Do you find yourself putting off starting your weight loss goal because it is just not the right time? Have you caught yourself saying I will start after Easter or when lockdown finishes? Perhaps you feel you will be more confident at losing weight after you have completed a big presentation at work, after month-end, after you have finished renovating your house, after COVID, after an exam, after your child has finished teething… you get the idea. You feel like it will be too hard.
Life will always have challenges and life is unpredictable. We have all learned that over the last year when managing all things COVID!
But through COVID, you have also learned that you can do hard things, and when you commit to making things work, you become more capable and confident that you will make it through. You may even decide you enjoyed the personal growth. Sometimes you might have made a mistake, like forgetting to unmute on a zoom call, or like not buying toilet rolls when COVID first hit us, but you didn’t make it mean you were a failure, or that you should not keep taking action to manage life in COVID.
What I want to share with you, is it is not the circumstances in your life that determine whether it is a good time to lose weight, it is the thought you have about yourself being able to lose the weight that generates the emotion needed to lose the weight. If you do think thoughts like ‘I am not in the right place’, ‘It’s too stressful right now’, or, ‘I am not strong enough at the moment’, then you are most likely generating feelings of resistance, helplessness, weakness, and hopelessness. Not only that, when you unconsciously think these thoughts your brain will offer up reasons it is not a great time and continue to back up the story that you are telling yourself. Watch that sneaky brain of yours!
Life is a mixed bag, and you are completely right, if you think the thought that ‘It is not the right time to lose weight’, you will fail, and reinforce the fact it was not the right time. But don’t blame it on the circumstances in your life because the emotions of confidence, discipline, optimism, focus, curiosity, and kindness in weight loss do not come from things that happen in the world, or a so-called ‘right time’. These super useful emotions in weight loss come from your thinking.
If you are believing that ‘It will be too hard right now’ or ‘I have not got the energy’ you are more likely looking for a way to avoid negative emotions and are probably going to use food as your crutch to feel better. You feel like food is your reward, your enjoyment, your escapism. If this is your current mindset then you may see weight loss as a punishment, as taking away and depriving yourself of things that make you feel better. But weight loss does not have to be seen as a punishment, and can most definitely be seen as lovingly looking after yourself. Not giving up on yourself and eating or drinking anything you want is not being kind to yourself, it looks more like not caring.
However, let’s go to the place where your brain believes there is no ‘right time’. Do you go on feeling bad and living a life where you feel unfulfilled, constantly disappointed in yourself, and fed up with being overweight? An alternative is to see more challenging times in your life as an opportunity to show yourself that whatever life throws at you, you can handle it. Not with food, but by staying conscious of the way you are interpreting the world and making useful changes to your thinking and to your life that will see you getting better results. Now that sounds more empowering, right?
So, I want to offer to you, there is no right time to start your weight loss goal, OR any time is the right time to start your weight loss goal. You get to decide which thought gets you taking action to a better version of you and stops you from making and finding excuses.
Believe in yourself and start taking the actions to make today better than yesterday, and to show yourself compassion when you make a mistake. You CAN do this, and the more you show yourself you can do hard things in any circumstance that happens in your life, the more capable and confident you will become. Some thoughts that have worked for my clients are:
- I can do this
- I am open to believing weight loss is possible
- I am going to get there
- I am learning to take loving action for me
There are many more. You will find one that works for you. Remember to practice it often.
Let me know what thoughts you practice that generate strength, determination, self-compassion, self-love, or belief when losing weight. Drop them in the comments box or email them through to rebecca@rebeccagoodacre.com I would love to hear from you.
If you want some help to manage the unhelpful thoughts that are stopping you from moving forward in your weight loss goal and learn the step-by-step process to get you continuously taking great actions in your life, then get in touch to find out if my Stop Overeating Program is a good fit for you.
Have a beautiful week.
