5 mindset shifts you’ll want to make for sustainable weight loss.
This is a tricky topic. Oh yes.
My guess is if you’re reading this you may have come to realise that weight loss is not just about meal plans, food and tracking. If it were, we’d all be super successful and not reading a blog on mindset shifts for weight loss!
We often reduce a deeply complex issue down to something way too simple like a diet and you’ve probably realised this doesn’t really work.
My question to you is if you’re carrying extra weight you don’t want, who says it shouldn’t be there?
I know, that might sound upsetting, but I want you to pause for a minute and ask yourself – how did this weight come to be? What has been going on in your life?
Look at your weight from more than just a ‘calories in calories out’ perspective. Look at it more deeply – from a physical, psychological and emotional perspective.
What function does it serve?
If it wanted to get your attention, what would it be trying to tell you?
What areas of your life would it potentially be trying to get you to look at?
Let me tell you about one of my coaching clients, Jenny (not her real name) and a recent session I had with her.
Jenny had just started seeing me for help with weight loss and after telling me how much she hated herself for being weak and never being able to follow through with her weight loss plans, I asked her ‘Why do you actually want to lose weight?’
She stopped and stared at me and replied ‘Because I’m fat and overweight and my BMI says I’m in the morbidly obese category.’
She then continued to criticise herself before I gently interrupted and asked her once more ‘Yes, but besides all those reasons, do you know why you want to lose the weight? What do you think will be different? How do you think your life will be better?’
These are questions I always ask my clients as we can get so caught up in appearance, numbers and categories, that we forget to ask ourselves ‘Why?’
I want to encourage you to read through the following questions and see how they might apply to you.
At the end of each question I offer suggestions that will help you begin to make mindset shifts that will lay the foundation for healthy, sustainable weight loss.
1. Why do you want to lose weight?
What are your deeper reasons?
Is it so you can stop judging and being mean towards yourself?
Is it because you’re desperate to stop the self-criticism?
Is it because you think you’ll be a better person?
What do you want to be able to do?
What are you missing out on?
If it’s because you want to be healthier and have more energy, think about what you would do if this was true for you?
Take Action: Get out a piece of paper and brainstorm all the reasons why you have wanted to lose weight in the past.
What do you think will change?
What do you think will be better?
How will life be better?
For every answer, keep asking why until you become super specific.
Mindset shift: Identify your Values and align your actions with these. Our Values are all about whom and what is important to us. They are part of our identity and how we see ourselves.
Research shows that people who have lost weight successfully and kept it off experienced a shift in identity. They changed how they saw themselves and they changed their priorities. And then they worked slowly towards being really consistent.
Our food and movement choices are a reflection of our Values. If you want to lose weight because you value being in optimal health, with lots of energy and vitality, then how can you align the everyday choices that you make to reflect this?
This might mean reminding yourself that you are a person who treats her body with love and respect which means giving it nourishing foods and moving regularly.
2. What do you think your weight and your appearance says about you?
Do you think it makes you a bad person?
Have you turned fat into a moral issue?
Do you fear being judged and shamed by others?
What do you think when you see someone with extra fat on their bodies? Do you judge them?
What do you think when someone you’re with judges someone else for having extra fat on their body? What do you say?
Once again, please write down everything your mind tells you about this:
Mindset shift: No one judged or hated themselves into a smaller body and even if they did for a short while, it didn’t last very long.
Stop judging yourself for your appearance and making this a moral issue. Having extra fat on your body does NOT make you a bad person.
Make a list of kinder, helpful responses that you can keep on hand so that when your mind jumps to judgement, you can change what you’re saying to yourself. Research shows this to be a game changer in taking powerful, helpful action that will move you closer to your Values rather than away from them.
“Remember ‘I AM’ are two of the most powerful words. For what you put after them shapes your reality”
3. What are you not willing to feel?
Why is it important to feel your feelings?
Because feelings are energy in your body and when you feel them, they pass on through. When you ignore them or refuse to feel them, they can lead to binge eating, comfort and emotional eating, stress eating, excessive drinking and other shadow comforts. Boredom, loneliness, frustration, anger, and sadness… these are all feelings that can have us turning to food to try and cope if we try to suppress them.
When we turn to food to provide something it can’t the amount we eat is potentially infinite.
Mindset shift: Allow yourself to feel your feelings. Acknowledge them and give them a space to just be. They’re often there to give you guidance or feedback on something. What could that be? Let them be like waves that rise and fall.
“Emotions need to be felt in the way that food needs to be chewed”
4. What are you not doing or missing out on because you think you need to lose weight first?
I see so many clients that aren’t having fun or experiencing any pleasure in their lives because they’ve put this on hold until they lose weight. They won’t allow themselves to wear comfortable clothes or be intimate with their partner because they believe they’re too fat. And they stay in a never-ending bleak cycle of misery and self-torture.
I don’t know about you but I would be looking to comfort eat at this stage.
Can you see where I’m going with this?
Mindset shift: Make a big list of all the things you love to do that give you pleasure, are fun and allow you to feel relaxed. And then pick one to do each day.
Do NOT wait to lose weight before living your life. That way you won’t need to eat to comfort yourself because your life will be good!
5. Where do you need to slow down?
We live in such a crazy, fast paced society where busyness has become a badge of honour.
We eat fast, we eat whilst distracted or doing something else (multitasking anyone?) so we don’t slow down to really taste our food.
How can we feel nourished and satiated if we’re not present when we’re eating?
How can we know if we’re even hungry?
How can we know when we’ve had enough?
Mindset shift: Make a decision to slow down with food; when you eat, just eat – don’t do anything else. Notice whether you’re actually hungry and when you’re satisfied. Start questioning whether you need to be as busy as you might be.
Are there areas in your life where you can start to slow down a bit more or even do less?
This will also start to lay the foundation for prioritising those things you’d prefer to do that are more in alignment with your Values.
I hope you found this helpful. Remember to make yourself a priority and set aside some time over the coming week to go through these 5 mindset shift exercises. I’ll leave you with John C Maxwell’s wise words:
“Small disciplines repeated with consistency every day lead to great achievements gained slowly over time”
- John C Maxwell
Body acceptance might literally feel like the most challenging thing you could ever imagine doing. AND yet, these are the vessels that contain the essence of who we are. All our love, hope, dreams, and desires are contained within this vital human suit. Without it we wouldn’t exist.