I’m glad you’re here!

It’s week two of our series, “Why Can’t I Lose Weight?” and I can’t wait to get into this week’s reason. It’s one of the biggest obstacles to losing weight and yet we miss that it’s even happening. So get comfy with your hot tea or sparkly water and let’s get going…

 

So why can’t you lose weight? Last week we talked about some of the most common reasons we think we can’t lose weight: We’re too old, in menopause, too busy, our career is so demanding, or our kids take all our time. But the truth is that there are people who lose weight in ALL of these situations, so none of those are really the reason you can’t lose weight.

Last week we talked about your belief about losing weight and how that belief will determine whether or not you will ever lose the weight you want to lose. If you’ve decided that losing weight isn’t really possible for you for whatever reason, you won’t lose weight. But if you can open the door in your mind to the possibility that you could lose weight, to believing that weight loss is a solvable problem, then you’re on your way to creating weight loss for yourself.

 

So what else is preventing you from losing weight?

You keep quitting.

 

Don’t be offended. Most of us do this on the regular – we just don’t see it as quitting. When we think we’re in a toxic work environment, we quit trying to improve the environment. When going to the gym is hard to maintain in the face of our schedule, we quit going. When our family doesn’t like to eat as healthy as we want and the groceries turn to sludge in the fridge, we quit buying veggies and go back to buying chips and cookies. Some things just don’t feel like they’re worth the fight.

But YOU losing weight permanently – that IS worth the fight!

I know you’re saying to me right now, “But I haven’t quit! I’ve been working at this for months/years/decades and nothing is working!” But there are two ways you’re quitting and you don’t know that it’s the thing that’s derailing your weight loss. There are two kinds of quitting – small quitting and big quitting. And small quitting is the one that’s actually the worst…

 

Small quitting is the one that you do the most. It’s when you go to an event on Saturday night and eat and drink more than you wanted, so you don’t get on the scale the next day. It’s when you eat too much out at dinner, and instead of stopping there and waiting for the next hunger cue, you order dessert too because you’ve already blown it.

Small quitting is when you mess up your plan mid-week and decide to start over on Monday. It happens when you drop your plan for the week because you’re on vacation. Or you decide to take a break from trying to lose weight because this week’s schedule is off the hook and you won’t be able to focus.

Small quitting is when you plan to fast until lunch but you grabbed a handful of nuts, so you decided that it just didn’t work and you’ll try again tomorrow to stay on track. It’s when you pull out your lunch because it’s lunchtime and realize halfway through your meal that you were never hungry, but you finish it anyway because you already started eating it.

 

Small quitting is kryptonite to permanent weight loss.

 

 

Do you see what happens with each of these examples? Every time you make a mistake on your weight loss plan, you delay restarting your plan for a period of hours to days. That delay is time lost, time wasted, and time that gets used overeating until the restart time. If you want to lose weight, your goal is to eliminate the delay in getting back on plan.

I want to make sure you caught that: Your goal is NOT to never make a mistake. Perfection is not required to lose weight. But when you make a mistake (we ALL do), then you recommit to your plan as soon as you recognize the error. The delay just compounds the mistake. One overeat doesn’t cause permanent weight gain – but having a free-for-all after the overeat makes the impact of the mistake bigger and more difficult to bounce back from. So if you give up for the rest of the day or the rest of the week, that time could have been used to move closer to your weight loss goal.

So don’t small quit. It’s working against what you REALLY want – to get the weight off for good.

 

Big quitting is different. It’s when you decide that you won’t try to lose weight anymore, either for a period of time or indefinitely. I’ve said it before: You CAN decide that pursuing weight loss is not for you right now. You might have lots of reasons, but the main one boils down to the choice to focus on a different area of your life instead of focusing on weight loss.

This is a valid choice. You cannot half-focus on weight loss and be successful.

However, you will not lose weight if you don’t try. There are people in the world who are so consumed with their projects and work and travel that they forget to eat and they lose weight. You and I are not those people. We don’t forget to eat. I don’t think I’ve ever forgotten to eat. I might have skipped a meal because I was busy or otherwise occupied, but I’ve never just forgotten to eat.

It’s ok if you choose not to focus on weight loss. When you’re ready to give your energy and effort and focus to weight loss, you’ll be successful. But until then, just own that you are deciding not to lose weight. The most important part is to be sure you like your reason for why you’re doing a big quit. If you choose to devote all your energy to taking care of your ailing mother-in-law, that’s fine. But don’t tell yourself you can’t lose weight because you have to take care of your mother-in-law and you just don’t believe you can do both. You’re not giving yourself enough credit. Like your reasons, make your choice, and go forward. Just own your choice and never let your choice own you.

 

If you want to lose weight, don’t quit.  Make the time between a mistake and recommitting as short as possible and you’ll be on your plan more than you’re off. That’s what gets you to your weight loss goal!

 

I have great news – I’ve opened two slots for private coaching! Schedule a consult with me so we can get you started on the road to permanent weight loss success. You may be the next person accepted into my exclusive private coaching practice!

 

Want to dig deeper into why you keep quitting? I go into it more in this week’s video!