If you’ve struggled to lose weight or stay consistent with your health goals, you are not alone. So many of us struggle, and I was no exception! We all know LOGICALLY what we need to do to be healthy, so why is it so hard to actually do it?

I spent many years of my life grappling with that same question. I’ve lived most of my life with inconsistent health practices, yo-yoing weight, and wondering why it felt like I couldn’t find a get it together. Now, I’m happy to say that I am down 40-50 lbs, and I’ve managed to keep it off for almost a year now, without all the drama and struggle that I experienced with all of my previous attempts. The turning point really came for me when I decided to get my Health Coaching Certification I had to coached by other Coaches. That process and support forced me to really look at my own health practices and my own mindset. It changed my life! And Ifinally learned what was stopping me from being consistently healthy!TP

Now, everyone’s bodies and health stories are unique, and there are a number of complex reasons people struggle to lose weight or stay healthy (i.e. medical conditions, hormonal imbalances, allergies, etc.). There are a number of different reasons that people’s diets don’t work for them, but these are some of the top reasons I see many clients struggle with before they get help and support (and that I struggled with too):

1. Restrictive Diets and Starvation plans

It’s a very common thing in our society to practice some kind of diet restriction. In fact, so many of us skip meals, either because we are “too busy” or intentionally to lose weight. It makes logical sense, because the formula for weight loss is about calories in vs. calories out, so if you reduce calories in, you’re good to go, right? Not exactly.

It turns out that skipping meals is actually incredibly counterproductive both physiologically and psychologically.  Not only does it deprive our bodies of the nutrients we need to have basic energy to get through the day, but our bodies kick into starvation mode. In starvation mode, our metabolism slows down, because our bodies think we are starving, and want to keep as many nutrients in our systems as possible to keep us alive. (Our bodies are so smart, right?! ) When our metabolism slows down, it makes it harder to lose weight. 

Our bodies have a natural rhythm, and when we ignore it, we are not getting all the nutrients we need to function properly. Our hunger signals are there for an important reason. We need all systems functioning properly to be at our healthiest, ensure healthy digestion, and actually lose weight.

Remember: if you are skipping meals and snacks, feeling “hangry”, or starving, you’re probably going about weight loss and healthy habits the wrong way. Not to mention that when you starve yourself or skip meals, you are creating an unhealthy relationship with food: one built on control, restriction, fear, and where food is the enemy. People hate full on elimination and TOTAL restriction, and end up bingeing or dropping the diet.  And who wants that life?! We should all be able to enjoy life, enjoy good quality foods, and not obsess over it constantly.

 

2. Your Stress Levels

Oh yea… that. (Really?! Stress shows up here too?!) Yep, it does! We all know by now that stress can impact our health. But you might not know how stress can sabotage your weight loss efforts and efforts to stay healthy. It has a MASSIVE (again, let me emphasize how MASSIVE) impact on your weight loss and diet efforts. Yes, even if you are eating all the best quality foods, and exercising, if you’re walking around carrying a lot of stress, your health goals might get derailed.

Stress and the hormones associated with it (i.e. cortisol, adrenaline, but primarily cortisol) increase fat production in your body and especially around your midsection! Again, this is a product of our evolution and our bodies’ desires to keep us safe and fueled up against potential danger. And while today’s stress looks less like getting chased around by giant predators and more like an inability to meet a deadline, our bodies don’t know the difference and gear us up anyway. A little stress can help us take action, but chronic stress is nasty, and sneaky. And it impacts our bodies in so many ways! (Learn more about all of the sneaky ways stress impacts you. Click to download the “22 Effects of Stress on the Body”.)

Also, increased stress can lead to emotional eating (something I am all too familiar with). We reach for food to comfort ourselves and as a calming tool when we’re feeling stressed out or upset, and that also impacts our health and wellness goals.  

3. Your negative Self-Talk and Negative Attitude about your body.

This one is talked about less often, but I would argue it’s JUST as important as what you eat and how you exercise! Losing weight can be challenging enough, but we actually make the process WAY harder than necessary because of our negative self-talk. Are you beating yourself up constantly? Are you hard on yourself about what you ate or your lack of exercise? If so, you are slowly killing your willpower.  

Many of us struggle with body image, which makes sense in our society that emphasizes so-called “perfect” looks, and makes many of us feel bad when we can’t meet such an impossible standard. Most of us struggle with how we look, and have something about our looks we wish we could change (roughly 80% of women are unhappy with their appearance). It sure makes for a lot of negative self-talk! And all of that self-talk about how ugly we are, about all the mistakes we’ve made, about how much we suck, about how we’ll never reach our health goals and how impossible the goals are (etc.) is a recipe for giving up!

We know how important our mindsets are when accomplishing a professional goal and how negativity can throw off our success, but we don’t work through that self-talk when trying to reach our health goals. How can we hope to accomplish anything, when we are walking around beating ourselves up with insults? It dries up your resolve, and makes it so that any time you fumble or make a little mistake, you want to throw in the towel all together. (It’s part of the reason so many gyms are full in January and empty by February.) Working through our negative self-talk helps ensure that when you make mistakes or it’s hard (and will be), that you keep going.

Losing weight and getting healthy can be challenging process, but it doesn’t have t feel impossible. You can ABSOLUTELY reach your goals! We can definitely make the process way easier when we address these extremely common obstacles, that get in the way.