Very often, when clients come to me for a consultation and I ask a question: “What is your goal?”, I hear the answer: “I want to lose weight”, “I want to lose body fat”.
There are quite a lot of tools that you can use to achieve it. Being more active, training in the gym, going for classes, eating less, jogging etc….
But before you even take the first steps in the gym, you need to answer one more and yet very important question
Why do you want to lose weight/body fat ?
…. now you should take a pen and write it on the piece of paper or somewhere where you get an easy access to. Write down the reasons WHY you want to lose weight/body fat.
For example: I want to lose weight because:
“ I don’t feel good in my body”
“ I want to improve my health, blood pressure and blood sugar level”
“ I want to stay healthy for my kids”
“ I want to prove to myself that I can do it”
“ I got enough and I am tired of being always big”
There are hundreds of reasons, and I am sure everyone has got at least a few.
Establishing WHY is so important. It is your main motivator when you start doubting yourself. If you start looking for the excuses, missing the workouts or eating more over the weekends, you take a look at this piece of paper to remind yourself WHY you have started your journey in the first place. It will get you back on track faster than you think.
In my opinion you must do it for YOURSELF and not someone else. And then you will be mentally ready and most likely you will succeed.
Once you establish your WHY’s and connect them with yourself, you can move to other steps.
You don’t lose weight and body fat because you exercise and doing enormous number of hours on a treadmill. You need to start thinking differently. You have to treat the exercises, weightlifting, cardio training as a tools to improve your strength, posture, cardiovascular system, make your heart stronger and more efficient and especially to start moving better and easier.
Weight and fat loss come from the CALORIC DEFICIT. So put it simple, you eat less calories than you need for your day-to-day activities. No fancy diets, just looking at your calories and/or portion sizes.
How to make sure that you stay positive and long enough on your, lets say “diet”…..
…. well, first of all I would not call it diet. The diet has a bad meaning by itself. People think, when they are on diet, they can not have this and that and it is for 3 months. After the “diet” is finished, I will go back to my old habit and old eating patterns. And that is the time when you start gaining weight again.
Sounds familiar? Yes, I know, I have been there too.
