5 weight loss truths to keep in your back pocket

These reminders will help keep you grounded every day

by Vivian Nunez

‍

Meditation will teach you that grounding can help soften intrusive thoughts or emotions. Grounding thoughts can also help as you’re navigating your weight loss journey. Whether this is your first day or first attempt at meeting new weight loss goals, there are common challenges that you’re likely to encounter.

Below we’ll walk you through a series of truths about weight loss, with the goal of reframing your relationship with food, movement, and pleasure. All things that can sometimes feel uncomfortable to talk through, but when unpacked, can open anyone up for a big sigh of relief. Especially if you’ve been sifting through weight loss facts for a while now.

Here are 5 phrases that will hold true for anyone during their weight loss journey.

You’re allowed to like food.

Period. There is nothing wrong with enjoying food. Your weight loss journey doesn’t require you to hate food to meet your goals. If anything, it requires you to know more about food than you ever have. So, repeat after us: “I’m allowed to like food, to enjoy it when I have it, and to set my own healthy boundaries for the sake of my weight loss journey.”

You can change your mind...often.

The Calm Health clinical program ‘Create Lasting Weight Loss Using Psychology’, shares the concept of “Poor Pleasure Prediction,” or PPP. It does an amazing job of explaining how a person’s knee-jerk reaction is to predict that an experience, journey, or event will be unpleasurable to some degree, even if they are excited or motivated to participate. Only after they find themselves in that moment do they realize that it’s a lot more pleasurable than they were expecting. Enter: your weight loss journey. PPP reminds you that you can and probably will change your mind more than once throughout your journey and that it will hopefully be a positive change.

You don’t have to be a natural at exercising, discipline, or nutrition to meet your weight loss milestones.

Find comfort in this — we are all beginners at something! You aren’t alone if you feel like a fish out of water with your new weight loss regimen; even if you’ve tried to lose weight multiple times before, this is the first time you’re doing it this specific way on this particular day. Being an expert in weight loss is not a requirement for success. Being committed to yourself and your goals is. And since you’re reading this, we think you have that covered.

You can build new habits around your weight loss goals.

Speaking of goals, the best way to reach them is to build new habits to support your path toward those milestones. While on your weight loss journey, you will push old habits or lifestyle choices out and replace them with ones that support you better. By the way, did you know that it’s actually a myth that a habit only takes 21 days to form? Studies show that it can take an average of 10 weeks (or 61 days) for a new habit to form, after which the habit requires less motivation and starts feeling more second nature.

You can choose a workout that makes you happy, not just one that’s trendy.

It seems like every few months a new workout becomes a trend on social media. In some cases, it may help you discover a new passion for pilates or treadmill walking, which is wonderful. But, if all those trendy workouts make you feel like you’re falling short or you’re forcing yourself to show up to your movement practice, it’s okay to say no and cultivate a habit around something you actually enjoy. Take notes from the wonderful Amy Poehler, who wrote in her book, “Good for her, not for me.”

No matter where you are in your weight loss journey, surround yourself with people, places, and thoughts that remind you how far you’ve come and how capable you are to keep moving forward. Keep these 5 truths in your back pocket so you feel confident the next time you choose your pleasure and uphold your boundaries instead of falling back into old routines.

‍

Calm Health is a mental health wellness product. Calm Health is not intended to diagnose or treat depression, anxiety, or any other disease or condition. Calm Health is not a substitute for care by a physician or other health care provider. Any questions that you may have regarding the diagnosis, care, or treatment of a medical condition should be directed to your physician or health care provider.