Hey! Simon here, and today we are going to start a new video series, called Weight Loss Red Flags, where we will explore various red flags that I often hear that are holding you back from weight loss, or weight loss maintenance.
This was inspired by a Video by AthleanX called “Why You’re Not Losing Weight”, which is excellent, and can be found in the description.
I suggest you watch it, and I suggest subscribing to Jeffs channel, as although he mainly focuses on muscular training, there are some great vids in there about weight loss and nutrition.
Anyways, due to my education I have a different angle on the situation of weight loss and maintenance, so I wanted to create some video’s touching on the red flags I know will stop you losing weight, or if you do lose weight, will prevent it from staying off.
So, let’s see what today’s red flag is?
“I don’t enjoy my running/ low carb diets/ the gym/ intermittent fasting, but I need to do it to lose weight”
Okay. No. This is insane. You HAVE to focus on approaches that you enjoy. This is about the biggest deciding factor on whether you’ll make it, and/or maintain your achievements
It’s really important that you understand using behaviours that you don’t enjoy is just a short-sighted approach to weight loss. Because most of us have a good chunk of weight to drop, meaning you’re going to need to hold that change for probably months on end. If you don’t enjoy the change, is it really likely you’re going to stick it out?
Now you may say “Ahh but I REALLY want to lose weight”. But I’m afraid the long-term aspects of weight loss just aren’t going to hold up your motivation. As stated in Kwasnicka et al, “Behaviour is more likely to be sustained if the reinforcement structure emphasises immediate and affective outcomes rather than long-term and rational outcome….. This may include the enjoyment of performing the behaviour as such, or the enjoyment of immediate outcomes of the behaviour”.
Or in other words, you’ll stick to a behaviour if you get an immediate positive experience, such as enjoying the activity itself, rather than sticking to it because you’ll get a benefit way down the line.
This isn’t to say these are the only ways to achieve motivation for behaviour change, but it is one of the most important. So, if a lack of enjoyment is prevalent other motivational strategies will likely become less effective, and so your adherence will almost definitely suffer.
So instead of this short-term, bull head my way through approach, just stop for a second, and consider the options that exist for you, and which you would actually choose to do. Always play it as asking yourself, “Okay, can I see myself doing this, if required, for the rest of my life…”
“Oh hell no!”
If not, it’s a short-term approach. So even if you do manage to stick with it long enough to lose the weight, you aren’t going to maintain your weight loss with it. So look at your options again.
I will touch on this more in a future video if you guys let me know you want it, but keep in mind that your body does not discriminate on what counts as exercise. So if you don’t like the gym or jogging, find something else!
And for the nutrition side of things, calories are all that matter. So don’t overthink it. Just choose any dietary approach you think you will enjoy, and focus on keeping the calorie intake lower than your maintenance needs!
Sorted! Obviously if you have any questions just bang them down in the comments. We are a baby channel at the moment, so I will 100% get back to every question you send!
Apart from that, do jump onto our Facebook and Youtube fitness classes if you’re looking for something fun to do with your week, and don’t forget that we provide 24 classes and 8 meal packs every month, all for just £9.95. So if that’s of interest to you just jump into the body.vision website. You’ll find the link is the description.
Apart from that, cheers for listening to me waffle for a few mins, hit like, share, subscribe and all that good stuff if you’d like to help Body Vision grow, and I’ll see you next time!