The Biggest Secret About Weight Loss That You Were Never Told

The biggest secret about weight loss that you were never told is…

… you have to commit to it for the rest of your life.

In our world of quick fixes and instant gratification, this is probably the last thing you want to hear. However, my conviction is that living a healthy lifestyle improves every aspect of your life. If this is true, why wouldn’t you want to commit to it for the rest of your life?

Here are five reasons why you must commit to your weight loss endeavors for the rest of your life.

You’ll do everything right and not lose a single pound.

Weight loss is a matter of energy in vs. energy out. You take in energy by consuming calories and you expend energy through movement and all the other biological processes that keep you alive. However, weight loss is a lot more complicated than “eat less and move more.”

The calories you burn on a daily basis is determined by a lot of factors and influenced by things beyond your control. Factors such as your environment, sleep, menstrual cycles, and other health issues play a large role in whether or not you will lose weight at any given time.

Even when you’re doing everything you’re supposed to be doing, sometimes your body just will not cooperate. The number on the scale might consistently go down for several weeks in a row and then suddenly, progress stalls. This is extremely frustrating when you’re working as hard as you can to lose the weight. You feel like you’re spinning your wheels but going nowhere. 

This is why you cannot use the scale as the only way to track your progress. The healthy lifestyle changes you are making are doing far more than just bringing the number on the scale down. They are helping you become the best version of yourself. 

Rather than solely focusing on the number on the scale, focus on loving yourself and taking care of your body — a very worthy, lifelong endeavor.

Your body will change in ways you never imagined.

You may have a picture in your head of how you will look at a healthy weight. Maybe you’ve spent a lot of time fantasizing about what your “new” body will look and feel like.

Today’s culture places a great emphasis on how people should look. Men and women are both held to different cultural standards, but it seems that women are the ones that are more often held to unrealistic beauty standards. These beauty standards, largely proliferated through the media, have drastic impacts on women and their body images.

We are constantly surrounded by all sorts of media and we construct our identities in part through the media images we see. The more we are exposed to these unrealistic standards in the media, the more we are dissatisfied with our bodies and ourselves overall.

All bodies are different. We all hold weight in different places, and we all have various genetic factors that ultimately influence how we look. Therefore, it is not a worthy goal to try to lose weight to achieve a specific body standard.

Rather than focusing solely on the physical changes of your body, think about all the other mental and emotional changes that will occur as a result of your weight loss endeavors, such as: having more confidence, more willpower, more energy, a better attitude, better cognitive abilities, better relationships, better sleep, and more!

You deserve to enjoy all these positive changes for the rest of your life—not just the time in which it takes you to lose the weight.

Some days you just won’t feel like it.

You’re not always going to be motivated to eat healthy and go to the gym.

Far too often, people look at their weight loss efforts with an “all-or-nothing” mentality. You’re either eating chicken and broccoli every day, or you’re eating every sugary treat in sight. You’re either going to the gym every night after work, or you’re not going to the gym at all.

Consider switching this “all-or-nothing” mentality to an “always something” mentality.

Think of your efforts as being an adjustable dial that ranges from 1 to 10, with 1 being no effort and 10 being 100% effort.

Instead of pressing pause on your weight loss endeavors all together when life gets busy or your motivation wanes, just adjust the dial.

There will be times in which your dial is at a 9 or 10 when your motivation is sky-high. During these times, you may be preparing all your meals, going for daily walks, and exercising at the gym multiple nights per week.

But what happens when work gets really busy, and your kids all have after-school activities that they need to be driven to and from? Your energy will be spent elsewhere and it may not be possible to operate with your dial at its highest setting.

The best thing to do is simply turn the dial down rather than turn it off all together.

You don’t have to be perfect every day to achieve optimal health.

The “all-or-nothing” mentality prevents you from reaching your goals because it forces you to be perfect. No one is perfect, so this does not work.

The “always something” mentality is a better way to work toward your goals because it allows for flexibility. Rather than focusing on doing everything with 100% effort, you just need to do something that slightly moves you forward.

Embrace the “always something” mentality and you will be moving in the right direction for the rest of your life.

You will never have enough time.

Time is often the main reason that prevents people from getting started with going after their weight loss goals. “I just don’t have time” or “I’m too busy right now” are typical statements one might claim.

To be frank, this is just a flimsy way of saying that you don’t prioritize your health. If you truly want to lose the weight, you have to make time. Your life won’t stop because you want to lose weight—appointments, responsibilities, and deadlines will still be there.

You must make time for what you think is important and make your choices based on that.

The truth is, you will never feel like you have enough time. There will always be something going on in your life that seems to provide a good rationale for putting off your weight loss efforts.

The best time to get started is right now. Bonus points if your life is already busy right now, because if you can learn how to live a healthy lifestyle when  things are busy, it’ll be a breeze for you when things slow down!

It’s easy to fall back in the other direction.

Many people resort to extremely low-calorie diets and excessive amounts of cardio when trying to lose weight. This approach does work—at least in the short-term. You may see continual weight loss for a period of time, but at some point, your body simply adjusts to need fewer calories to function. This means that weight loss will eventually stop (unless you continue to eat less and move more, which you can only do for so long).

Unfortunately, the popular low-calorie diets on the market are not sustainable. Most people stick to them for a period of time, but eventually fall back into their old patterns.

Every time a person undertakes a new diet, the potential for them to regain fat is higher than it was before the diet. Even worse, the amount of fat gained and the pace at which fat is gained after a diet is greater and faster than it was before the diet.

It has been estimated that as many as 80 to 95% of dieters gain back the weight that they’ve worked so hard to lose.

Essentially, what we find is that repeated dietary efforts can and do make us fatter if executed improperly.

So how do we get around this?

Commit to living a healthy lifestyle for the rest of your life.

If health is your number one priority, you will not undertake a highly restrictive diet or make yourself a slave to the gym. Instead, focus on simple things like getting in plenty of activity every day, strength training 2-3x per week, eating a diet that consists mostly of whole, natural, unprocessed foods, and enjoying your favorite treats in moderation.

The key to achieving long-term weight loss is building a healthy lifestyle that is centered around balance and sustainability. Finding this type of lifestyle is ultimately what will prevent you from falling back into your old ways.

The Takeaway

Mainstream dieting culture promotes quick fixes and instant gratification, but if your goal is long-term sustainable weight loss, you must commit to living a healthy lifestyle for the rest of your life.

I am confident that once you start to make healthy changes in your life to lose weight, you will notice a whole bunch of other positive side effects—all of which will ultimately help you enjoy life more!

Bottom line—life is better when you’re healthy.