3 Easy Steps to get back on track with your weight loss no matter how big the setback!

Rare is the person who is losing weight who doesn’t have lapses and setbacks.

Even the most disciplined dieter is likely to have  setbacks and lapses. Although probably not totally avoidable, a flexible food plan with no forbidden foods is a better way to minimize frequency and size of the setbacks. If you love pasta, don't follow a food plan that forbids you to eat it!

Even the most disciplined dieter is likely to have setbacks and lapses. Although probably not totally avoidable, a flexible food plan with no forbidden foods is a better way to minimize frequency and size of the setbacks. If you love pasta, don’t follow a food plan that forbids you to eat it!

It’s common and it’s not an indicator or success or failure. The thing that tells you is you’ll be successful or not is what happens after the setback.

Getting back on track isn’t hard when you use this 3-step plan.

1. Shut off your inner critic. The most important thing you can do to be successful with anything you endeavor, including weight loss, is refuse to give yourself negative messages. It’s not true that success cannot be achieved after a slip-up. The truth is slip-ups happen for a reason. It’s how we learn. Without learning there can be no success.

2. Start planning next moves based on what you learned from the slip. Identify the place where you went off track and the events leading up to it. Creating a behavior chain will help you identify the events leading up to the slip. That will enable you to create a plan to lead to a different, and desirable outcome. Once you get into the habit it will be as easy as A (antecendent) – B (behavior) – C (consequence) 

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Click here for a worksheet for Chain analysis of problem behavior.

3. Expect more slip-ups in the future. To think that you’ll never slip again is unrealistic. Even after you reach goal and have been maintaining for months or even years, there will be lapses. It’s human; it’s okay; they’ll never be something from which you cannot recover. (Go back to Step 1!)

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Success is the ability to go from one failure to another

with no loss of enthusiasm (and a new plan)!

Jackie Conn

About Jackie Conn

Jackie Conn is married and has four grown daughters and four grandchildren. She is a Weight Watchers success story. She's a weight loss expert with 25 years of experience guiding women and men to their weight-related goals. Her articles on weight management have been published in health, family and women's magazines. She has been a regular guest on Channel 5 WABI news, FOX network morning program Good Day Maine and 207 on WCSH.