term solution in mind you’ll be far more successful. Jim Collins proves that long term strategy is always the best way to go, via numbers in his book, Good to Great.

If you break down what you want to do into steps, you’ll also be able to keep the weight off.

Change happens slowly, you need to replace bad habits with good habits, work to correct the small things that are holding you back, but the right mind-set is probably more effective for weight-loss than any fitness or diet plan.

What are most people missing?

The Why

Simply put, they have not isolated a powerful enough reason to change and stay changed. They did not go through a self-assessment, they made no realization as to what they really wanted from their body and consequently they never committed to really making any changes.

Whatever changes you do make without a strong reason why, will unfold quickly upon getting the results you were seeking.

We need to re-evaluate the process we take in losing weight. Most everyone I talk to fails to get through the most critical step. Is this you? T

I have friends and family who always ask me for tools to lose weight. I’m willing to bet that is what the majority of people still do, look for tools to help.

They ask me questions like:

What’s the best diet plan I should go on?

What’s the best workout, I should go on?

My answer these days is often that it won’t matter if you’re not committed to the process. Most anything will work for at least some time, provided you’re committed to it. I can write up the best diet plan, the best workout plan and at the end of the day, it will not do anyone any good if they haven’t put themselves in the right frame of mind first, to utilize it.

The first thing most people do when they are ready to make a change?

They seek out information, more information and then the tools they will eventually use to lose weight. I’m talking about websites, calorie counters, tools for accountability, food and exercise logs, diet plans, gym memberships, training programs, and in some cases a coach. The truth is, that in this day and age, we have near unlimited access to information, and most people still struggle with making long-term change.

The information/tools first approach is clearly not working, you do not need any more information, you need education in combination with experience. You need to develop an understanding of good fitness and nutrition principles as they apply to you. That needs to happen only after you make the commitment.

The second big mistake people make in their weight loss progress?

The Now What?

You assessed, realized and committed. Then you educated yourself, you got all the right tools to help you succeed and you took action but that plan you built forgot about the maintenance phase.

What do you do when you get to where you want to be?

Sure you might be able to trigger a long-term response in some people if the change is small enough and dedicated enough in 30 days. (Example: Eat 5 times a day, or Eat Protein with every meal.)

Can maintenance become the goal? Absolutely!

You really have to be dedicated to the process though and you have to plan. I want you to learn how to live a lifestyle you are happy with and can maintain a satisfying weight with at the same time. Buckling down on your nutrition and exercise for a month or two, or ‘until you reach your goals’ is a bad idea. You absolutely need 6 months or more to go through the right process.

Bottom line: Make the commitment to lose weight, then get the right tools you need, — a coach should be at the top of that list —  take action, integrating what you learn and finally, create a plan to maintain it all after the fact. The in-between is the easy part, most everything works for some time, but you have the maintenance plan to play with and tweak for personal effectiveness.