Ancient Wisdom to Succeed in Your Weight Loss Journey

Making a decision is the first step towards change. You being here, reading this, is already a manifestation of success in your weight loss journey.

That being said, it is important that you remember that like all good things, losing weight requires some effort.

The saying that Rome was not built in a day fits the weight loss journey perfectly. Your beach-bod, chiseled abs or manageable weight will come as a result of trusting the process.

Healthy living, is a lifestyle and not a phase. Submit to it and the results will come.

This article will guide and motivate you on your journey, by arming you with the right information and giving you first hand tips on weight loss.

Do it for You

Did someone make an offensive comment about your weight? Is someone close to you pressuring you to lose weight?

That shouldn’t be your motivation to lose weight. You can never achieve true success and happiness if every action you do is intended to please someone else(1).

When the motivation to lose weight comes from external sources, should the going get tough, you will give up. Motivation that comes from within is far much stronger and positive than motivation that comes from others(2,3).

Let the urge to lose weight and to live a healthy lifestyle come from a positive place- let it come from you!

Take Home: Let the drive to lose weight come from within you- not outside

Know Your Body Type

I have watched the hardest working people in the gym struggle to keep the pounds off. The reason is partly because they do not follow a workout and diet regimen that is tuned to their body type.

Yes, there is such a thing as body types! The scientific term for it is somatotypes, and there are three; endomorph, ectomorph and mesomorph(4).

We are all a combination of these three types. Depending on yours, you may need to lift more weights or do more cardio, eat less carbs or lay-off the fatty foods. Knowing your somatotypes will also help you set your goals and expectations.

As a general rule of thumb, endomorphs tend to gain weight easily and have a hard time losing it.

Mesomorphs don’t gain weight easily but when they do, they find it easier to shed it. Ectomorphs don’t gain weight easily, and tend to have strong physiques(5).

Take Home: Know your Somatotype- Understand your body.

Have a S.M.A.R.T Goal

A S.M.A.R.T goal is one that is specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time based. Failing to plan is planning to fail.

Not having a goal when trying to lose weight is the surest way of failing.

A study by the National Institutes of Health shows that there is a strong link between goal setting and forming new behavior patterns that lead to weight loss(6).

Simply saying that you want to lose weight is not specific enough. An example of a specific weight loss goal would be, “I want to lose 10 pounds.”

A goal to lose belly fat is not measurable. An example of a measurable weight loss goal would be, “I want to lose 5 pounds of belly fat.”

Remember the somatotypes? Your body type may create restrictions on how much weight you may safely lose. Knowing your somatotype, you must set an attainable goal and be comfortable with it.

Accept who you are. From personal experience, attainable goals provide motivation, as opposed to lofty unachievable ones.

Simply put, you cannot be an Arnold Schwarzenegger if you have a busy day schedule. While he was a dedicated professional bodybuilder, you are someone aspiring to be fit.

Your weight loss goal should be time specific. You should be able to say, “I want to lose 5 pounds of fat in 1 month.”

Not only does this keep you on your toes, but it also provides a basis for progress assessment.

Take Home: Set a goal that is specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time based.

Know the Facts

Where does fat go when you lose weight? What is a caloric deficit? How is fat created?

All these questions and more, are extremely important in making your weight loss journey successful.

Understanding the truth about how your body works, the kind of fuel it needs and when it has had enough, is the foundation of a sustainable weight loss and healthy living.

They say that education never stops. This is true even when losing weight.

There is a lot of great, credible information on the mechanics of weight loss.

In general, the kind of knowledge that you are seeking is on the right kind of exercises to do for weight loss, and proper nutrition.

The National Institutes of Health conducted a study in which they found that subjects who were well informed on nutrition science found it easier to lose weight(7).

Take Home: Being informed on exercise knowledge and nutrition will help you make weight loss easy.

Chose a Diet that is Convenient for You

There are as many diets as there are foods. Some like the Paleo diet cut almost all simple sugars and processed carbohydrates from your diet, in an attempt to force the body to burn fat (8).

Other diets like the Blood Type diet recommend specific foods depending on your diet. For example, under this diet, Blood type O’s are supposed to eat foods rich in protein but exclude all dairy products from their diet.

Meanwhile Blood Type A’s are supposed to stay away from meats and eat alternative sources of protein like tofu in order to lose weight (9).

The Vegan diet cuts out all meats and animal based protein, thus reducing intake of cholesterol and saturated fats (10).

Many of these diets do indeed work, when applied with consistency.

To diet consistently and comfortably, it is very important that you chose a diet that is in line with your financial capability and food availability.

There is no sense in choosing the Keto diet that emphasizes fatty meats if those are not easily accessible for you.

A taxing diet will wear you out! Instead, I advise people to look at their current diet and fashion a healthier version of it.

Not only is such an approach more familiar, but it ensures that you never have to strain when it comes to choosing what you eat.

It is important to remember that although many diets work, many others don’t. As author of The Diet Selector, Dr. Judy Rodriguez says, “Just because it is on the bookshelf, or the name is on a door, it does not mean it is a healthy, well-rounded program (11).”

To know if a diet is the right fit for you, ask yourself the following questions:

1. Can this diet accommodate your travel or dining patterns?
2. Is it flexible, such that every family member can accommodate it?
3. Does it require special preparation and/or cooking?
4. Can you stick to its requirements (12)?

Take Home: Choose a diet that you can easily stick to.

Invest in a Weighing Scale

Buying a weighing scale is probably one of the best decisions I made when I was losing weight.

Losing weight is a process that may last between several months, to years.

For you to achieve results quicker, and to tweak your routine, you need to take data. Weighing yourself daily or weekly will help you detect small increases of weight, allowing you to fine tune your training and nutrition program(13).

Don’t fear the scale! It is your best friend.

If you’ve done your due diligence well, the weighing scale will confirm it, and boy do you get a rush when you see those numbers going down!

That said, weighing yourself frequently allows you to keep hope.

When you see those numbers going down, even in infinitesimally small amounts, you know that at least, you are headed in the right direction.

Take Home: Weighing yourself frequently will help you evaluate your progress.

Join a Gym if You Can

It is not that you can’t lose weight at home.

In fact, because losing weight pretty much requires engaging your aerobic system, many of the exercises available do not need specialized equipment.

You don’t need a treadmill to start a jogging routine nor a dumbbell to do burpees. Although the gym offers a lot of learning experiences (there are a lot of experienced folk there), that is not why I am recommending it.

I recommend joining a gym because of the potential it has to give you a support system.

Think of it as your weight loss anonymous group. Many people at the gym are there for the same reasons as you are.

When you see them struggle each day, it gives you hope and rubs off on you.

On this note, it is important to choose a gym that is convenient for your purpose. Don’t go to the body builder’s gym as it will only make you feel insecure, emasculate and out of place.

Chose a fitness-oriented gym instead, to begin with.

Take Home: Gym can offer a great support and motivational system for you.

Start

The Harvard Business Review advises corporates to stop making plans and start taking action. This advice is applicable to your weight loss journey (14).

You have planned, you have researched, all that remains is for you to take that first step.

In the proverbial words of Shia Labeouf, JUST DO IT!

When I started my weight loss journey, I literally got a pair of snickers and started at my local gym.

I knew nothing of the information available to you in this article.

You have got to accept that with weight loss, you learn on the job.

Expect failure as you start out.

Anticipate many mistakes as you begin, and give yourself some grace when you make them.

Do not let the urge to do it right, prevent you from starting.

Take Home: Don’t let your dreams be dreams. Yesterday you said tomorrow. So JUST DO IT!

Stay in the Now

When you have 40 pounds of weight to lose, you may feel like the Greek myth legend Sisyphus, rolling a heavy boulder up an unending mountain.

When you’re always looking at the big picture, it is easy to lose hope.

You need to realize that what will make the difference when you hit a wall is not remembering your ambitious goal.

What will make the difference is you putting your left leg in front of the right, doing that last pushup or even going to the gym on that day when you feel exhausted.

Staying in the now means concentrating on the tasks at hand instead of the end goal.

When you execute what you need to do every day, the results will come without you thinking about them.

In fact, as in my experience, you may find yourself surpassing your long-term goal without you realizing it.

Take Home: Focus on the daily tasks as opposed to the long-term goal.

Anticipate the Plateau

Oh, the dreaded plateau! It is inevitable, at some stage in your weight loss journey, your body will stop reacting to the fitness routine that you’re used to.

Do not get worried or lose hope when it happens. It is normal.

Plateaus occur for several inevitable reasons. Your body is great at adapting.

As you exercise, your body will learn how to use the least amount of energy to perform the exercise. This will result in less weight lost.

Moreover, as you lose weight, your metabolism peaks, then levels off.

This is because the lighter you get, the less taxing the exercises are for your aerobic system (15).

The solution is quite simple. You need to up the ante.

In the wisdom-filled words of Arnold Schwarzenegger, you have to shock the muscle. 

No, don’t electrocute yourself. What this means is that you need to either increase the intensity of the exercises that you’re doing, or switch them up.

Don’t let your body get comfortable.

Take Home: Anticipate a plateau and when it occurs, increase intensity or switch things up.

Surround Yourself with Positive People

In the time-honored words of Vladimir Lenin, “Show me your friends and I will tell you what you are.”

 Nothing can be closer to the truth when it comes to the people you surround yourself with, when losing weight.

It is possible that some of the people around you may derail, discourage and drain your energy, knowingly or unknowingly.

You need to distance yourself from such people, or at least separate your weight loss journey from them.

Studies show that the opinions of those who matter to us often shape how we think and how we act.

The problem is that those people may not always give positive opinions. The term for this phenomenon in psychology is known as labeling (16,17).

People around you who constantly belittle and berate you will not help you achieve success in your weight loss journey.

In fact, they may be the reason for your failure.

Conversely the positivity from supportive people around you may serve as the stepping stone you need to achieve your goals. Choose your friends wisely.

Take Home: Surround yourself with positive and supportive people.

Have a Cheat Day

The mentality that you are at war with all your bodily urges will inevitably lead to disaster down the line.

Weight loss should not be tantamount to self-hate and denial.

On this journey you should learn how to love and take care of yourself, as opposed to forcing your body to be something it is not.

Weight loss is about self-acceptance and not self rejectment.

On this note, it is advisable that from time to time, perhaps once a week, you give your body a break.

On your cheat day, you may want to grab a healthy snack that you normally wouldn’t eat during the week, or simply take a day off from the gym.

For example, because I use a plant based protein diet, I allow myself some lean chicken or fish on my cheat day.

Not only will this keep your motivation high, it will also allow you to slowly reintegrate yourself to normal living.

On the point about motivation, human beings are incentive oriented.

Could be that, what drives you during rough weeks is the slice of cheesecake awaiting you on the weekend- there is no shame in that(18).

Take Home: Give yourself a break.

Accept the Lifestyle

Weight loss is not an event. It is a precursor to a higher purpose; living a healthy lifestyle.

Even after you achieve your weight loss goals, remember that you have done so because you have been living a healthy, well balanced life.

Don’t stop, don’t relent. When you decide to lose weight, remember that you are committing yourself to changing or perhaps tweaking how you lived your life.

Don’t worry though, the benefits of a healthy lifestyle are many and are worth it!

Take Home: Weight Loss is part of larger mission- living a healthy lifestyle.

The take-home message on how women succeed in their weight loss journey

Choosing to lose weight, when you’re overweight, is a noble and rewarding decision.

Success in doing so requires effort, correct information, good habits, drive and a lot of positivity.

Weight loss is a journey of self-discovery or rather re-discovery. By reading this article, you are on the right path. Go forth and concur!