No fail weight loss guaranteed

There are 3 things we can do that guarantee that every time we try to lose weight, our efforts will end in failure.

There are also 3 things we can do that will guarantee that we can lose weight and keep it off.

If we complain about how hard it is to lose weight, we will fail. I guarantee, complaining leads to sure failure!

The first thing we must do to avoid failure is turn our complaints into either positive statements or solutions.

The habit of complaining stops us from growing. We may say, “I hate diets. I’m hungry all the time.” If we do want to lose weight, what do we get for complaining? Nothing, except make us feel bad. Feeling bad isn’t empowering.

There’s not much to love about a diet, and that’s okay. In fact, we have an opportunity to make adjustments to our approach to losing weight. Maybe we can find good food we like to eat that is lower in calories and makes us feel good. Fruit and vegetables come to mind when I think of foods with those properties.

We could experiment to find the fruits and vegetables we enjoy the most. We could also try new recipes to discover dishes we really enjoy and ones that leave us feeling full and happy. After all, isn’t being hungry and unhappy what we hate about diets? Instead of complaining we could be looking for things we love about the way we’re eating and staying active.

The second thing we need to do to guarantee we don’t fail, is to stop blaming people and things for our actions. 

If we blame people or things for our inability to stick to our weight loss plan we will fail. If we can’t follow our plan, it’s our fault. It could be that the plan we’ve chosen is not a good fit for us. If that’s the case, we’ll need to change plans or make adjustments to make it a better fit.

There’s no denying that some people will push food on us. That’s all they can do is push it, but they can’t make us eat it. We can say, “no, thank you.” If we eat it, blaming the people who pushed us won’t help us after we ate what we said we didn’t want. It won’t help us to say no the next time.

Some people think the easiest way to lose weight is to eat prepackaged diet meals and snacks. It’s easy in that there is little shopping or preparation and the meals are pre-portioned. All of that convenience may be making us sacrifice food we actually enjoy. We may start finding ourselves feeling deprived.

The deprivation could lead to overeating sweets and we could blame it on the sugar’s addictive properties. The truth is we could manage sweets if we wanted to, but blaming them for our overeating them makes us feel better…we think. What really would make us feel good is to eat sweets occasionally and lose weight!

The habit of blaming food, people, or circumstances for our choices to stray from our program takes away our power.

The third thing we need to do to guarantee we won’t fail at weight loss is be grateful. 

Many of us decided to lose weight because our overweight state made us unhappy. I didn’t hate myself or my overweight body, but I was uncomfortable. It made it hard to do the things I enjoyed.

I had 4 young daughters who were active and keeping up with them was tough when I was overweight. I owned, trained, and showed a Morgan stallion in class A horse shows throughout New England. Weighing too much was a handicap. It affected my riding and my horse’s performance. I wanted to lose weight, not because I wasn’t going to be happy unless I was thinner. I wanted to lose weight to make it easier to do the things I loved.

There is so much to be grateful for as we work towards our weight loss goal. We can be grateful for so much more than a lower number on the scale. We can be grateful for our bodies that are strong and healthy. We can be grateful that we’re taking good care of our bodies. We can be grateful that what we’re doing to lose weight helps us feel better. We can be grateful that we can get back into some of our favorite clothes that didn’t fit. The more grateful we become, the more we get what we want and avoid doing the things that lead us to a failure.

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.