Another aspect of weight loss that is arguably the most important of all, is the mental aspect. How do you stick with a plan until it becomes the new normal?
Well, there are several methods that I used, none of which are "original." Any person that has ever been successful at anything probably has done similar things. If you haven't tried these though, I encourage you to!
#1. Write out your goals and put the list in a place where you'll see it often.
Whether it's "Lose 25 pounds", "Run a half-marathon", "Hike the Appalachian Trail" or "deadlift 400 pounds", writing it down where you can see it will keep it at the forefront of your mind. Stick it on the fridge, onto the bathroom mirror, save it as your computer desktop or put it on your desk at work.
Your mind is alot more powerful than you probably give it credit for- use that to your advantage and remind yourself often.
#2. Tell someone else your goals. Sometimes we want something, but we're afraid of failure or that someone will "feel sorry for us" if we don't achieve our goal, so we tell no one.
I'm not saying to brag about feats yet to be accomplished, but to confide in one (or a few) supportive friends that will help keep you accountable.
As I mentioned before, I had a good friend named Branden Mann that helped me tremendously. As a born and raised northerer, he didn't suffer from my affliction of having the tendency to sugarcoat the truth in the name of politeness. He was never rude, but he was very clear and concise when holding me accountable. If I wanted to get something at dinner that he wasn't eating he'd say something like "I thought you said you wanted to eat exactly what I was going to eat. I don't eat that because its bad for you and it'll make you fat. Put it back." GRRR! He was right. If I would have had a cheerleader (Go ahead! you've earned it!) instead of a mentor (Stop. Put that back!), I might never have made much progress. Thankfully, Branden was as strict as I asked him to be, and his example changed my life.
Now you may not have the luxury of being in as close proximity to your accountability person as I was (we lived in the same metal box in Iraq, and we were liasons to our brigade: he worked 6PM to 6AM and I worked 6AM to 6PM and were usually able to eat one or two meals a day together), but this is still an important aspect that I'd recommend to anyone.
#3. While fixing your plate/ordering at a restaurant, ask yourself, "Are these food choices going to help me get closer to reaching my goal(s)?"
If the answer is "NO", find something else to eat! Or, modify it. If you're at Outback ordering the Alice Springs Chicken, get the veggies for the side instead of fries...stuff like that.
If your written down, verbalized goal was to lose 25 pounds, you're not going to help yourself get there by eating plates of fries (exception: we'll go over "cheat" meals in another post, but there is the occasional time to indulge a bit).
#4: When you lay down to go to sleep at night, ask yourself, "What did I do today that will help me achieve my goal? Did I eat the right foods? Did I drink enough water? Did I exercise (or take rest day if you been working out hard)? Etc.
Questions force your mind to work for answers, and this will help lead to action.
#5: Set short term goals for yourself. The kind I'm talking about here is discipline goals, i.e. "Let's get through today without making a bad eating decision." Then try a week, etc. Branden and I used to try and see how long we could go without having a "cheat meal". I usually made it to the 14-18 day range and he'd be in the upper twenties, and onece, about about 35 days he figured he out to eat something fun just so he didn't get too strict about it (!!!!). Yeah, there's no fat on that dude.
Now there's need to be that strict unless you really want to be, but applying that principle on a small scale would help.
Be constantly looking at how your current choices are affecting your future. Simple concepts, but hard to put into practice!
You can do it though! Try some of these things, put your mind to it, and you'll probably shock yourself at your progress.
