Continuous Weight Loss

Now we’re getting to the meat of the problem: making lifestyle changes to lose weight. In case you missed the two pages preceding this one (Shocking Weight Loss Facts, and How to Get the Willpower to Lose Weight), let me give you a very quick recap. Most dieters fail, and many think it’s because of a lack of willpower. In fact, it’s not because of a lack of willpower, but a misuse of it that leads to all but certain failure. As soon as you accept that there are several things that influence your behavior other than your personal motivation, the sooner you can begin to make real and lasting change in your weight loss journey.

For the remainder of this post, I’ll be referring to information from the book Change Anything by Kerry Patterson. Patterson believes that there are six major sources of influence in our lives. When we try to change something, such as eating healthier, working out more, or any lifestyle changes to lose weight, these six influences are either working for us or against us. Here’s a description of a common change (page 10)

We tinker with an exercise bike, …put up a motivational poster, take training courses, and so forth. The bad news is that more often than not we bring these influence tools into play one at a time. Little good that does. The forces that are working against us are legion – and they work in combination. So when it comes to solving personal problems, people are not only blind; they’re also outnumbered.

To see how your typical change effort takes form, consider the following metaphor. You’re rather large SUV runs out of gas a half a block from a gas station – just over a gently cresting hill. You decide to push the beast to the nearest pump, but this isn’t your old, tinfoil-based VW buf that you could easily push by yourself; it’s the Sherman tank of soccer moms. So you wave down a half dozen rather large and muscular strangers to help you. Each puts in a full effort. Each grunts and strains and pushes against the massive bulk – one person at a time. In response, your SUV just sits there with a smug look on its grille.

Now, as hopeless as this example sounds, it’s about to get worse. Imagine that in addition to the fact that the people assisting you are working in isolation rather than in combination, there are six hefty strangers all pushing together to propel your truck back down the hill. How you have an accurate image of why your change attempt feels so overwhelming. Your problem is not just that we’re using only one source of influence at a time; it’s also that those who aren’t pushing for us are usually pushing against us.

So what are these six mysterious influences? Let’s go through them one by one:

Personal Motivation: This is a common one, and the one a lot of people focus on. Remembering why you want to lose weight when that eclaire is staring you down can greatly reduce the chance it will make it past your lips. Personal motivation can push you very far, but don’t forget that there are five other influences shoving you the other way if this is the only one you use.

Personal Ability: Learn about losing weight. You could have more self discipline than a monk, but if you’re on a diet that promotes eating donuts and fudgesicles all day, then you’re doomed to gain weight. True, most of us have picked up a diet book or two in our day, but there are other aspects to learn as well. For instance, do you immediately reach for the Ben and Jerry’s when you’re stressed or depressed? Learning to cope with these emotions in a healthy way can go a long way towards losing weight.

Social Motivation: Having other people rooting for you makes all the difference in the world. Share your weight loss plan with your friends and family. Some of them will be excited, some will be indifferent, and a few may even try to hold you back. Having a simple conversation with them about how important this is to you can easily sway most people from indifferent and reserved to cheering for you every step of the way.

Social Ability: Having cheerleaders is one thing. Having someone who will actually push you back on track when you waver and correct your course when you stray is definitely another. This can be anyone from an accountability partner, to someone who is also trying to lose weight, to a personal trainer or dietician.

Structural Motivation: What if every time you didn’t work out, you had to give money to a charity that you are completely against? What if you did the same thing every time you binged on a bag of potato chips? Building yourself a financial accountability system can be a great source of motivation for those days when you just don’t give a damn about how good you’ll look or how healthy you’ll be some day.

Structural Ability: Sometimes it seems like the world is conspiring against you to make you eat unhealthier and dodge the gym. To be honest, it is. The more you recognize what is in your environment that constantly throws you off course, the more you can change those things to work for you rather than against you. The example of clearing your house of junk food in How to Get the Willpower to Lose Weight is an example of using structural ability to your advantage.

Capitalizing on all six of these sources of influence all at once improves your chances of making permanent lifestyle changes to lose weight enormously. Get out a piece of paper or fire up notepad. Do it now. Go through each source of influence and write down what would help you on your weight loss journey. Then put them all into action. Remember, only doing one or two will only slightly help, but doing all six will almost guarantee that you follow through with lifestyle changes to lose weight.

This is a huge step in making the right lifestyle changes to lose weight. If you’d like to learn more about each source of influence and learn how to make an airtight plan for steady and permanent weight loss, click here to buy your own copy of Change Anything. It’s under twenty bucks, and it could be the bridge between “I know how to lose weight” and “I am losing weight.”