Why Lasting Weight Loss Is a Skill Not a Diet

A phrase I hear more than any other phrase from women I coach is this: “I should have this figured out by now.”

It doesn’t matter whether you’re in your 40s, 50s, 60s, or even her 70s. I hear this over and over again. And every time I hear it, I think the same thing: Why should you?

Recently, I was talking with a woman during a coaching consultation, and she said those exact words. It immediately reminded me of when I studied abroad in Spain during college. Before I moved there, I had taken four years of Spanish in high school and another two years in college. I knew the vocabulary. I could read Spanish. I understood the grammar. Then I arrived in Spain. I remember standing in my host mom’s kitchen on the very first day while she spoke rapidly in Spanish. I barely understood a word she was saying. Now imagine if I’d stood there thinking, “I should have this figured out. I should already be fluent.” That wouldn’t have made any sense.

Knowing about a language isn’t the same thing as being able to speak it. Reading Spanish and having a conversation in Spanish are two completely different skills. That’s exactly why I was there – to build the skill of communicating in a real-world setting. I see women approach weight loss the same way. You’re trying to have a fluent conversation in Spanish before you’ve learned how to speak the language.

Many women have spent years dieting, counting calories, weighing food, or following meal plans. Those experiences taught you how to restrict food, but they didn’t necessarily teach you the skills required to build a healthy body you can maintain for the rest of your life.

Those skills include understanding how to build balanced meals, eating enough protein and fiber, managing hunger, regulating yourself around fun foods instead of fearing them, coping with stress without using food, strength training, setting boundaries, and creating routines that fit your actual life. Those are learned skills. And like any skill, they take practice.

The reason so many women feel stuck isn’t because they’re incapable. It’s because they’re expecting themselves to perform at a level they haven’t learned yet. That’s where the word should becomes so damaging. Every time you tell yourself, “I should have this figured out,” you’re arguing with reality.

Instead, I want you to replace the word should with the word want. “I want to have this figured out.” Can you feel the difference? “Should” creates shame. “Want” clarifies the goal. When you say, “I want to have this figured out,” you’re acknowledging that this matters to you. You’re admitting you’re frustrated because you care. Because once you admit you want something, the next question isn’t, “What’s wrong with me?”

The next question becomes: “Am I willing to learn the skills required to get there?” That’s a completely different conversation. Instead of judging yourself for not already knowing how, you become someone who’s willing to learn. And learning, not perfection, is what actually creates lasting change.

Here’s another way to know this is true. I have absolutely zero emotions around the idea that I should own a cat. I don’t sit around thinking, “I should really get a cat.” And if someone told me I should have one, I wouldn’t feel guilty or ashamed. Why? Because I don’t actually want a cat. I’m completely indifferent to it. The things we say we should do are usually things we actually want. So, the next time you catch yourself saying, “I should have this figured out,” I want you to replace that word. Instead say, “I want to have this figured out.”

Can you feel how different that sounds? When you say, “I want to lose weight. I want to feel confident in my clothes. I want peace with food. I want to stop hiding in pictures. I want to walk up a flight of stairs without feeling out of breath,” you’re no longer judging yourself. You’re simply acknowledging what matters to you.

And once you admit what you want, the next question becomes: Am I willing to do what’s required to get it? That’s a much more useful question than beating yourself up over where you are today. Because wanting something doesn’t magically make it happen. It requires building the skills, habits, and systems that support the outcome you’re after. I think this is where so many women get stuck.

You’ve convinced yourself that because you’ve struggled before, it must not be possible for you. Your brain starts telling stories to protect you from more disappointment.

“I’ve tried everything.”
“Maybe this just isn’t meant for me.”
“This is probably just how I am.”

Those thoughts aren’t facts. They’re your brain trying to protect you from the pain of failing again.

But here’s the problem. Every time you tell yourself it’s impossible, you’re still admitting you want something different. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be frustrated in the first place. Your frustration isn’t proof that you’re failing. It’s proof that you care. And that’s why I believe every should is really a want in disguise.

Once you recognize what you want, you have a choice. Will you keep looking for another quick fix? Or will you choose to build the skills that create lasting change? Because that’s the part diets never taught you. Diets teach you how to restrict. They don’t teach you how to live.

Let me give you a real example from one of my coaching calls. I was talking with a client about why she kept overeating later in the day. As we talked it through, we realized there was a pattern. On mornings when she had appointments, she’d skip breakfast because she didn’t know what to grab on the go. By the afternoon, she was starving and eating far more than she intended. So, I asked her a simple question.

“Can you give me a list of protein foods you could grab quickly on those mornings?” She paused. She couldn’t think of any. Now, this is someone who has done multiple diets over the years. She’s counted calories. She’s followed strict meal plans. She even completed a doctor-supervised program where she was only allowed to eat protein and vegetables – not even fruit. She had spent years dieting. But no one had ever taught her how to solve a real-life problem like, “What are my practical protein options when I’m rushing out the door?” So together we brainstormed a list.

After we did that she said, “Why didn’t I think of that? That’s so simple.”
And I told her, “Because you haven’t built that skill yet.” Not because you’re lazy. Not because you’re undisciplined. Not because something is wrong with you. Because no one ever taught you.

In fact, this is exactly why I’m hosting my Snack Hack Challenge over on Substack next month. So many women think their snacking is a discipline problem, but most of the time it’s actually a skills problem. During the four weeks, we’re going to work on things like building satisfying meals with enough protein and fiber, understanding why you’re hungry, and creating habits that naturally reduce mindless snacking. It’s not another diet or a challenge built around willpower. It’s about learning skills you can use long after the challenge is over. I’ll put a link in the description if you’d like to join us.

That’s what diets miss. Diets teach you what to eat. They rarely teach you how to think through everyday situations you’ll face for the rest of your life. When my client realized that I could sense the relief. She wasn’t broken. She wasn’t failing. She was simply missing a skill. And skills can be learned. That’s why I believe one of the most humbling things you can do is ask for help. Not because you’re incapable. Because learning from someone who’s already developed those skills is often the fastest path forward.

I work with so many women who are incredibly successful. They’re executives. Business owners. Nurses. Teachers. Mothers. Women who solve difficult problems every single day. But when it comes to their health, they’re frustrated because they’re trying to apply the same approach that made them successful everywhere else.

Go all in. Push harder. Be more disciplined. Expect perfection. That mindset might help you climb the career ladder. It doesn’t work very well with nutrition and exercise. Health isn’t built through perfection. It’s built through repetition. It’s built by practicing skills over and over until they become automatic. That’s why the all-or-nothing approach keeps so many women stuck.

You follow the plan perfectly for a few weeks. Then life happens. You miss a workout. You eat off plan. You get busy. Instead of adjusting, you decide you’ve failed. Then you start over on Monday. And the cycle repeats. If, on top of all of that, you’re telling yourself, “I should already know how to do this,” it’s no wonder you feel defeated. Because you’ve been trying to solve a skills problem with a restriction problem.

Meal plans. Detoxes. Thirty-day challenges. Named diets. Meal replacements. They’re all trying to give you an answer instead of teaching you how to create your own. They’re the wrong tool for the job. The real work isn’t finding another diet.

The real work is developing the skills, habits, routines, and mindset that allow you to navigate your real life, not a perfect one. That’s how you stop the cycle of losing weight, gaining it back, and wondering what’s wrong with you. Because there was never anything wrong with you. You just needed to learn a different set of skills.

One thing I’ve noticed about many of the women I work with is that they’re incredibly successful in other areas of their lives. They’re leaders. They’re professionals. They’re business owners. They’re raising families. They’ve proven to themselves over and over that they can accomplish difficult things. But then they look at their health and think, “Why can’t I figure this out?”

I think part of the reason is that the approach that helped you succeed in your career doesn’t always translate to nutrition and exercise. At work, going all in is often rewarded. Working longer hours. Pushing harder. Holding yourself to incredibly high standards. That mindset can absolutely help you build a successful career. But health doesn’t reward perfection. It rewards consistency. Those are two very different things.

That’s why I tell my clients that one of the hardest parts of losing weight isn’t changing your food. It’s becoming willing to be a beginner again.

Think about tracking your food. I hear people say all the time, “Tracking is so hard.” Of course it is. It’s a new skill. Or someone decides they’re going to walk 10,000 steps every day. They do it for three days, life gets busy, they miss a day, and suddenly they’re convinced they failed. They weren’t failing. They skipped the part where habits are actually built.

When I started my own 80-pound weight loss journey, I didn’t begin with 10,000 steps. I started with a 10-minute walk every day. That’s it. And honestly, it felt almost too small. But those “insultingly small” steps are exactly what build the habit. Most people are so focused on the end goal that they completely overlook the process required to get there.

They want the 10,000-step habit without first becoming the person who naturally goes for a 10-minute walk. Why? Because our ego hates being a beginner. It hates looking inexperienced. It hates doing something that feels small or unimpressive.

So instead, we tell ourselves stories.
“I’m too busy.”
“Work is crazy right now.”
“I’ll start when life settles down.”

Sometimes those challenges are very real. But sometimes those stories are protecting us from something else, the discomfort of starting small and the possibility that we might fail. The irony is that while we’re protecting our ego, we’re also protecting ourselves from making progress. The ego gets to stay comfortable. But we stay stuck. This is why learning matters so much. There’s a difference between understanding a concept and having a skill.

Knowing you should eat protein at breakfast is knowledge. Actually looking in your refrigerator, choosing a protein source, preparing it consistently, and doing it without thinking is a skill. Skills are built through repetition. Not through willpower. Not through reading another article. Not through finding the perfect calorie target. Through practice.

That’s why I get concerned when someone tells me, “I just need more discipline to lose weight.” Because discipline isn’t usually what’s missing. If forcing yourself to follow a plan worked, you’d already have the results you want.

Most women listening to this have already proven they can white-knuckle their way through a diet for a few weeks. The problem isn’t getting yourself under control.

The problem is that control doesn’t create lasting change. Learning does. Every time you’ve forced yourself through another diet plan only to regain the weight later, it probably felt like evidence that something was wrong with you. But what if it wasn’t?

What if it was simply evidence that you were trying to force an outcome without first building the skills that make that outcome sustainable? That’s why I believe meeting yourself where you are isn’t settling for less. It’s smart. Smart people don’t pretend they’re already experts. They accept where they are, learn one skill at a time, and trust that competence comes through practice. That’s exactly what I had to do when I started my own journey.

I had to become okay with taking a 10-minute walk while everyone else seemed focused on 10,000 steps. I had to become okay with being a beginner. Because beginners eventually become experts, but only if they’re willing to stay beginners long enough to learn.

The biggest problem I see isn’t that women aren’t trying hard enough. It’s that they have skill gaps. Most of the women I coach have never had another human being sit down with them, look at their actual life, and teach them how to apply nutrition and exercise in a way that fits their reality. And that’s important because every woman’s life is different.

One client might be homeschooling five kids. Another might be a critical care nurse working 12-hour shifts. Another might travel every week for work. They’re all learning the same foundational skills, but they’re going to apply those skills very differently. Imagine if I looked at the nurse working a 12-hour shift and said, “You just need more discipline. Lift weights every day and get 10,000 steps no matter what.” That would be ridiculous.

The question isn’t whether walking is good for you. The question is: How do we make walking work in your life? That’s where coaching becomes so valuable. Not because I’m giving people magical information, they couldn’t Google. It’s because we’re taking principles and figuring out how they fit into the reality of someone’s life. Because if your plan doesn’t fit your life, it won’t fit for very long.

That’s also why I challenge people when they tell me a diet “worked.” Someone will say, “Optavia worked.” Or, “Weight Watchers worked.” Or, “Keto worked.” And I’ll ask them, “What do you mean by worked?” Usually they say, “I lost weight.”

But then I ask another question. “If someone built a business that made $500,000 in one year but then lost everything because they never learned how to manage the money, would you call that a successful business?” Of course not. Making money isn’t the whole story. Keeping it is. Weight loss is no different. Losing the weight is only part of the story. Keeping it off is the measure of whether the approach actually prepared you for real life.

One of the biggest fears I hear from women is, “Even if I lose the weight, how am I going to keep it off?” And if all you’ve done is force yourself to follow another meal plan or hit another calorie target without changing your habits, your routines, your mindset, or your skills…

Then that’s a valid concern. Because nothing about you has changed. But when you build skills, you don’t lose them. Think about riding a bike. Once you learn, that learning becomes part of you. The same thing happens with nutrition. I have clients who used to dread walking. Now they tell me they actually look forward to it and feel strange when they don’t go.

I have clients who once thought tracking their food was exhausting. A few months later they tell me, “I don’t even think about it anymore. It’s just what I do.” That’s what skill development looks like. At first it feels awkward. Then it becomes familiar. Eventually, it becomes part of your identity.

That’s why I tell my clients from day one, “You’re learning a new skill.” Because if I didn’t, they would assume the struggle meant they weren’t capable. They’d tell themselves, “Maybe this just isn’t for me.” But that’s not what was happening,
They weren’t failing. They were learning. And those are two very different things.

The truth is, crash diets aren’t failures because you failed them. They’re failures because they never taught you the skills you needed once the diet ended. That doesn’t mean you wasted your time. Every experience teaches you something. Maybe what those diets taught you is that quick fixes aren’t enough. And that’s valuable information.

Now you get to make a different choice. Instead of asking, “What’s the fastest way to lose weight?” You can start asking, “What’s the best way to become the kind of person who can keep it off?” Because that’s a completely different journey.

Personally, I believe life has a funny way of putting the same lesson in front of us until we finally learn it. That’s why so many women feel like they’re running into the same wall over and over again. It’s not because you’re incapable. It’s because there’s something you haven’t learned yet. And I don’t mean that in a judgmental way. I actually think that’s incredibly hopeful.

Because if the problem is that you’re missing skills, not that you’re missing willpower, discipline, or worthiness then the solution becomes learning. That’s something every single person is capable of. So, you have a choice.
You can look at your past attempts and tell yourself, “I should have figured this out by now. I’ll probably never get there.”

Or you can say, “Maybe I haven’t learned the skills yet.” Those two thoughts lead to completely different futures. One keeps you stuck. The other keeps you curious. One creates shame. The other creates hope.

If there’s one thing I hope you take away from this episode, it’s this: Stop saying, “I should have this figured out.”

Start saying, “I want to figure this out so what skills do I need to learn?” Because that’s the question that moves you forward. You don’t need to become a different person.

You don’t need more guilt. You don’t need another named diet. You need the willingness to be a beginner, to practice, and to keep learning. That’s how lasting change happens.

If you’ve been listening today and you’re exhausted by constantly thinking about your weight, avoiding pictures, feeling uncomfortable in your clothes, or wondering if you’ll ever figure this out, I want you to know something. You don’t have to keep trying to solve this alone.

Helping women learn these skills and apply them to their real lives is exactly what I do. Not by handing you another meal plan or expecting perfection, but by helping you build a way of eating, moving, and thinking that actually fits your life.

If that sounds like the kind of support you’ve been looking for, there’s a link in the description where you can book a weight loss consultation. No pressure. We’ll simply have a conversation and see if we’re a good fit. But if you’re not quite ready for one-on-one coaching, I’d love to invite you to my 4-week Snack Hack Challenge over on Substack. It’s designed to help you build practical nutrition skills around hunger, balanced meals, and snacking so you can feel more in control around food without relying on another restrictive diet. I’ll leave a link in the description.

Thank you so much for listening. And remember… You shouldn’t have it all figured out. You just have to be willing to learn and practice skills!