Who you are today is a direct side effect of the relationships you have in your life.
Your relationship with the scale, your relationship with food, with exercise, with other people, and yes – even with yourself, directly impact the way you think and act. And these behaviors make you who you are.
Scale
Most people have a dysfunctional relationship with the scale. We praise it when the number is lower than expected and we curse it when it’s higher.
I continue to believe that removing the scale from your life is one of the best things you can do for your health and happiness.
That doesn’t mean you’re giving up or that you’re burying your head in the sand. It means you’ve taken the steps to create emotional independence from a machine. It means you’re going to start turning inward to validate your behaviors and progress.
Food
For most people, food is an overwhelming controlling force in their life. You treat food as the enemy when you want to lose weight and over-restrict the life-giving energy and nutrients it provides.
Then you create a “last supper” mentality around so-called bad foods and end up overeating them because you think they aren’t allowed on your diet or they will keep you from reaching your goals.
It’s time to fix this relationship. Fire the food police, especially if you’re one of them. Knock all foods down to a level playing field. And then you decide what’s OK to eat based on how certain foods make you feel.
The ultimate goal is to not want something because it doesn’t make you feel your best, instead of feeling like you can’t have it because it won’t make you look your best.
People
The people in our lives directly impact how we live our own lives. Parents, friends, and coworkers all influence our actions whether we want them to or not.
Comments like “live a little” or “you don’t need to lose any weight” or even other people commenting on your body all drive us to take actions that aren’t in our best interest.
We end up doing things for others instead of ourselves. A healthy lifestyle is a personal journey. And your body is nobody’s business but your own.
It’s time to break up with or stand up to the people in your life who control you, and take responsibility for your own life. Only you have to live with the consequences of your actions.
Exercise
Exercise is healthy – right? Yes, only if you use it the way it’s meant to be used.
Too many people use exercise as a punishment tool. Not consciously, but the actions they take have more to do with fighting the fat off their body, instead of moving their body for the sheer joy of it.
Exercise is meant to pick you up, not tear you down. Choose exercise you enjoy even if it never results in a single pound lost.
When you do that you end up engaged in the process. You look forward to working out. You create an active lifestyle. And you remain consistent with physical activity long enough to experience transformation.
Your Self
This relationship is probably the most important one of them all. We don’t like ourselves. We place contingencies on our happiness, saying we’ll be happy and like ourselves once we’re at our goal weight.
Why wait to like yourself? Do you think that weight loss automatically results in happiness?
It doesn’t.
There are people with six packs that are miserable and hate their bodies. I work with them all the time.
If you’re critical of yourself now, you’ll be critical of yourself when you’re at your goal weight.
You have to work on your body image right now. You have to start trusting yourself to make the right choices again. You have to learn to accept yourself as you are right now.
When you do that you start taking care of yourself. You take care of the people you like. So you need to make your self one of those people you like.
The side effect of this improved relationship, like all improved relationships in your life, is better health, happiness, and yes – even weight loss.
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Feel like you’re talking right to me. I must have a problem with every single one of those, but my relationship with myself I haven’t ever thought about.
Thanks again for a great article. They really help me.
I think most people forget about themselves too, but we’re often our worst “enemy”. We become the food police, the body judge, and other harsh critics. You have to work on being kinder to yourself. When you do you naturally treat yourself better with food and exercise and how you think of your self.
I’m guilty of the last supper mentality but have a hard time allowing myself to eat bad food. Any advice to help me get over that hump?
Hi Laura, just remember that it’s not about forcing yourself to eat particular foods. That would make you the food police. The goal is to knock those “fun foods” down to an even playing field and then you decide if you want to eat them based on how they will make you feel.
Sometimes you’ll want them. Other times you won’t. In time the last supper mentality will diminish both in intensity and frequency.
Great article! I agree with the part how we are usually or own worse enemy. Walking through one our great metro parks we have in my city ; I thought to myself how much happier I would be when I lose this 20#. Then, the thought was: I was not happy with my weight/ body when I was 18 and weighed 104# and wore a size 6 jean!! Back then, I thought I had small boobs and big legs( thighs then were 21″) LOL. Now , weight is 165#, size 10 jean and thighs are 25″ and you know what occurred to me was that ” At least I have strong healthy legs to be able to come out to this wonderful woodland area and walk as many trails as I want every day!”. I am healthy and capable of being active every day and I want to keep it that way! That is why I love this program, because you have taught mye a new away of thinking and living! Thank You
That’s a great insight, Kathleen! And very true. There are too many people waiting to lose weight to be happy. But if you don’t start changing your mindset right now, you will be just as critical of your body when you’re smaller.
Yea I’m definitely got issues with the scale, it dictates my mood, the last supper mentality, and of course I’m my worst critic.
Hi Dianne, now you know what needs to be worked on. 🙂
Take it a little at a time and start rebuilding that trust in yourself.
It’s taken me 30 years of therapy, 100’s of self-help books and 57 years of disciplined behavior to be able to finally let go.
Your words are beautiful and sing with the truth – keep it up please – we all need to hear what you have to say.
Hi Kimball, it sounds like you’ve put a lot of work into yourself, and it’s paying off. So congrats! Most people would give up at the first signs of a struggle, but you persisted.
Thank you for the kind words too.
Love this! Thank you so much for putting things into perspective.
Glad it helped, Kimberly. 🙂
I think we often don’t pay enough attention to the mental aspects when we want to change our bodies. At least, what’s true to me, is that I always had the wrong premise, wanting to loose weight in the hopes to eventually feel better about my body. It did not occur to me that I felt exactly the same about myself and my body, when i weighed 10-15 pounds less. Weight and sense of self does not correlate. It’s all in my head, and that’s where I should focus my efforts.
Even though I am more aware now, it is still a struggle to stay on track, being patient and not being to hard on myself. It’s a process, and I seek validation on my progress as time passes – the scale, the measure tape, the clothes, my pulse… and when the needle is barely moving on any of those, then it’s really, really hard to find the mental strength to keep going.
My body is an enigma to me. 6 weeks ago i lived a very sedentary lifestyle. I had noticed for some time how i slowly was gaining weight. I finally decided to make a change for the better – to start acting out the life I wanted for myself, which includes staying active and eating well. Since then, I have been working out regularly (5 times/week – body weight exercises), tracking calories and macros. Sadly, the only change so far, is that my resting pulse is far lower. And although I realize that is good, I am desperately longing for more results – on the scale, on the measuring tape – anything! it feels like a repeat of all my past (and obviously failed) efforts i had in the past. I keep thinking that I am doing something wrong. Or maybe, my body is just excellent at adapting…
Either way, I have decided to not give in. I am happy about what i am doing now – i enjoy it. That I feel so much better, is more energized and sleeps better, is not getting the credit it deserves. and i fee like I am in this for the long run this time. So I should really not let the other measures tear me down – because i feel like those are more affiliated with my previous way of thinking, which was faulty to begin with. But its a conundrum – because as your article points out, it can be really hard to not pay those measures any mind.
When in a position like this – do you suggest staying patient and stick with it? Or does it warrant reassessing what you are doing and make other changes? If the latter is true, how would you know where to even start changing things up?
P.S. This is my first posting here. I have been lurking here for weeks. Love your philosophy – it is helping me a lot in getting straight with why I am doing what I am doing!
Great comment, Liv!
You really have the right mindset. I find that when people are struggling to “move the needle” and relying on it to stay motivated it’s because they aren’t quite engaged with the process.
In other words, they are still exercising or eating to lose weight. The goal is to move your body doing something you truly enjoy even if it never resulted in a single pound lost. Ironically, when you do that you stay engaged with the process long enough to experience transformation.
So my advice would be to get present in the moment and let the side effects of your actions take care of themselves. Get consistent with healthy behaviors and then you can adjust that consistency to influence your performance/physical goals.
Thanks for coming out of the shadows.
Your article spoke right to me! I’m doing a fitness so that keeps “reminding” me to get on the scale once a week. I haven’t gotten on since I think mid march. Why?! Because if the number went up by even a tenth of a pound I would have quit! I was so frustrated, while I’m eating half portions, ordering healthy I can’t budge those numbers.
My first week of dieting I would lose about 3-4 pounds. Not this time- how about ZERO. How I didn’t give up then is pretty amazing. I’ve been at it since the end of January and have lost only 7.9 pounds. I get irate when I’m told that is such great progress and “better to lose it slow”- ummm not that slow. I targeted a mere pound a week but that’s not even happening. Now I don’t know what or IF I’ve lost anything.
I take my measurements to stay in check. So far down 15″ it’s not great but it’s moving in the right direction. I’ve amped up my weight lifting because I know that’s the only way to change my body.
Thank you for this wonderful article. I’ve been benefitting from these tremendously.
Hi Jenny, I have people emphasize trend over pace. One pound per week seems like standard advice, but in my experience it rarely happens consistently. I’d say .5-1lb every 1-2 weeks is about average. It adds up over time though. That’s why you eat and move your body simply because it makes you feel good. Then as the weeks/months/years pass you become a different person inside and out.
Good luck and hang in there!
Can you recommend any good books or information for healing the relationship with yourself? I’ve seen you mention this before and I think this would be key for me.
Hi Rebecca, I don’t have anything specifically, as there are so many different aspects of self-improvement. I think you’ll need to identify the biggest issue you think you have and seek out help in that area – co-dependency, body image, stress/anxiety. All of these things can result in unwanted side effects.
When it comes to food relationship I strongly recommend Intuitive Eating.
Hope that helps
I have been coming to this site for a long time and I referred it to my mother as she is at the VERY beginning of a healthy lifestyle change…. BUT I got something out of this article, that people even at their goal weight aren’t happy with themselves. That is the true battle in life for some, is self love and acceptance. I am waging that war right now, and I suppose being conscious about it is part of the process. Working out was the catalyst to start that healing process, if you cant control everything, YOU can control YOUR body. That is about the only thing in life you can have complete control of, your health and how you treat it. I just recently lost my father to cancer, he was 56, he lived like he didn’t care about his body at all. This recent event even pushes me harder for self love and nurturing my body, we only have one of those. Thank you again, Coach Calorie for creating content that I can keep coming back to years later and still learn so much.
Glad you found it useful, Candice, and thank you for referring your mother.
You are right. Happiness comes from a change in perspective, not shape. You can work on both at the same time, but don’t expect weight loss to lead to happiness.
Keep up the good work!
This morning I Googled “exercise calorie tracking why weight gain” and found your site. I am SO glad that I did. I had a slump for a few months where I was exercising inconsistently, or not at all for a couple of weeks at a time, and I wasn’t paying attention to my food intake. About 2 weeks ago I began my efforts to get back into the healthy lifestyle and made a plan to lose the 20 lbs I gained in that time.
I weighed myself this morning after 2 weeks of calorie tracking and intense workouts to see I had gained 3 lbs. I wanted to cry when I saw the number on the scale because it was not a reflection of how fit I feel. Now that I understand that this weight gain is normal, and that fluid levels drastically affect weight, I feel empowered to keep up the good work.
It’s hard not to have an emotional reaction to the number on the scale, especially when you’ve had issues with body image. Right now, I feel toned, strong and energetic…and that is what matters.
You are awesome, thank you!
Very true, Michelle. It’s why I like people getting focused on the process and not the outcome. You know you’re doing the right things. You’re taking actions that improve your eating, exercise, health, energy, strength, etc. The side effect of all that is a healthy body composition.