Have you ever fallen off the wagon when it comes to dieting? You’re not the only one. Millions of people have gone on a diet and then failed.
But what you might not realise is that getting back on the wagon after failing at your diet won’t help you to lose weight. In fact, it might set you up for ongoing failure. Let’s look at why.
The problem is being on the wagon in the first place
If you have a wagon, you have an option to fall off that wagon. Dieting and diet lapses are two sides of the same coin. You can’t ‘fail’ at your diet without going on a diet in the first place.
So when did you first develop a diet mentality? When did you decide that you had to be all or nothing when it came to the foods that you choose? When did you decide that you can’t be the right size, shape or weight for your body without restricting yourself?
When you dive into these questions, you can start to understand how the dieting mindset has warped how you see food.
Why do you really want to lose weight?
When I ask my new clients why they really want to lose the weight, they often don’t know. They feel like they should lose weight, or they think that losing weight will transform their lives and make them happy.
It’s fine to want to lose weight if that’s what you really want to do. But you need to have a deeper why if you’re going to achieve it.
Want to lose weight because your skinny sister in law made a snarky comment at the Christmas dinner? That probably won’t keep you motivated for long.
Want to lose weight so that you can feel energised and chase the kids around on the playground? Because that’s something you deeply care about and you’re moving towards something better, you’re more likely to stick with it.
What do you tell yourself about losing weight?
Have you failed to lose weight over and over again? It’s easy to fall into the trap of telling yourself that you can’t lose weight. Every time you tell yourself that you can’t do something, you hypnotise yourself into making it a reality.
So to successfully lose weight, you need to believe that you can be someone who loses weight. When you believe this, you can think about what thoughts that version of you would think, and how she copes when times are tough.
Creating sustainable changes in your lifestyle
Are you going to eat kale salad every day for the rest of your life? Are you going to juice for the rest of your life? Or are these things that you’ll stick to for a few weeks, then ditch for the pizza and chocolate?
Think about the changes that you implement when it comes to your food patterns. If you can’t see yourself doing something for the rest of your life, it’s not sustainable. Restriction is a recipe for binge eating and emotional eating – you set yourself up for the yo-yo rollercoaster.
Instead, focus on what you want to introduce into your everyday life. Maybe you want to add more vegetables to what you already eat. Or maybe you want to add in methods of managing stress that doesn’t involve comfort foods.
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