How to Handle the Emotional Journey of Weight Loss
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Weight loss journeys can be quite emotional.
When it comes to weight loss, I’d have to say emotions are most of my clients biggest obstacle.
Even more than the physical barriers we may deal with, our emotional patterns or reactions can be the hardest to overcome. I’ve found this to be true with not only myself, but with a lot of the people I work with in my programs. It’s an emotional rollercoaster to say the least.
I’ve worked with many people who honestly felt they didn’t deserve to be healthy, to be beautiful, to be happy. Every effort they’d made in the past to lose weight and improve their well being had been sabotaged leaving them feel like failures.
Negative self-talk got the better of them even AFTER they’d experienced all the emotions that come with the diet rollercoaster.
It’s almost there’s a mindset shift that needs to happen when it comes to this diet mentality.
When you are able to combine the emotional work with the lifestyle changes, you’ll see huge success. Not overnight, but over time. It’s totally possible.
So many emotions can come into play on a weight loss journey
- Stress
- Anxiety
- Depression
- Guilt
- Anger
Those are just a few that come to mind and have gone through myself.
How do you handle the emotions on your weight loss journey?
Below are some helpful tips on how to handle the emotions of your weight loss journey. This is part of what I work on in both my Balance 360 Group coaching Program and my one on one clients. Whether you’re at the beginning of your journey or somewhere in the middle of it, each tip help you reflect on your own emotional experiences and help guide you in times to come.
Work on Self-Awareness
The journey toward better health, under any circumstances, offers plenty of opportunity for journaling and keeping track of how you feel. Journaling can help you get those emotions off your chest. It’s helpful to write out your realizations, roadblocks, self-doubt, accomplishments, and motivational ideas and non-scale victories. Reflect on how it all makes you feel.
Try to identify the roots of emotional issues at hand and the current triggers that send you down the road of negative self-talk. Use your developing awareness to continually “catch” yourself earlier in the self-talk cycle and redirect your thoughts and activities before it even starts. Try to redirect any of those negative issues into positive ones.
You are NOT a math problem, don’t stress over the numbers
There are so many dimensions to this one. First and foremost, you’re not your numbers–and your journey will be so much more than any number. Don’t stress over the scale, your calorie counts, your fit bit steps, the amount of weight you’re losing, your fat burning zone number, how many times you’re working out a week. You are NOT a math problem, set the numbers aside and don’t let them define you.
Focus on what you’re doing for yourself. How you’re improving your health, feeling better and more confident. Focus on how much stronger you’re getting , mind, body and spirit through your journey. The point is, stay consistent with your new, healthy behaviors and know you’re doing amazing things for yourself. Be patient and take it one day at a time, it will happen.
Understand you may have some set backs
When you start your weight loss journey, you need to know that there will be bad days, that’s totally normal. Nothing worthwhile comes easy. There will be days that you’ll want to quit, they’ll be days when things just don’t go your way, you’ll mess up, you’ll think you’ve fallen off the wagon, you’ll overindulge…IT’S OKAY!! You’re human. It may happen more than you’d like to admit BUT the most important thing is that you pick yourself back up and continue on your journey…and understand that there is NOTHING wrong with you if you should experience these things. Don’t beat yourself up over it.
And My last BUT not least tip for dealing with the emotions of weight loss:
Seek Support
Find yourself a health and fitness support group, get a life coaching, and/or a personal trainer, whatever works for you. This will be KEY to your success. You need someone there to help hold you accountable, to support you and lift you up when you’re feeling down. It’s easier to stick with a weight loss plan when you have support, can share tips on diet and exercise and have some exercise buddies.
FINAL THOUGHTS
I hope this information on the emotions of weight loss has been helpful to you. If you have any questions feel free to post them in the comments below.
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