Why you can’t stick to your diet.

It’s consistently reported that 95% of dieters regain the weight they lose within a few years, with two thirds of people regaining more weight than they originally lost.

So why do so many people struggle to keep weight off after dieting?

The problem occurs when we take short term motivators and try to rely on them for sustained change. If we’ve only relied on motivation to achieve weight loss, then we will need motivation indefinitely if we are to keep this off.

Unrealistic?

How you think about your diet is one of the single biggest predictors of sustainability. Chances are, if you have already thought of this as a diet then you have fallen into a dichotomous trap (all or nothing). Dichotomous thinking has been established as a main predictor of diet-abandonment and weight regain.

So how do we change our mindset? How do we shift from relying on short term motivation and in turn, dichotomous thinking, to a mindset that sets us up for long term sustainability?

“Your behaviours are usually a reflection of your identity”.

If you are only doing the diet to lose weight, then once you lose weight you will likely no longer ‘diet’. So instead of dieting to lose weight, you must begin by adopting the perspective of being a healthier person or acting like a person who is ‘x’kgs lighter. 

It’s hard to change where you are if you are still operating under the same beliefs that lead to your past behaviour.

What does this actually mean? Most people will start by setting goals (an outcome), then begin working on the process of achieving that goal. “I want to lose weight (outcome). To lose weight, I will follow ‘X’ diet (process).” The hope here, as with typical dieting culture, is that by focusing on an outcome, YOU will change. But the reality is in fact the complete opposite.

Instead of starting at the goal (outcome), start by identifying what type of person you want to become. Once you have identified the person you want to become you must then change what you do. 

In turn you create a new identity. 

“New identities require new evidence. You must prove this new person to yourself. You prove this new you through small wins. You achieve these small wins by focusing on key habits. Habits that help to reinforce the person you want to become”

- James Clear.

If we ask the question, how many people want to eat healthier, my guess is that all of you reading would put your hand up. Similarly, if we asked how many of you would like to do more exercise, again I would guess most of you reading would likely put your hand up. 

“We don’t have a challenge in desire, we have a challenge in habits where we don’t know how to move away from this compelling feeling we have to go for what feels good”

- Jay Shetty.

Focusing on your habits underpins our philosophy of walking before you can run.

Focus on the 20% of things that will give you 80% return. For us, our Fundamentals are exactly that. Before you get thrown into the deep end and get asked to track calories or follow a “diet” we think you should start by focusing on creating a system that is centred around the 20%. 

Create a baseline of good habits (walking) before starting to specialise (run). Because if we are to make long term change, once we’ve finished running, we inherently will need to come back to walking. So why not learn to walk from the start?