Steady As You Go

When you choose a new approach to weight loss you seek permanent results.

Unfortunately, even for those who reach their goal, success almost always turns out to be temporary. Their eating habits revert to their original form.

The adage that “old habits die hard” turns out to be true.

In this series of blog posts we ambitiously seek to alter this truth by describing a road map to permanent weight loss and inspiring you to heroically embrace the challenge of trying a new approach.

Our first post asked you to consider changing HOW you go about weight loss instead of blaming yourself for previous failures.

Our second post highlighted the difficulty of choosing a new approach.

We recommended taking your time with that decision and offered tools to help you: Claiming Ownership and a Beginner Mindset.

In this post we explain how and why being so deliberate leads to lasting change.

Learn Baby Learn

Permanent weight loss requires you to establish new eating habits.

How do you establish a new habit?

You take one step at a time, evaluate the results, fine-tune your approach, and then take another step. This process of trial and error will eventually lead to a new routine that works — unless you give up first.

Since trial and error is hardly a new idea, why do most people fail to change permanently?

They become impatient with the learning process.

For Example

Let’s say you choose an approach that involves keeping a food journal — writing down everything you eat and drink for one week without changing anything.

For the first few days this seems relatively straight-forward and makes intuitive sense — you can’t effectively change an old habit if you don’t know what it is first.

Then it gets harder. Keeping a food journal is an eye opening experience, and not changing anything feels counter-intuitive.

Now what?

You might be tempted to begin making changes — like skipping dessert or choosing healthier snacks. Or maybe you consider joining the local gym — they’re offering a special deal for new members!

Whether you succumb to these constant temptations or remain deliberate in taking one step at a time, you face a fundamental dilemma: how to stay patient enough to climb the new habit learning curve when every neuron in your body urges you to fast-forward!

It’s A Steadiness Problem!

Most people believe that the ‘fuel’ for any behavior or habit change — including weight loss — is willpower.

With all due respect to most people, their belief is incorrect.

Willpower and its cousins — grit, determination, stick-to-itiveness, and stubborn refusal to quit — burn out long before most people climb the learning curve.

Establishing new habits takes longer than we think it should — and therefore requires more sustainable fuel.

We developed a template for such a fuel — and named it Steadiness.

Steadiness refers to a specific set of tools that anyone can develop and use to establish new eating habits and lose weight permanently.

In the food journal example, your impulse to begin making changes prematurely is completely understandable.

But it is NOT a sign that you chose the wrong approach.

Your impatience IS a sign of excitement about changing (a good thing), and that your emotions may override your new approach before it has a chance to work (not such a good thing).

Instead of altering your plan you can recognize this situation for what it is: a Steadiness problem.

And the solution is to learn to Steady yourself.

You won’t believe how much better you’ll feel, and more importantly, how much progress you’ll make on your heroic journey towards permanent weight loss.

Interested?

Read on! In our next post we describe the first part of the 3-part Steadiness sequence — Getting Calm.