Hello everybody, welcome to episode 102 of Optimal Living Advice, the podcast where we take any questions you might have about the many struggles of life and get them answered for you here on the show. I’m your host, certified life coach Greg Audino, and I’m happy to here with you today. Today we’ll be looking at a question about making progress towards a weight loss goal. As you probably know, I’m not a doctor or any kind of professional when it comes to weight loss specifically, but there are a lot of ways to look at building physical health from the standpoint of mental health and we’ll explore that today. Here’s the question for this episode…
QUESTION: “I'm struggling with making progress. I have written down goals, meditated, taken action steps and for some reason I am not making any progress on my Lose 50 Pounds goal.”
Listen to Greg narrate this post on Episode 102 of the podcast Optimal Living Advice.
Diet, Exercise and Your Body
All right, short, simple question. I love it. Thanks for sending this in. I don’t think we’ve really talked much about weight loss so it’s nice to help you (and hopefully others) out with something new.
With that being said, I’m obviously not an expert on weight loss specifically. I also can’t answer this question as well as I maybe could if I knew exactly what steps you’re taking and how efficiently you’re executing them, but there are still some important things we can discuss today.
An important first step is to consult a doctor or a highly qualified trainer about both your lifestyle in terms of diet and exercise, but also about your personal anatomy. Giving them a detailed breakdown of the approach you’ve been taking and meeting with them regularly about this will do you a lot of good and someone with that background can personalize and streamline relevant information to you and you won’t have to spend so much time experimenting with the many theories we’ve all heard regarding weight loss.
And listeners, I would like to add that Dr. Neal on Optimal Health Daily is also answering this question on how to get past a weight loss plateau and providing his thoughts from a medical perspective. So if you want to hear more about this one or other health related questions and articles, give OHD a listen.
Weight Loss Plateau
One thing I assume they’ll tell you based on what I’ve learned (which could also be wrong) is that weight loss is extremely challenging for some people based on their genetics. And even those who are able to lose a lot of weight in spite of disadvantaged genetics find it nearly impossible to keep it off over time, especially without the use of surgeries or questionable supplements.
Again, that’s just what I’ve heard, but if someone more qualified than me confirms that or anything else, it’s on you to accept that information gracefully and work with what they’ve tell you you’ve got to work with. If it comes to that and it’s something you struggle with, feel free to reach back out. Because that’s too much speculating to do right now.
As far as what I can do for you, let’s say you’ve already listened to the episodes about how to build habits and you’ve mastered that. Let’s see you’ve got great habits for weight loss and you execute them to a tee. You’re taking the right action steps but still no progress towards your goal.
Goals and Disorientation
Well, goals can be disorienting sometimes. They can be disorienting, and in some cases, even unhealthy. Two problems with living by goals are:
- You feed into an illusion that you’re not who you want to be until the goal is accomplished and
- You’re more susceptible to putting in less effort and taking a vacation if and when you reach the goal.
After having a goal in mind for years and working tirelessly to reach it, it’s easy to want to just rest once you’ve gotten to your mark, but most goals we set for ourselves require constant maintenance.
A much more empowering way of creating the changes we want for ourselves is to adopt the “type of person who…” approach, which is far more sustainable over time.
Basically it goes as such.
Who Do You Seek to Be?
Say you seek to become a healthier person – particularly in the way of physical health (as is consistent with people who seek to lose weight). Based on your idea of what a physically healthy person is, what does their lifestyle look like? What does their lifestyle look like and how does it differ from yours currently?
A physically healthy person isn’t eating ice cubes for every meal in an effort to lose 50 lbs., but they probably lean more towards fruits and veggies than burgers and beer. They probably aren’t running 10 miles every day in an effort to lose 50 lbs., but they probably at least go for a walk or do a moderate gym workout several times a week.
So when you’re confronted with a burger and a salad, don’t be the type of person who will only eat a salad because weight loss is everything. And don’t be the type of person who will only eat burgers because they taste good. Be the type of person who eats in moderation, and has a healthy balance of eating for the body and the tastebuds. See what I mean? These types of choices are absolutely everywhere.
Plenty of Small, Good Choices
It’s not a life of extremes, but instead, a life of small daily choices that add up and aren’t very taxing. It’s making a lot of tiny, good decisions, and that’s a non-strenuous way of immediately stepping into the shoes of the person you want to become instead of just dreaming about it.
Whether or not your genetics make weight loss easy is out of your control, making a lifetime commitment to do right by the body you have is absolutely something that anyone can do with what they have.
Weight Loss Conclusion: Health and Wellbeing
And though we’ve talked about physical health mostly here, keep in mind that health and wellbeing is a vast concept. What I’m getting at is that you shouldn’t undersell the good from what’s already come of this – because much of what you’re currently demonstrating reflects a person living life in a healthy way.
Not only have you probably learned a great deal already about emotional resilience, living in a body that doesn’t feel right, and other unexpected lessons that have come with this journey, but you’ve committed to meditation and goal setting.
You’ve exhibited ambition when it comes to things you care about. You’ve prioritized health of mind and body rather than indulging in less constructive priorities. You’ve reached out for help when you need it.
While all of this may or may not materialize as the loss of physical weight, it will materialize as the loss of mental weight. These are the attributes of a generally healthy and balanced person, and leading with and celebrating them is only going to set you up for future successes.
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To the woman who sent this in, thank you again. I do hope you’re able to combine what we talked about today with the more specific information someone like a doctor could provide and use them in tandem to live as the all around healthiest version of you possible.
Everyone else out there, thanks for listening. If you’d like to submit your own questions to the show, please don’t hesitate. Nothing is off limits.
You can email them to us at advice AT oldpodcast DOT com
We’ll take your question there, help you out, and get you an answer ASAP. Thanks for being here today, everyone. Another one in the books. Can’t wait to be back with you all next time. Until then.
Listen to Greg narrate this post on Episode 102 of the podcast Optimal Living Advice.
