Taking the Long View with Your Weight Loss Goals
Is this the year you’ve decided to pursue better health? Taking care of the one body that carries you through life has no drawbacks. The time, planning, and energy you put into creating healthy habits will repay you over and over again. To stay focused, take the long view.
Taking the long view is about tackling your lifestyle, and making it fit your goals.
If you go “on” a cleanse, a detox, or a diet, what will happen when you go “off” of it? Although it can be tempting to pursue something extreme to get quick results, research shows that there are no shortcuts. A lifestyle perspective can help you carry on even if you get sidetracked. If you ate a pastry for breakfast, that could be enough to sink your diet. But if you ate a pastry for breakfast, you know that’s not part of your lifestyle and you can course-correct and make a different choice for lunch, or for breakfast tomorrow. There is no on or off when it comes to your health. Instead there is the awareness and knowledge about the choices you want to make.
Taking the long view can help you say, “Thanks for your input,” to the naysayers, and carry on.
Knowing that the changes you are making help you pursue your goals and live your life on our own terms can help you shrug off commentary or criticism from the people around you. Change can be uncomfortable for people. If you are keeping a lifestyle perspective in mind, you have an answer for people who want to know when you’ll be “done with all that.” The answer is that you’re not ever going to be done making choices for better health.
Taking the long view means making a plan.
The very foundations of your day, when you wake up, when you sleep, how and what you eat and drink, and how and when you’ll move your body give you a framework and take some of the burden of motivation. A good plan gives you your next step so you don’t have to figure it out in the moment. A good plan can help you anticipate obstacles, and it also provides the steps to course-correct if you find yourself off track.
Taking the long view breaks your goals into manageable and achievable chunks.
By breaking your goal into manageable steps, you can do two things. First of all, you ensure that you are giving yourself the time to accomplish what you want. Second, you can give yourself things to celebrate along the way. Your goal for the month may be modest. Perhaps you are going to cut out soda, or add a walk to your lunch break, and you are going to celebrate your achievement with a walk with a friend at the end of the month. You have something in the short term to look forward to, and you also have the motivation to build twelve good choices into your year. While each of those monthly goals may seem modest on its own, together over the course of the year they have the potential to create real change.
Taking the long view helps you focus on the whole picture.
If weight isn’t dropping quickly, it may be because your body is prioritizing healing. When you are engaged in the journey and honoring your process, a weight loss plateau can offer you a place to investigate what your body really needs. By viewing weight loss as only one part of your whole journey to health, you can better appreciate the whole process.
Your body is your home for your whole life. Keeping this perspective in mind can help you maintain the momentum for your health journey. If you are looking for deeper information, community support, or other tools and resources, check out TruBalanceHealth.com