Are you your own weight loss saboteur?
By Terry Dyson
When it comes to fitness, (weight loss in particular) we are playing for an audience of one. What you eat (even if it’s alone in a dark car!) is fully up to you. And being accountable for how much you really exercised or ate is all up to you too. Why then do many people cheat themselves by, well, cheating? An extra snack in private, a skipped bike ride or one less set of repetitions in the weight room all are hurting no one but yourself, but are easy to do.
When there is a diet indiscretion or three days of no exercise it can begin a cycle of negative talk about failure and a “can’t do it” mentality. How then can you gain perspective to look at this step off track as just that, and continue on? Can you look at each day on an individual basis and consider what you are going to eat that day and how you are going to get moving that day and not look way up the road to where you want to be? Would it help you to track your food and your exercise? Would it show you gaps in activity and help you better see what you really ate? Does it serve your goal to veer off plan? Of course not! Will you? Of course!
But you can take it one week or one day or one meal at a time.
You can go to bed a little hungry. You can go for a 20 minute walk most days, or do a weight session a couple days per week. You can get out of your own way and open yourself up to the idea that you have many hours in a day to work with and schedules can be manipulated to fit in some form of movement. In the end, your weight, clothing size, ability to run or leap tall buildings is of no inherent value to anyone but you. If you don’t make the steps that will get you to your goal a priority, no one will.
