When you lose weight, it’s undeniable that the compliments you get give you a boost. However, somewhere along the line you lose motivation, the compliments stop and you look down and realise you’re back to the same old you that needed to lose weight in the first place. The problem isn’t weight loss; it’s weight control and is dependent on your habitual, emotional, and psychological wellbeing, and fighting the undermining efforts of the Unholy Trinity of Weight Gain.
Firstly, you get held back by the impostor phenomenon. You’ve spent so long as a heavier person that you still feel like you are one, even though there is a skinny person looking back at you in the mirror. The period where your mind catches up with your body is a critical window where many people backslide, as you feel doubtful and unworthy of the new you. To fight this branch of the Unholy Trinity, you need to work on your mental and emotional wellness when losing weight. Take pictures of yourself throughout the process to remind you how much you’ve done to earn your new, better body, and help your mind adjust to the changes. Then, when you’ve reached your goal, look back on the pictures and compare them to the wonderfully thin person in the mirror, so you can reinforce your sense of identity.
The second problem that leads people to regain weight is that you are not taught weight management, only weight loss, and so you go back to your old lifestyle habits instead of embracing the nutrition and exercise principles you employed to lose weight. To fight the Unholy Trinity on this score, do everything you did to lose weight but add 20% more food, and take away 20% of the exercise. Try this for a week to see if it works, monitoring your bodyweight, waist measurement and your overall definition in the mirror. If nothing changes, repeat this pattern for another week, but if you lose or gain weight, adjust the above quantities accordingly. After 2-4 weeks you’ll know what your maintenance levels are, and then you can get creative with food and meals.
Finally, negative social pressure is the last branch of the Unholy Trinity, as negative feedback, especially from people close to you, can seriously derail your efforts. They may say you’ll only gain it back, or you’re boring now you only eat salads, but even though you know these comments are rooted in the insecurity of the commenter, on an emotional level, those comments make it hard to sustain weight loss. Therefore, you may be faced with the choice of fitting your new lifestyle in with these friends (who haven’t changed), or limit the time you spend with them. Find out who your real friends are – why would you want to share the new you with anyone who wasn’t worthy anyway?
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