Who am I to know how to lose weight and keep it off?
If you’ve ever asked yourself this question, you need not worry, you are not alone. In fact, this is the most common question asked by those who want to lose weight, as very few people are truly clear about the best way to eat for long term, enjoyable, and sustainable weight loss.
But not being clear isn’t the real problem. Doubting yourself and your intuitive voice is.
Your intuition, or inner guidance system, has been perfected over thousands of years of evolution, and it knows exactly how to guide you to lose weight and keep it off forever. But the silent – often unconscious – “Who am I…?” personal query plants a seed of apprehension that causes us to doubt that guidance, and become uncertain about our own abilities.
It’s a shame, really. The majority of dieters have successfully convinced themselves that they are not their own expert when it comes to something as simple as shedding some unwanted pounds. This can feel quite debilitating.
Well, friends, the time has come to clear the clutter once and for all. Get ready to free yourself from the handcuffs of doubt, and decide right here and now that you are going to empower yourself to take back control of your weight, your health and your body forever more.
The 3 Intuitive Weight Loss Culprits
Named must your fear be before banish it you can. - Yoda
As the little green Jedi Master said, we need to get crystal clear about what causes us to feel so powerless when it comes to confidently controlling our weight.
We all have a deep-seeded fear that we are not enough. Most people believe that, at some level, everyone else has it all figured out. The reality is that we’re all in the same boat, but because of our “we’re not enough” fear, we tend to give too much credit to others, while severely underestimating ourselves.
There are three catalysts that light the spark of this fear and doubt about our ability to intuitively lose weight effectively. These rascals are so common and so impactful that most of us take them for granted, thus underestimating their power. However, once they are brought into the light we can recognize them whenever they rear their ugly heads, disarm them, and leave them powerless while empowering ourselves – and our own weight loss – in the end.
1. We live in the Information Age.
We are trained to look elsewhere for answers. In an age where we can do a Google search on the word, “diet”, and get over 130,000,000 results in less than a second, we expect that someone else knows how to do this, so we’d better ask them first. We are conditioned to look for an expert, however they are defined, but we rarely consult with our own intuitive voice before seeking counsel from others.
Learning from others isn’t the problem, it’s doubting ourselves so much that we go outside of ourselves for answers first that weakens our confidence and intuitive muscles.
2. Too many diet options, most of which contradict each other.
With the sheer number of diets available today, marketers must find a way to position themselves to stick out in the industry.
To accomplish this ever-more daunting task, proponents of the latest secret diet strategy will either niche themselves as a diet for one gender, socioeconomic class, or age group, or they will spin the truth to get some attention. Typically, they emphasize approaches that either contradict commonly-accepted truths, or challenge the premise upon which the current diet du jour is based upon, thus attracting media buzz by way of being sensationalistic or shocking. “Lose weight without changing anything you do” is a perfect example.
The reality is that statements like these encourage us to doubt our own intuition and natural instincts about weight loss even more. (No, it’s not possible to lose weight without changing anything you do. Unless of course you are currently losing weight.)
3. We see the staggering number of people who fail at weight loss.
The coup de grace of this doubt-inducing triad is the stark reality that over 90% of dieters end up gaining back the weight they lost within one to five years.
None of us want to fall into this category (at least not again), and as a fear-based reactionary result, we start analyzing, picking apart and scrutinizing every agonizing detail of the most popular diets in hopes of spotting the fatal flaws of the diets we decide to avoid. Welcome to the fast lane for paralysis by analysis. This leads to either a lifelong search for the perfect diet (while continuing to gain 1-3 lbs per year during our investigation), or we just say, “Screw it – it’s easier to be fat than to try to figure this out.”
All three of these buggers exacerbate the FEAR (False Evidence Appearing Real) that we can’t lose weight on our own.
The truth is that each one of us has everything we need.
The Antidote
1. Listen to your intuition.
What would you do to easily and effortlessly start losing weight today if you were able to temporarily set aside all of the doubt, misconceptions, and fear you’ve collected over the years about controlling your weight? What would you do intuitively to drop the extra pounds?
Still stuck? Maybe this will help. Pretend you are living in the year 1700. You find yourself with 20 pounds to lose. You have no internet, no weight loss programs, no “experts” to consult, and no books. What would you do to drop the extra 20?
You would eat less, move more, or do a combination.
We all know intuitively that our body weight, and the changes in our weight over time, will always tell us what kind of calorie balance we’ve been in. Gained weight? You ate more than you burned over the time period during which your weight increased. Lost weight? You burned more than you ate. Did your weight stay the same? You get the picture.
This feedback system – your weight changes and your intuitive ability to decide how to adjust based on it – has always been there, and will continue to be there for you for the rest of your life.
2. Don’t get lost in the woods.
Have you ever heard the expression, “You can’t see the forest for the trees”? Focusing too much on the details, at the expense of failing to see the big picture, will only get you lost, confused and frustrated.
The “forest” is the big picture – your calorie balance. If you don’t get the calorie balance right, none of the other details like carbs, protein, fat, sugar, water, and best time of day to eat, will matter. Case in point: The person who “eats healthy” but never loses any weight. Compare this person to the other extreme example: Someone who found a way to manage a calorie deficit for the past 2 years, lost over 30 lbs., but never ate a single vegetable and drank regular soda and ate Cheetos every step of the way.
Some people spend so much time arguing over the little nuances of weight loss, such as the Glycemic Index and whether you can eat meals with carbs past 6pm or 7pm. These same people either never lose any weight, or if they do, they start to gain it all back when they eventually realize they can’t live with the highly-specialized, time-consuming and inconvenient diet strategies they chose to follow.
Remember this: It doesn’t matter how “perfect” you are with your nutrition; if you don’t manage your calories, your weight will never change.
And it doesn’t matter how “perfect” your diet strategy is on paper; if you can’t live with it, you will start to gain the weight back as soon as you stop following it.
Get your calorie balance right first by making simple, intuitive adjustments to the way you eat and move which you can live with over the long haul, then work on eating as healthy as you wish while maintaining that balance.
3. Never fight for your limitations.
If you don’t want your history to repeat itself, then promise yourself that you will give up on trying to prove that you are right about what you couldn’t do in the past.
Every day, your body burns calories. Every day, you consume calories. At the end of every 7-14 days, any changes to your body weight will be a direct result of the average daily balance between the number of calories you burned and the number you consumed. This will repeat itself for as long as you are alive, which means you can always begin anew if taking control of your weight is important enough to you.
It also means that this calorie balance thing never ends. So, if you want to lose weight and keep it off, stop doubting yourself. Begin listening to your built-in intuition, trust yourself, use the feedback your body gives you, and relax in the knowledge that you have been inherently given everything you need to be successful, and you – only you – are responsible for the way you look and feel.
If you find yourself stuck at a certain weight, promise yourself that you will ask one question before looking elsewhere for answers:
“If there was no one else to ask, and I fully trusted my own instincts, what advice would I give myself now?”
You are smarter, and more powerful than you know. It’s time to unleash it.
