Starting your weight loss journey isn’t easy and let’s face it even with the best intentions but sometimes life just gets in the way and staying on track is not always easy to do. Weight loss efforts can fail when you are faced with hurdles along the way that derail your progress, commitment and dedication.
Sustaining a healthy lifestyle is the key to success which includes being able to identify these hurdles and learn how to overcome them. Check out some of my top tips for helping to overcome the most common obstacles I see regularly with clients.
Eating to kill time,
Do you ever get bored or tired so you reach for food? Many times, this urge to eat doesn’t come from the feeling of real hunger, it is actually from boredom. Every time you find yourself snooping through the cupboards or fridge for a snack, ask your self are you really hungry? There is often a reoccurring pattern with this type of behaviour too so try to identify if for example are you doing this every night at a certain time? Or do you do it when you’re feeling grumpy or stressed?
Tips to overcome this: Drink water to satisfy your cravings, call a friend or go for a walk to keep yourself busy.
You Struggle to say no to your friends,
Why is it that when you are trying your hardest to cut out junk food, alcohol and sweets you’re always getting invited out for dinner by friends?! Because you don’t want to let them down you go along and end up eating something you didn’t want to have and then feel terrible about it. You find yourself saying yes to these scenarios because you want to see your friends and make sure you keep them happy and let’s be honest, sometimes there can be peer pressure to have just one glass or one bite!
Tips to overcome this: Order a healthy option, if no healthy options available settle for a tea or water. Let your family and friends know your health goals, this way they can support your health and fitness journey.
You use every meal out as a treat,
If you eat out quite often whether its lunch out of the office or weekly dinner catch ups with friends so sometimes you use opportunities to treat yourself. Treats here and there are fine, but ordering deep fried chips on the side to each meal out of home, will derail your progress. Don’t celebrate your meal out by eating whatever you want. A good friend of mine once said, “you’re not a dog so why do you need treats?”
Tips to overcome this: Ensure you make the best choices possible on the menu and if need be tell the waiter to remove certain foods like chips and replace with vegetables.
You Struggle to say no to office treats,
Why is there often so much temptation around the office? Be realistic about this, if you know your work place has treats available weekly that you can’t resist, don’t restrict yourself. Our minds are funny things, and sometimes by telling yourself you can’t have something we tend to want it more. Allow yourself one little treats a week, and the rest of the time practice saying ‘no’ firmly.
Tips to overcome this: Having your own healthy snacks at work as back up and ensuring you have enough good fats such as nuts to reduces cravings late in the afternoon
You think you have already blown it,
This is one of the most common reasons people self-sabotage! We have all been there before, eaten something we shouldn’t have and then decided to keep going. If you get the mind set of ‘I can keep eating because i have already blown it for the day, I’ll start again tomorrow’ then you could seriously be destroying your weight loss efforts. This can be a very dangerous habit to get into, making one mistake and following it up with 10 more can get you into a very bad habit. It’s much easier for your body to digest one piece of cake compared to a whole cake.
Tips to overcome this: Accept that you have made 1 poor choice and get back on horse. Allow yourself to have a treat, if you have 5-6 small meals per day that’s 42 meal for the week, if 1 or 2 aren’t perfect this will not affect your long term goal!