8. Stay Positive
Any weight loss journey will take time, so it’s important to not be too hard on yourself. You should ideally embark on a diet with the goal of recalibrating your approach to food for the long term, so that you eat well for life. If you have more than a couple of lbs to lose, keep in mind that you can’t expect to just shed the weight overnight -just as you didn’t gain it that way. You’re in this for the long haul, so take time for adequate self-care, be kind to yourself and celebrate each goal you reach.
If you do relapse into old eating habits, or overeat past your calorie limit one day, don’t beat yourself up. No one is able to stay on a diet 24/7 and a bit of indulgence here and there simply won’t harm your long-term weight loss. The important thing is staying on track over time – so if you indulge when you’re out at a restaurant, wake up and get straight back on the horse the next day – and don’t let one small lapse sway you off course.
Ultimately, you should be striving to eat healthy and develop a better relationship with food, so that you never feel deprived. Instead, you’ll intuitively know when to indulge and when it’s time to trim back. A little of everything you enjoy is good for both body and mind – it’s only when you binge eat or do things such as repeatedly snack out of boredom, that it can lead to weight gain.
It likely took a while before you got to the point where you felt you needed to do something about your weight, and that only happened because bad habits, like over-consuming junk food, or not moving around, mount up. The remedy is to approach weight loss in the same way, aka gradually, by making small but significant changes in order to course correct.
Mindset and moderation are everything and though losing weight takes effort and motivation, it is also entirely achievable – so always stay positive. If you’ve decided to make this New Year the one you’ll reach your target weight, we know that you’ll get there, if you’re determined to!
