Overcoming Self sabotage

Things are going great, you’re sticking to the principles, eating only when you’re hungry, stopping when you’re satisfied and you are really enjoying the freedom to eat all foods! And… you’ve lost 3kg in the last 2 weeks – this is incredible!

Then you:

a)      Overeat at one meal and curse yourself for having no willpower

b)      Start thinking this is all a bit too easy, isn’t weight loss supposed to be hard?

c)       Get stressed, angry, sad…whatever emotion has sent you running to the cupboards before and think, here I go again I’m so weak!

d)      All of the above

Your excess weight is not a physical reflection of your weakness, lack of willpower or consistent failings. It is a reflection of how you feel about yourself on the inside and how you talk to yourself. 

For some distorted reason we think that making ourselves feel bad will lead to making ourselves slim..well that’s a lie.

The truth is that practicing unyielding compassion for yourself and giving unconditional love to yourself are key ways out of self sabotage…No, not putting padlocks on the fridge ladies, not asking hubby to tell you off as you reach for the last Tim Tam! Those are just ways to beat yourself up for being, weak, a failure and not able to be trusted! 

Instead of choosing self sabotage today choose to be:

a)      Self supportive

b)      Self loving

c)       Self compassionate

d)      All of the above

What will you choose?

I will do what I can and learn from my mistakes.

“Fat Thought” I have be perfect to be successful

I like to think of this as ‘Perfectionitis’. Creating unrealistic expectations with: weekly weight-loss, speed of weight-loss, and or your overall weight-loss goal is a sure way to frustrate yourself and inadvertently, actually delay success.

We’ve all had times when our weight gain hasn’t really bothered us, and then there are times when our weight gain gives us a scare. It’s normally at these times when our weight hits an ‘Ouch’ factor that we become determined to make a change for the better. Good examples of common ‘Ouch’ factor points are: When your spouse makes an unkind comment about your weight, when you have a reunion or important event coming up, when you reach an undesirable number on the scales, or when your Doctor warns you about the health implications of your weight. These ‘Ouch’ factors leave us feeling like failures, and feeling so frustrated that we’re willing to enlist any means necessary to drop the weight.

These ‘Ouch’ factor are good for us, because they provide us with a powerful reason why we need to change. The problem is that these ‘ouch’ factors can scare us so much that we are willing to resort to any method to drop the weight fast. Once we’ve decided upon a particular diet or change we commit to following through whole heartedly and in an attempt to make positive change, we put the pressure on ourselves to be ‘perfect’. Like all of humanity, too much pressure on ourselves leads to stress, stress leads to giving in.

“Slim Thought” I will do what I can and learn from my mistakes.

There is such a common fear of failure amongst people who struggle with their weight. The most important thing Gina and I have learned working with so many women over the last 20 years of being in the weight-loss field, is to make change simple and enjoyable!

We all know of simple easy changes we could make, that would lead to weight-loss over time. It’s a losing mindset to think small changes won’t make that much of a difference, because the opposite is actually true. What we’ve seen time and time again is that when change is simple and easy, it’s sustainable. When people just drink water every day and then drop 500grams in a week… it’s encouraging. Incorporating any kind of activity into your regular lifestyle and then seeing a 2 kg drop over the month is the best way to ensure you start and continue on your weight-loss.

The major difference with how Gina and I actually coach women is that we teach them how to lose weight eating any food, living with no restriction is such freedom! Our clients drops 500grams to 2kg weekly when they learn to listen, trust and follow their body cues of when, what and how much to eat. It only takes 1-3 sessions for clients to learn, but being able to eat all the foods they love and still drop weight is definitely a motivator for our clients. If it’s do-able for today, and do-able for the week, then a month… it’s do-able for life. It’s the way Gina and I eat to stay slim.