Like life, losing weight and getting healthy is a journey. Today, we want to talk to the folks who have been on this journey for a while and maybe are feeling frustrated: you don't feel like you're progressing as fast as you should be, you're tired of meal prepping and tracking all of your food, or you're just plain stuck (mentally & physically) and don't know what to do about it.
Frustration is never fun. But if you are frustrated the first thing you should do is pause and assess. When we say pause we don't mean stop, we mean take a little bit of time to asses your WHY.
Why are you on this journey?
And don't accept the first answer, it's usually a cop-out. Your why should bring about an emotional reaction, and usually the first thing we say is not at the root of why you are on this fitness journey.
Some examples of questions is: why do you want to fit your clothes better, why is getting off medication important to you?
Once you go 5-6 layers deep of why, you end up finding the thing that is going to keep you motivated to stay on track with your journey.
Next, you want to assess where you have failed in your journey and why you failed. Don't spend a ton of time here, but you do want to identify triggers that cause you to fail. This will help create awareness of what you'll need to do to counterbalance those triggers. Maybe it's stress and you can reflect on some better ways to handle stress.
Assess if you're feeling overwhelmed.
How do you know you're feeling overwhelmed? You start using ambiguous words like: "It's just a lot." You don't know how to describe what "a lot" is, but you know that everything going on in your world feels like too much to handle on top of getting healthy.
Feeling overwhelmed is completely normal. What you're feeling is your diminished capacity. Capacity is like a battery, and every day you eat away at that battery through all of the different things in your life. For those of you who maybe tracking your food or exercise does not come naturally, your battery needs to be charged more than others', and it can cause you to feel overwhelmed.
If you're feeling overwhelmed with the baby steps of fitness, then you have to find a way to make the baby steps smaller.
When it comes to nutrition, the first thing a good program has is a way to build awareness. So, for example, in our program we believe in tracking macros which means we weigh and measure food. We don't believe in diets or anything like that, so for us our clients are really bringing awareness to what they currently eat and then tweaking based off of what their goals are.
For some people, tracking macros is level 1. But for some people they have to start at .5, or foundational basics of nutrition.
When someone first starts they may just need to track and write down what they are eating instead of trying to hit a certain number.
Studies have shown that people who write down their food actually end up eating less than those who don't track. Whether this is using an app or just writing it down, this may be the step you go down to when you're feeling frustrated.
For someone who is more advanced and tracking accurately and hitting all their macros, maybe they only try hitting their protein for a bit, or take a break altogether.
One thing to keep in mind is that if you decide to take a break, you must pick a date that you will pick back up and get back on track. It can't be forever because over time your weight will start creeping up again and you'll go backwards in terms of progress.
Bottom line: If you're feeling frustrated, assess where you are and then back it up a notch.
Backing it up a notch will look different for each person, which is why it's important to work with a coach to have someone guide you and support you during times of frustration.
One thing to keep in mind when it comes to mindset: a lifetime of health is not a finite game that you can win. It's okay, and expected, to have some bumps along the journey. Don't let taking a break or taking it back a notch equate to complete failure. How we win is to continuously get better over time!
Keep on the journey, and if you're truly stuck reach out...we can help!
