Whenever a person chooses to start to lose weight, they are often struck by how difficult this can be. Any effort they put into reaching this goal will eventually hit a brick wall with progress slowing down to a near halt. Once they see the scale moving every day, they feel elated, but overcoming that period when no weight is actually being burnt can be a huge challenge. Many people may experience a lot of varied reactions to this lack of progress, but the most common are frustration and hopelessness. Overcoming these feelings is critical to achieving long term weight loss success.
This can lead to rapid abandonment of any diet, which is definitely not what people want. There are lots of methods which have been proven to help avoid these kinds of weight loss plateaus. Two of the more popular are actually the HCG diet and garcinia cambogia, but there are others like green coffee extracts which can help too. However, no matter what kind of program you’re going through, the chances of hitting a plateau exist in all of them. Avoiding this yo-yo dieting and weight gain is important, as it helps you reach a level of success that just isn’t attainable otherwise.
If there’s a time when your weight loss story is not going according to what you planned, there are actually several things you can do. Here we list the top five ways you can refocus your mind on weight loss and overcome these stagnant periods:
- Rethink Your Attitude – Don’t think about going from point A to point B, and after you reach your goal things can go back to normal. Design a diet and weight loss method around something you can sustain. It’s a change in your life, likely a permanent one, and it requires this attitude to work. Negative attitudes, such as feelings of “wasted effort” that you’re not losing weight fast enough are contrary to your goals. You need to maintain faith in your diet, and faith that you’re going to achieve the results you want. However, a diet is long term change, and you should plan around that.
- Manage Your Emotional State – When people derail on their diet or hit a wall in their weight loss, a typical response is to get upset. This is normal, but it’s also not helpful in reaching your goals. You want to manage your emotions, and inventory them so you know what you’re feeling and why. It’s important to rationalize these problems and overcome them so you can move on to more weight loss.
- Find Support for Your Diet – Whenever you feel like quitting and giving up your diet, it’s easy to look for ways out. Having someone hold you accountable for your progress is the best way to succeed. Studies have clearly shown that people who have a partner, or someone they’re forced to be accountable with are much more likely to actually lose weight. It doesn’t have to be a professional coach or mentor or some kind, rather a family or friend who cares about you will often be enough to keep you on track.
- Consider the Bigger Picture – If you concentrate on what you’re eating today, or for the immediate meal you’re about to have, the details can often overwhelm you and you can lose sight of your goal. It’s imperative to consider the end result you’re going for and think about the larger picture of your weight loss. If you’re trying to keep all the minutia in your mind, what you can eat, drink and what to do every moment of every day, you will often become discouraged. Plan well, but also take time away from thinking about your diet each day.
- Establish and Accept a Normal Pace – Trying to rush towards an end result as quickly as possible is one of the surest ways to fail. Your body can only lose weight so quickly. In your journey to permanent weight loss, you will need to consider more than just how fast you get there. It’s not a race, though it may feel like one sometimes. You need to establish a steady weight loss pace, one that helps keep your metabolism and fat burning up, and your appetite low. This is the best way to achieve results.
While this list is not meant to be fully comprehensive, we hope it gives a good idea of the long term goals you can establish and what kind of things to watch out for. If you follow many of these methods you will have a much better chance of success during your weight loss program.