How do you change your mindset to lose weight?
Post lockdown has come with many things; a few extra pounds of weight being one.
As most people have led a largely sedentary lifestyle over the past year, this has resulted in less movement, lack of motivation and unhealthy eating habits. Breaking out of that cycle can be tough, and the notion of mind over matter has never been more important.
While it is easy to blame lack of time, work commitments or social life on your weight gain, it is essentially your mind making excuses to avoid implementing those changes in lifestyle to lose weight.
Breaking the cycle of ‘stinking thinking’ can be tough, but we are here to help provide you with 7 useful tips on how to change your mindset to lose weight.
1. Understand your reason why
What is your main factor for wanting to lose weight? By examining your motivation for weight loss will make it easier in implementing attainable changes to lifestyle and habits. It also makes it simpler to assess what is needed to make these changes and outline a plan of action.
For example, if your reason to lose weight is to fit in a new dress that is too tight at the moment, you could set a realistic strategy and ensure to leave the dress somewhere visible so that it acts as a reminder every day as to why you are doing this. This also aids with motivation for those periods of doubt.
When deciding to go down a healthier path to achieve weight loss, knowing the preparation needed will make your chances of success higher. Without being fully willing and knowledgeable of the fact that there will be highs and lows, can often be the reason why it hasn’t worked in the past.
2. Education
Understanding your body can be a challenge and requires dedication and time. By focusing on educating yourself on fitness, nutrition and diet can aid in successfully losing weight.
The moment you are able to recognise that each body is different, is when you can set realistic and achievable goals to suit your own individual needs.
By modifying your mind-set to focus on educating yourself on weight loss can be an extremely beneficial exercise and can make the process of losing weight feel a lot less daunting.
A great place to start is by checking your BMI (body mass index). While some people know this figure from the top of their heads, it can often remain a mystery. To put it simply, BMI is a figure which indicates whether your body mass is within a healthy or unhealthy range.
3. Practise mindful-eating
Nowadays, it is common for us to be doing multiple things at once whilst eating, such as watching TV, working, scrolling through Social Media and the list goes on. We’re no longer fully focussing on what is happening in that moment, making the act of eating passive.
Being mindful of the food you eat comes with many benefits such as better digestion, eating less than needed, and making better decisions on consumption. It also shines a light on unhealthy habits that you may not be aware of due to being less present. I’m sure all of us have been so distracted by a film or TV programme that we’ve finished all of the snacks around us without realising. However, this then begs the questions…were we even hungry? Probably not. The answer is more likely to be that we were being passive with our eating decisions.
Mindful eating is not something that will happen seamlessly over night, however with practise, you will be making mindful decisions with your food in no time.
Here are some tips below:
- Don’t wait until you’re starving to eat some food, as this will encourage snacking and overeating
- Try to not have anything else occupying you during meal times
- Try breathing exercises to centre your mind and thoughts before eating
- Pour smaller portions and ask yourself if you’re still hungry afterwards. It is known that if we overfill out plates, we will most likely eat it all even if we are completely full
- Take smaller bites and eat slowly
4. Goal and reward setting
Losing weight can seem everlasting without any clear goal setting and rewards to highlight the successes along the way. While goal setting is highly recommended, it is important to ensure the goals are realistic and manageable. Otherwise, goal setting can have the opposite effect if you feel that you are not meeting the targets set.
Small and sustainable goals such as ensuring you have 5 pieces of fruit in a day or drinking 2 litres of water are examples of realistic targets to meet. As time goes on, you may want to challenge yourself further and over time, these healthy lifestyle choices will be there to stay.
While there will be lows along your journey, it is incredibly important to celebrate and focus on the highs.
5. Understand negative triggers
Binge eating, overeating, lack of exercise and proper nutrition can all be caused by negative triggers in your life. For some people it could be down to work stressors, for others it could be due to social plans throwing healthy eating and exercise out of the window. Regardless of the negative trigger, it is important to recognise these early on in order to put a plan in place for when those occur.
By understanding these negative triggers, it helps you better prepare mentally for when they happen. For example, if your negative trigger is social outings; you could schedule a walk in the morning before work with the knowledge that you may over-indulge in the evening with your friends/family.
Negative triggers can be used to your advantage and motivate you to work out more or to go to sleep earlier, knowing what is ahead of you.
6. Get off the ‘sad scale’
Although stepping on to weighing scales isn’t bad, it can lead people down a negative path of self-destruction and sabotage. When starting off your journey, it is good to know your exact weight, however during the process it is more about the positive changes you are implementing to your lifestyle for the greater good.
It is also worth noting that many factors can increase a reading on the scale, such as an increase in muscle mass; which is not a bad thing! After all, muscle weighs more than fat.
7. Get expert help
For some people, the idea of embarking on a weight loss journey can be daunting and without having a support system can make it tough. We are now living in a time where professional help can be sought to ease you into this.
Losing weight isn’t always easy and what has worked for you in the past, might not be working now. That is why a top-level medical weight loss programme should be built around you and your needs and lifestyle – whatever you need to get you to your goal.
