You try again and again to lose weight. You may stick to it a week, a month, three days, but in the end you fall back into your old habits. You’re not alone. Millions of people struggle with their weight, hoping someday they’ll succeed.
If you really want to lose weight, try to identify your pitfalls. If you can figure out the reasons behind your weight loss failures, you can begin working to overcome these things.
Here are seven reasons to consider:
- Not consistently eating on track. If you eat well several days of the week, but blow it over the weekend or at an office party, you will only spin your wheels. You will not lose weight if you do not consistently eat on track.
- Not making time for exercise. Making excuses for why you can’t exercise is really saying you either don’t want to exercise, or you don’t feel like you can take the time for yourself. Exercise is absolutely necessary for weight loss. It not only burns calories, but it relieves stress, gives a psychological boost, and increases your ability to control your choices.
- Not enough emotional reserve. Going through a particularly stressful time like losing a job, separating from a spouse, or moving to new home are not good times to work on weight loss. You simply don’t have the emotional reserve to make healthy changes.
- Having a crash-or-burn mentality. Everyone has good days and bad days. If you get frustrated because you can’t do everything perfectly, you’ll never make it. You need to be able to ride out the bumps in the road, not throw everything out the window because things don’t go right.
- Expecting unrealistic results. Weight loss is a slow process. It takes months, sometimes years. It takes time and effort to learn how to eat right, cook healthy, and exercise regularly. There are no magic pills or quick fixes. Results are earned by hard work.
- Not in it for the long haul. Expecting weight loss by going on a diet will set you up for failure. What happens when you go off the diet? You gain the weight back. Weight loss needs to be accomplished by making permanent, healthy lifestyle habits – habits you stick with tomorrow, next month, next year, for 20 years.
- Not taking time to plan for success. Eating well and exercising does not happen on automatic pilot. You need to think about what you’re going to eat and what/when you’re going to exercise. Without planning ahead, you are planning for failure.
