Ep: #14 - When Things Don't Go To Plan In Weight Loss

Faye Casement Author

May 05, 2024 |

Urgh, I get it! You're trying hard, working on your weight loss but then you have a bad day, you overate a meal, you picked off your kid’s plate.

You are convinced you have blown the week and you are never going to lose weight.

You feel like you want to scream as you are so annoyed with yourself. Why can’t you be thin already? Why is weight loss so hard?

Or maybe it has been going well be that damn scale is still not budging!

You are not alone! This is common when on a weight loss journey will have faced these kinds of scenarios at some point in time.

There will be times when you have felt so discouraged you will you feel like giving up altogether.

Been there and got the T-Shirt!

I want to share my thoughts with you on how you can keep your weight loss journey going even when it feels like everything is going wrong. To help you stay motivated and move forward-even on the days when it feels like nothing will ever work.

Some of the things I’ve seen people posting about recently:

• Motivation was running a bit dry
• On a plateau
• Emotional eating due to stress and boredom
• Eating with other people leads to off-plan eating.

Such is life!

There is a lot that can crop up in a weight loss journey and it is not always about the actual food.

I am a firm believer that you must look at weight loss holistically if you want sustainable weight loss.

You can't just focus on your chosen method and try to muscle through it, it's not sustainable long term.

You have to look at working on each little hurdle and obstacle in life and weight loss, knocking down the dominoes one by one until you get to the point where you can deal with them well for lasting weight loss.

There are things that will come up in your journey that make you want to eat, want to quit. Like it or not we all emotionally eat!

I saw a post in a group I am a member of asking “How do you overcome boredom eating, emotional eating and stress eating?”. There were floods of tips about going for a walk, distracting themselves, making a rule to only eat a carrot but not one of them said what you actually need to do for long term success...which is?? To work on what is causing the stress, boredom and emotion.

That's why we focus on both life and weight loss via the Triple-A-Way Weight Loss Program™️

The other thing about life....other humans!

Other humans trying to convince you to finish your plate, other humans offering you or having foods that are not on your plan, little humans stressing you out and leaving tasty little morsels on their plates.

AWARENESS is still your first port of call, knowing that it is happening and why. Then ACTION deciding what you are going to do about it. This is where motivation comes back into it as well as building resilience, finding little tricks to make these things easier, tapping back into your whys regularly and in the moment can help too as well as self-coaching (Or MIND NIJARY as I call it).

Weight loss really is just a series of micro decisions. You will make some that serve you and some that don't.

What kind of things knock you off course? Spend some time making a list.

Why not join the Wellness4Women Facebook Group and come share them for support.

Weight loss is not linear

Weight loss is not linear. This means that you will not always see progress in a straight line. There will be times when you plateau, or when you backtrack a little. This is normal, it's important to remember that these bumps in the road are not indicative of your overall progress.

Just because the scale isn't moving doesn't mean you're not making progress. We all know to look for NSVs (non-scales victories)... you may be losing inches, or your clothes may be fitting better.

My recommendation would also be to focus on process, not outcome goals. If you are happy with the process you are following and how you are showing up for yourself this should be celebrated and it is easier to see where you can improve for real success.

There will also be MANY times when you have a little setback. Maybe you go on holiday and have some overeats and booze, or you have a really stressful week and find yourself reaching for more comfort foods than intended. These little blips are normal, and they don't mean you've failed. What matters is how you handle them, so they do not have a bigger impact on your progress or worse derail you completely.

This is where the MIND NIJARY comes in.

It is easy for thoughts to crop up like "What is wrong with me?". The problem with a thought like this is when you ask your brain a question it will go looking for the answer. So, what may seem like a throwaway thought sets your brain off looking for the answer and it will not stop until it finds you an answer.

What can really help is if you catch yourself saying and having these thoughts as that is when you can redirect it to something more useful like.

"What is right with me?" or "What can I celebrate?"

Managing your own expectations about weight loss

One of the most important things you can do in your weight loss journey is to manage your own expectations. Don't expect to see results overnight, or to never have any setbacks.

Your rational brain knows this of course yet every week you will hope for a loss and then on the weeks when it does not happen the disappointment sets in. The doubt comes. You fear you will never lose weight. That your efforts are all for nothing.

That disappointment can fester though if it goes unchecked leading to fuck it moments and sabotage.

How you deal with these moments is what is key and where again self-coaching/coaching can come in.

There are so many things that can impact the scale it really is just a piece of glass and metal that shits out a number as my coach used to say.

It is only giving an opinion it is up to you whether you choose to accept it or not.

Me and some of the Triple-A ladies were talking about this on Sunday, how the art is to just say thank you for your opinion but....

The key is to know yourself, know your process and have faith in it and the scale has no power until you give it some with your thoughts.

Ask yourself questions like:

• What am I making this number mean about me?
• Is it true?
• Is it helpful?
• Is it kind?
• How do I want to move forward?
• What can I celebrate about the week?
• How can I move forward with compassion?

Going with the ebb and flow of motivation

Motivation is not a constant it ebbs and flows. There will be times when you feel really motivated to stick to your weight loss plan, and times when you just don't feel like doing anything.

What I think is critical is having AWARENESS of your motivation in any given moment and to try and work with it not against it. E.g. if you aren't feeling motivated either try to work on feeling more motivated with MIND NINJARY or change out your ACTIONS e.g. don't force yourself to do gruelling cardio when a walk may be more fitting. In the long run, forcing yourself to do something will lead to you resenting it and quitting eventually or just being miserable.

If you're not motivated to eat healthy food, then don't beat yourself up about it-just try to make healthier choices when possible, and don't stress out about it too much. The important thing is to not let your lack of motivation lead to complete inaction.

Keep figuring out what works for you and hack the system.

This is the beauty of what we work on as a Triple-A Woman you are not stuck with set concepts and rigid rules. Listening to your mind, body and soul give you the AWARENESS to help you STEP INTO ACTION for the good of your whole well-being.

What will work for long term success is getting to you yourself and building a system that is unique to you. Cookie-cutter systems don’t work and you will feel out of alignment which is de-motivating.

Figuring it out your way means you will gain the confidence you didn’t even know you could have.

Recap:

• Work on the root causes by working on life and weight loss at the same time for lasting change.
• Expect some bumps in the road.
• Your expectations could be the thing creating the bumps
• Motivation ebbs and flows work with it not against it for sustained ACTION.
• Find what works for you personally.