People will always have a reason and a strategy for reducing their weight. The reason and hence the strategy is absolutely key to whether they are successful or not at getting to goal weight and more importantly being slim and healthy for the rest of their life.
From working with many clients now I have realised that the difference in the strategies people run will usually dictate the result that they get.
I am going to use an example here of someone who actually subscribes to this newsletter but I have her permission so no problems there !
This lady came to me last year with around 10 stone to lose (140 pounds), I asked her "Why she wanted to reduce her weight?" she said that she had been to the supermarket and was appalled by what she saw in the mirror in the changing room and hence that was the "kick up the bum" she needed to reduce her weight.
So she started to reduce her weight, she was incredibly determined, she had the absolute focus and started shrinking each week I saw her. After about 12 weeks she was around 3 stone (42 pounds) lighter and was starting to really see the results in that mirror....
But then it all started to go wrong, she started to eat too much again and spent the next 4 weeks without reducing her weight by a single pound.
Anyway we had a quiet chat one evening and she admitted that the motivation was not there anymore as she was no longer the person she saw in the mirror in the Supermarket and hence whereas she was trying to get away from that person she was now far enough away that she felt better and didn't value being slim as much as she did as that was never the original strategy.
So we talked again about what she wanted, she said she really did want to be slim, so we worked out a realistic weight goal in the future that she could aim at, we talked through possible hurdles, and the big goal for her is/was to fit in a particular dress that meant something to her.
By switching her mindset from getting away from something i.e. not wanting to be the person in the mirror to going towards something meant she suddenly was enthusiastic about what she was going to achieve in the future.
Since then she has been amazing, she has now lost over 110 pounds in weight and has reduced her BMI down to being overweight from morbidly obese. The closer she gets to the target the more she can see,feel, touch and smell it and the more she wants it and hence it is a much better strategy for success.
So when you look at your own weight goals and your clients are they trying to get away from something or are they working towards a realistic goal in the future. The difference in results is huge!
Just to finish off this week I met a lady last night that I asked the same question of
"Why do you want to reduce weight?"
She replied in a quite common way "I don't want to die young"
I replied "That's what you don't want, so what do you want?"
She replied "I don't know actually"
Therefore if you don't know what you want then how can you achieve it? Remember to focus absolutely on what you want in terms of your weight and there is nothing in the world that can stop you.
Have a great week :-)
Mike
