The Skinny on Summer Weight Loss

About a 5 minute read

Summer is almost here, and that means the annual tradition of new diets and “get thin quick” schemes will be popping up faster than spring flowers.

If you’re like most dieters, every failed attempt to reach your goal weight and keep it off erodes your self-confidence and keeps you up late at night saying things to yourself that you wouldn’t dare utter to your best friend. And if you’re not sure what I’m talking about, start listening in on those conversations you have with yourself over the next few days.

When it comes to new, incredible diets, the “shiny object syndrome” definitely applies. You might catch yourself thinking that you haven’t lost weight yet because you lack willpower, and that this new diet will finally be the one to get you back into your skinny jeans.

There’s just one problem with this. All these new diets are based on a fundamental scam that will ensure that you keep failing. They convince you that if only you have this outside thing, this special plan, product, or program, you’ll lose weight.

The scam is that they’re telling you there is something outside of you that can make you lose weight. The truth is, there’s no solution “out there in the world” to change the way your body looks; if you want to lose weight, you need to fundamentally shift the way you think and how you feel about yourself.

 There’s NO magic program, product, or “potion” to change your body.

If you want to lose weight, you need to change the way you think. 

The weight loss and dieting industries make over $71 billion a year by churning and burning through this misperception of how weight loss works. And we have bought into it for years!

Once you realize that the answers will come from within, you can put structures and tools into place to facilitate this new shift. Start with these three steps to long-term weight loss that I focus on in my new 16-week program, BUILD (we’ll be launching in July - you can sign up for the waitlist below!).

Step 1: Assess

This step is fundamental to your success, so don’t skip it. You can’t begin making progress if you don’t know where you’re starting. Get your scared butt on the scale. Take your measurements. Take photos from the front, side and back. I know it's painful - I remember the despair I felt when I started my own weight loss journey. And I wouldn’t tell you to take this step if it wasn't important. Even though I harp on about how the scale doesn’t matter, it is data that can be helpful when used correctly. Don’t use that data to judge yourself. Just write it down in a notebook, along with your measurements, and then put it away.

Next, track what you eat for at least a week. Notice the thoughts you have about your body and your self-worth as you make food choices. Write them down. What were you thinking and feeling when you ate? Whenever you decide to eat when you’re not hungry, there’s a need you are trying to satisfy; it's not about the food, it's about how you are using food to meet your needs. Once you have a better understanding of how you feel about food and what needs are being met by your current choices, you can start to interrupt those patterns. You may find the results pretty surprising. Again, do this with curiosity and not judgment. We’re scientists conducting an experiment. We need data to support our research, so that’s all we’re gathering here.

Step 2: Design Your Plan

Now that you have a starting point and you have collected the right data, it’s time to design a plan and make a commitment to your health and happiness. This is about the logistics, and it’s important to be completely honest with yourself when you start to envision your journey. What steps are you actually willing to take consistently? Those are the ones you can start with. Start small, with daily tasks that feel completely doable. The beautiful thing is that if you try something and it turns out to feel too difficult, you can break it down even smaller, or choose something else. It’s YOUR plan, and it’s 100% adaptable. It’s the consistency that will make all the difference here. Because if you try to lose weight in a way that doesn’t feel sustainable in the long run, you will set yourself up for failure. And that keeps you on the diet roller coaster, where you don’t want to be anymore. Am I right?

The all-or-nothing dieting approach always leads to nothing. Diets fail because they set standards that are way too high for a normal person. You end up having to white knuckle through it all until you find yourself in the F-it mentality because life got crazy and knocked you off your stride. “I messed up that last meal/day/week, so what’s the point? I might as well just eat all the things now.” Which leaves you back with nothing. But you're too smart for that trap now, right?

When designing your plan, you need to know how much food your body requires to operate properly, and for weight loss it means being in a calorie deficit most days. Do you know your target number of calories? Which macronutrients (protein, fat, carbohydrates) help you feel the best? If not, let’s have a conversation. It’s not complicated but it does matter.

Next, besides eating the correct amount of food, getting enough movement and exercise is important. Are you regularly active? When is the last time you did a workout? Remember, "If the horse hasn't run the track in four years, it's not going to win the Kentucky Derby!" Moderation and baby steps are really important when deciding on an exercise plan. Don't think you can go from the couch to 5 hours of intense workouts per week. You'll get injured, burned out, or both.  Baby steps!

Step 3: Reframe Your Thoughts

You can’t change your body until you change your mind.

This is the single most important element to make a practical, achievable and sustainable change. It’s also the antidote to the #1 weight loss scam I mentioned earlier. If you decide skip this part, I can assure you that you are better off scrapping the whole idea from the get-go. Seriously. Your body will only go where your mind tells it to go, so it’s critical that you learn to reframe your thoughts if you want to succeed in changing your body.

Here’s how you can reframe some of the more common unhelpful thoughts:

“Dieting is when you eat food that makes you sad” becomes “I love eating healthy foods that keep my body nourished!”

“Exercise is death by treadmill” becomes, “I feel strong and energized when I lift weights.”

“I’ll be happy when I reach my goal weight,” becomes, “I’m so proud of myself for working this hard to lose weight, and it makes me really happy to see the small successes along the way.”

Be happy now. Let’s say for a moment that for some strange reason you aren’t able to lose any weight. Would you want to waste your life being unhappy, pinning all your worth on your weight? It certainly would be a shame. Choosing to be happy now simply allows you to enjoy the journey and feel less defeated if it doesn’t go exactly the way you’d like it to. Life is too short to postpone happiness.

Practice reframing your thoughts.

Are you ready to really do the mental work it takes to change your life?

“If you keep on doing what you’ve always done, you’ll keep on getting what you’ve always got.” 

-W. L. Bateman

Have a health of a day.

Juli

P.S. Becoming trim and healthy isn’t a one-and-done affair, it’s a lifelong passion. Need a little help getting started? My BUILD program will help you kick things off to a strong start, and finish in time to feel healthy, fit, and ready to enjoy the holidays without worry. I will be launching this effective 16-week coaching program on August 9th, so click HERE to join the waitlist, which will entitle you to special bonuses and discounts that won’t be offered anywhere else! Registration opens in July!