5 Ways to Stay on Track with Your Weight Loss Efforts
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The New Year’s excitement is probably wearing thin right about now and all your lofty goals may be taking a slow nosedive, but this doesn’t have to be the year you throw in the towel.
I’ve been there. Like most people, I start off the new year full of motivation & ambition to eat healthier, exercise more, and [actually] practice all of the healthy lifestyle goals I encourage my clients to do. This year though, I’ve committed to leaning into the lifestyle part as a true testament to practicing what I preach.
In this blog post, I’ll be sharing 5 ways to stay on track with your weight loss efforts - for real this time! I’ll share how to:
Think of meal planning in a way that’s not stressful or overwhelming
Listen to your body regarding what type and how much exercise to do
Create balance in your life instead of having an “all-or-nothing” mentality
Think about your relationship with food
Make yourself a priority
I know firsthand how hard it is to try to do all the things (eat healthy, exercise, drink water, have meaningful relationships) while also working full-time and trying to juggle marriage & parenting a toddler. Not to mention, I’m married to law enforcement which means unpredictable schedules, extra worry, and inconsistent help at home (IYKYK!).
It doesn’t take very much at all to steer me away from my healthy living goals. I’ve gone through years of starting out strong, hitting a bump in the road, giving up completely just to restart again. I’ve had periods in my life where I did not prioritize myself and my physical & mental health took the hit.
Even though my entire adult career has been centered around working in weight loss and mental health, it wasn’t until recently that I had THE ah-ha moment! It doesn’t have to be so hard or complicated. There is a way to take care of yourself, in all the ways, and still live your life. So here’s what I learned to be true and how to implement it for yourself. This is exactly how to stay on track with your weight loss efforts - for real this time!
Think of meal planning in a way that’s not stressful or overwhelming
First step is to think about the things you/your family already like to eat. There’s no need to reinvent the wheel. Think of your go-to family dinners, the ones that are easy to throw together and don’t require a lot of thinking. Create a list of these meals to reference when you can’t come up with anything else. Consider if you can swap out ingredients or change your cooking technique to make it a healthier meal. For instance, baking/air frying/grilling instead of frying your chicken. Or, using vegetable substitutes, swap rice for cauliflower rice (or mix the two!) or using zucchini noodles instead of spaghetti noodles. Again, it doesn't have to be complicated, even simple ways to insert more nutritious ingredients will be helpful over the long run.
Second step is to think of some even easier go-tos to consider if your week is not going as planned. These meals would be things you didn’t necessarily have to cook- cold meals- like a pasta salad, sandwiches, or chicken/tuna salad. The ingredients for these types of meals usually have a longer shelf life so you can decide to stock up and then use them as needed. Again, think about what ingredients you could swap for more nutritious ones.
Ideally, meal planning is helpful to do on a weekly basis and it’s super important to consider what you & your family have going on that week. Don’t try to think much beyond a week at a time if that’s too much planning. This is where people often get overwhelmed and quit. Pick a day to review you & your family’s weekly schedule- decide if/when you’ll have time to cook or if you need to prepare ahead of time. If you know the kid’s have basketball practice on Thursday night after school, you can prepare ahead of time. It’s waiting until the moment it’s time to eat to decide what to eat that will deter you every time.
If you need a place to write out your meal plan on a weekly basis & keep an ongoing food log to reference, click here. If you want this and you’ve had bariatric weight loss surgery, then click here.
Listen to your body regarding what type and how much exercise to do
Now’s probably a good time to reconsider how you think of exercise. Does it feel like a chore? Are you trying to exercise at the level you were at 5 years ago? Has your gym membership been drafting out of your account for months but you never go? It is ok to change your definition of exercise based on where you are in your life right now.
Consider how much time you have to devote to an exercise routine, think about ways you like to move your body and ways you don’t enjoy so much. If you don’t like the gym, cancel your membership. If you enjoy gardening & yard work, how can you do that consistently? If on some level you don’t enjoy what you’ve defined as exercise, then it won’t be sustainable.
I tried home exercise for two years after having my son and while there were some days I got a good garage workout in, I’ve finally concluded it’s not for me. I’m too distracted by the mess that is my garage and being around other people holds me accountable. I’m more likely to push myself if I have the space & equipment to do so. I had to decide to go back to the gym & I had to find the right gym with hours that fit my schedule and with supportive people who notice things & would encourage me during workouts. On the days I can't make it to the gym- my main goal is general movement. Aiming for a certain amount of steps per day to ensure I’m not just sitting for long periods of time.
Find what’s sustainable and realistic with your lifestyle right NOW, not what you used to do or what you thought would be a good idea but really isn't. If you need help tracking your exercise routine, click here for a log you can keep with your meals.
Create balance in your life instead of having an “all-or-nothing” mentality
The all-or-nothing mentality is a common trend I see working in weight loss. I can spot it almost immediately but what always surprises me is that not everyone is aware that this is what they do.
Picture this: you decide to get your life together, for real this time. You map out a plan to eat grilled chicken & salad as your main meal, you decide not to allow anything besides water, you’ll stop eating past 6 PM, and you’ll set a goal to go to the gym 5 times this week for at least a 90 minute work-out. This will start on Monday. It will be the time you lose the weight once and for all, you are sure of it!
Then Wednesday comes. You don’t make it to the gym because you got home late Tuesday from your kid’s sporting event & you determined your rest was more important. Because you slept in, you missed breakfast. You decide not to eat until lunchtime. Noon rolls around and you CANNOT eat another bite of grilled chicken & salad. You decide to order out just this one time. The food is delicious- you devour it in minutes. The endorphins are short-lived, & you immediately feel regret. You criticize yourself until dinner time when you decide you should be punished for not eating a healthy lunch. You decide to skip dinner to make up for it.
It’s the hamster wheel everyone wants to get off but may not know how. Don’t get me wrong, I think having ambitious goals is ok but what good are they if they aren’t sustainable? Take a step back and consider the whole picture that is your life right now. Is something else needing more of you right now? Is there a major change happening with your personal life? Or your professional life? How much time can you [realistically] devote to your goals? Spend some time actually reflecting on how you’ll make time to better your health & define for yourself, what that means.
Creating balance is the secret to getting off the all-or-nothing hamster wheel. It’s helpful to consider where you can & cannot allow for flexibility around your goals. Allowing for flexibility essentially means allowing for real life things to come and deter you. It’s going to happen, I can guarantee it. Focus on shortening the amount of time you need to get back on track.
Being able to look back on how consistency has paid off is a good way to stay motivated for the future. Jot down all of the good & not so good days in this planner so that you can look back and see what worked & what didn’t work.
Think about your relationship with food
It really all comes down to this. If you want to get back on track & stay there, you have to ask yourself some things:
Do you see food as the enemy?
Is it how you show your love?
Do you find comfort in certain food items?
Is it very ingrained in you that wasting food is not acceptable?
Do you hide your eating habits from others?
How open are you to trying new foods?
This is just scratching the surface, but this is where all the work is done. If you aren’t in a place to focus on your relationship with food by breaking up with unhealthy core values you established long ago and marrying new ideas about what it means to nourish yourself then the changes you make are going to be temporary.
Emotional eating habits are some of the hardest to break but the first step towards working on this is promoting more awareness around your emotions & subsequent food choices. If you need help tracking this, check out this planner. If you are pursuing bariatric surgery, use this workbook to do a deep dive into your relationship with food.
How to make yourself a priority
Maybe you’ve forgotten how or what this even means. Have you spent the past [several] years taking care of other people? I see a lot of healthcare workers who struggle with this because their whole job is about taking care of their patients & then they come home & take care of their families. Somewhere along the way, they forget that they themselves need care.
Now, I’ll admit, I used to internally roll my eyes when a mom would tell me that she didn’t have time to do things for herself because she was taking care of her children. Then I became a mom. Oh man, was I humbled! I’m deep into raising a 2-year-old toddler tornado who only operates at one speed- full on sprint. It’s exhausting, both physically & mentally.
BUT, all the more reason I need to pour into myself. I think constantly about the example I want to set for my son & future children. What it looks like to practice self-care, to do things that interest me, to have meaningful relationships with my spouse, my family & my friends. How will he know how to do this, if I don’t model it for him?
Also, I’ve proven to myself time & time again that if I do the things I need to take care of myself, I show up as a better version of me. What I try to remind others is that this doesn’t have to be anything grand. Maybe this looks like waking up 30 minutes earlier to sip your coffee in silence. Maybe it looks like reading a book, or painting your nails, talking to a friend. These are all minor things that make a big impact. Or, something like going to a gym class a couple times a week for 60 mins is what you need- think about this amount of time relative to all your other tasks (60 mins out of the ENTIRE day is really not that much). While I think bigger gestures of self-care are great (hello, girl’s weekend!), aim to “choose you” more consistently throughout your day, in ways that energize you. You’ll be better for it.
If you need support with getting back on track with your health & well-being, message me! I offer mental health counseling tailored to you & designed to help you get back on track & stay there. We’ll set realistic goals that are actually sustainable so that you’re building a solid foundation from which to continue growing.
If you’re like me and have a special love of planners & want any excuse to buy a new pen, check out this planner for general weight loss. A version of this is also available for anyone who's had bariatric weight loss surgery.
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