Why you are not motivated to keep losing weight. If you feel unmotivated, you are normal and just like all my clients who are women over 35!
By the time a women comes to work with me, she has typically done many diets, programs and has maybe even worked with other nutritionists and coaches. The problem is these women know what to do, but struggle with doing it consistently.
This is also the missing ingredient why so many women gain weight AFTER they lose weight when they go into maintenance.
This is true for everyone. Most people know what to do to lose weight. The steps to losing weight are actually very simple, but the implementation and holding yourself accountable is the challenge.
What most coaches and programs do is tell you the WHAT. They don't tell you the HOW. I spend the majority of my time working with clients on the HOW. The HOW is driven from your mindset, self talk, self worth, reaction to stress and emotions, beliefs and stories around your ability to change.
Unless you address these deeper rooted things within you, nothing I tell you (or anyone else tells you for that matter) will work. You will always struggle sustaining any way of eating because these deeper issues have never been addressed. I can give anyone the perfect way of eating, but they will not follow it for the rest of their life unless they dive into what's going on with your mindset.
If you are not motivated to continue with your diet or healthy habits, chances are high that your mindset is where the real work is!
In this Why You Are Not Motivated Diet Dish on Ditching Diets Podcast you will hear:
- The Missing Ingredient Every Diet, Coach and Nutritionist Misses When it Comes to Weight Loss
- Why You Don't Feel Motivated
- How To Stop Talking About Habits Like Your Mother
- Sneaky Client Examples of Ways They Tried To Quit
- The Hidden Reason Why You Keep Quitting
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Why You Are Not Motivated Podcast Transcript
Hi Friends! Today we're talking about the times when you think you need a break from your diet. It feels so hard. You don’t feel motivated.
When clients sign up, they’re excited (maybe even a little scared), and in the beginning they’re doing all the things then eventually there comes a point for some of them where they stop doing things or they’re only doing them part of the time.
They’ll say - I know this is easy, but I need a break. I don’t feel motivated.
You may have experienced this happening to you too. You’re doing the work, maybe even losing some weight and feeling better but then at some point, you quit doing it. You get inconsistent. What’s happening here?
The problem here is the conversation each time you’re doing something in weight loss, that conversation in your head that is what’s either going to feel good or feel bad.
And for a lot of women what I see happening is the conversation you’re having around fueling your body, going for a walk, eating more protein, whatever it is, the conversation that’s going on under the radar is not good. It’s punitive, judgmental, shameful and untrusting.
When it’s time to eat a salad, the conversation is “ugh, another salad.” I have to eat this – this is going to help me lose weight. You’re not having a conversation that’s like omg this is a salad that helps me feel amazing in my body, that keeps me well fueled and gives me great energy all day and I’m not snacking all afternoon.
Or I’m choosing this food because it makes me feel so much better when I fuel my body with the right foods.
So, there is a disconnect between the thoughts around your habits you’re doing to lose weight so then when it comes time to implement your habits, the conversation you’re having with yourself sucks.
Well, I have to eat this. Time for another salad. I wish I could eat something else. All of those thoughts sound like they’re helpful, but they’re not.
Bc at the end of the day you’re not associating how you’re showing up for yourself as an amazing gift you give yourself. You’re talking about it like it’s boring, just one more meal, thank goodness I got through today’s meals. I hope I can do it again tomorrow.
We have a lot of subtle aggressions around the foods we choose to eat, the habits we do and most people don’t realize it’s a problem, but it is. And it all comes from your mindset and self-talk.
If each time you sit down to plan your day and the conversation in your head is I have to make my food plan – I have to get my walk, that’s probably why you give up on it. Think about it – how does it feel when you think I have to make a food plan or a I have to go on a walk?
It probably feels a little bit like your mother told you to do it. Sally go clean your room. Do your homework, clean up the family room.
That’s not awesome! No one wants to feel like their mother is telling them to do things especially as a grown adult! So, your inner mother is telling you all the things about your weight loss you should and have to do.
Well, no wonder why you want to quit! You’re talking to yourself in a horrible way. Anyone would want to run away from that.
What if instead you woke up every day and you said today, I’m making my food plan bc it’s going to change my life. Today my food plan is the answer to everything.
My food plan is my solution to weight loss. Notice how different that sounds vs. your mother screaming at you that you should make a food plan or you have to go for a walk.
You wouldn’t feel like you need a break from your habits if you didn’t talk about your habits this way – like your mother is barking at you to do it and it’s something you have to do, need to do or should do.
When you break weight loss down to what it really is without the drama, it’s pretty simple steps. Walking, drinking water, sleeping more, fueling your body more with higher quality foods and sprinkling fun things in.
Those are simple, uncomplicated things. I’m not saying they’re easy to change or implement but, on the surface, these are simple things. They’re not complicated.
The complication comes in when you layer on all the thinking you have around it. Like I’m scared to be hungry bc I’ve always overeaten in the past. That has to get fixed or you will always try to manipulate what you eat to try not to be hungry.
You will always be afraid of food. You will figure out how to lose weight by practicing fear around food. That requires you to keep your weight off in maintenance by being afraid of food.
You will never be that happy with your body with that approach and be able to outweigh fear every single day every time you eat and every time you think about eating.
People think about food an average of 200 times a day. So, if you don’t figure out how to eat without being scared, then 200 times a day you’re tapping fear into your body. This means you have to know the conversation that you are having around your food and losing weight.
Make a plan and listen to the conversation you’re having with yourself bc you won’t make a plan unless your brain says time to make a food plan. Even though that thought is very directional – it gives you a clear order – how does it make you feel?
What else comes up in your thinking when you think this? If it makes you feel negative ask yourself, do I think feeling negative is a feeling that is always going to give me the energy I need to keep going? Probably not.
Think about what is it that your brain says before you eat? Really listen to the conversations you’re having. Bc if every single day you wished you were eating or doing something else, ask yourself well what is it I wish I could be eating or doing?
Am I not choosing other foods bc I’m afraid, mad, stressed? If so, you need to go to work on your fear, anger and stress not searching around for another diet or meal plan. Think about what you’re setting yourself up for long-term.
I had a client recently who I was coaching who was self-sabotaging. She was angry and stressed about work bc they gave her more work and she said I can’t go on a walk; I can’t get out of the house away from my family or go see my friends bc the weather’s bad. And she felt stuck and she was eating bc of it.
She was angry and stressed. She was scared she would’t be able to do more work. As I was talking to her, she said why are they doing this to me? Why are they giving me more work?
They’re making me fail in my job. And what I said to her was what if you thought they’re giving me more work because I do my job well. Bc the truth is an employer isn’t going to give a slacker more work.
I was in corporate America for over 20 years. Employers don’t give the bad employees more responsibilities. They give the reliable people more work. The people they know they can rely on and who are accountable.
Once I said that to her, her entire perspective shifted. But gosh, she never spent any time considering that maybe she is so awesome at her job and that’s why they gave her more work. She wasted her mental energy on all the bad stuff.
Well, a new diet or food plan doesn’t fix this. Most women are going around trying to fix their food in these scenarios. A new diet, exercise or macros doesn’t fix this stuff!
We have to stop this madness of cranking out weight loss or chasing losing weight forever and never transforming your life. Anybody can teach you to lose weight, but if at the end of the day you’re afraid of food and forcing yourself to do stuff and not dealing with the real problems in your life.
You won’t be able to sustain it 10-20 years from now. Whatever feelings and thinking you have on the way down are the same feelings and thoughts you will take with you into maintenance.
Are you going to have the emotional bandwidth to keep that up for 10-20 years? Bc listen, you’re not going to suddenly love a salad bc you lost weight.
If you were telling yourself, I have to eat this salad to lose weight and then you lose weight now in maintenance you’re telling yourself I gotta eat this salad to keep my weight off.
Neither of those feel good and that’s a problem. Bc if you teach yourself to do your habits from a place of not feeling good, then the only way to keep your habits is to do it from a place of not feeling good.
I talk about my habits to myself in a way that it is a gift. I get to do this. I get to choose to do this. I think back to those doctors who told me when I was in my 20’s I wouldn’t be walking in my 40’s and I use that to remind myself I get to go on this walk.
I also remind myself of my Dad who has dementia and my best friend who’s in a wheelchair from a car accident a few months ago – my Dad and my best friend, they don’t get to choose. They don’t get to choose to go on a walk. What a gift that I get to choose to go on a walk.
What a gift that I get to choose how I fuel my body. What a gift that I get to choose how early I go to bed. What a gift that I can give my body nutrients and choose what foods to eat. Your body, your health is a gift and it’s never guaranteed.
I think when something feels overwhelming in the beginning when we start doing things, unless we get an instant reward – we think something’s wrong or broken.
It’s okay for weight loss to be hard. Everyone thinks it’s a problem when it’s hard. It’s not a problem. Your thoughts about it are the problem. Your perception of how quickly your brain can make new habits is the problem. Easy gets you status quo. That’s why not everyone can do it. They want easy.
You have to decide you’re not going to wait for it to feel easy in order for you to do what’s required to lose weight. When you’re changing and going after your goals, it should feel challenging at first. The problem is most people think at first means 2 weeks or 2 months. For most people, at first means one year to 18 months.
So how do you do it when you don’t feel like it? The problem w/ that mindset is that you’re still hanging onto the idea that I’m going to tell you something that makes it easy. NO! I’m not!
There is nothing me or anyone else on the planet can tell you to make it easy. The only way you make it easy is by how you talk about it.
If something feels hard to you right now, then you need to not talk about it like it’s your mother telling you what to do and also, remove the mental block of I need to feel like doing it in order to do it.
Remove the idea that you need to feel like it. I don’t feel like brushing my teeth morning and night. But I don’t need to feel like doing it. I don’t need to feel like brushing my teeth.
Think about how many times you’ve had to harp on your kids to brush their teeth morning and night until they did all the time on their own. A long time! Bc in the beginning that’s how you do it.
One of my clients awhile back I challenged her with writing down a plan of what she was going to eat for the day at the beginning of the day and she said to me well, I’m just not motivated to make a food plan.
I feel like I won’t follow it anyway so why even bother making a food plan - I feel stuck. I said to her – then you absolutely need to make a food plan. Right now, who cares if you don’t follow through with the plan? You’ll never follow any plan if you don’t even practice writing a plan.
The goal wasn’t to follow the plan yet. The goal was to write a plan. Then once you’re in the habit of writing the plan and you get sick and tired of not following it, you’ll start figuring out how to follow it. But you have to be willing to do the first step.
When something feels hard or overwhelming in the beginning when we start doing things, unless we get an instant reward, unless we drop 10 pounds overnight – we think something’s wrong or broken. That’s when we quit or give up.
The problem isn’t the lack of reward or lack of weight loss. The real problem is the thinking.
So, if there’s one promise you make to yourself is that you’re not going to quit anymore. Say to yourself - I’m not quitting anymore. It can feel hard. It’s normal not to feel easy right now.
My brain is being asked to do new things and that’s okay. It’s okay that I don’t feel like doing things. It’s okay that I don’t feel motivation right now. It’s okay for me to mess up.
It’s okay for it to be hard. I can follow through with promises to myself. I can do things without motivation. I can do things when I don’t feel like it. I can do hard things. Great success comes from hard!
How you talk to yourself matters! Your self-talk will either drive your motivation and desire to change into the ground and cause you to quit or your self-talk can build you up and give you the momentum you need to keep going.
And this is why I always say, mindset is the critical missing ingredient in every diet program out there. If you want to succeed once and for all, you have to work on your mindset just as much as you work on exercise and food.
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