For anyone who struggles with their weight, we know it's not easy to change - and trying to go it alone makes that challenge a lot harder.
I speak from personal experience as for many years, I was so ashamed of my size, my eating habits, my lack of fitness that even when I did embark on any sort of diet or weight loss programme, I did so in secret. Not telling even my family or closest friends and making up excuses or silly reasons of why I wouldn’t be joining people for dinner at the weekend or attending a specific social event where food or drink would be involved. Of course, all of these restrictive, quick fixes diets failed and in one way, because I hadn’t told anyone what I was doing, I didn’t have to explain why I’d given up or failed again.
I was so convinced that I wouldn’t succeed, by not telling anyone stopped me actually having to stick to anything or make serious commitments to change and then I wouldn’t have to face any sort of perceived judgement from anyone either.
This cycle continued for years and all that happened was I got heavier, less fit and active and my self confidence and self belief were at an all time low.
So what changed?
Back in June 2010, I decided once again to give this weight loss malarkey another go. I didn’t tell anyone what I was doing (standard for me) but this time, I’d really had a think about why I wanted to lose weight (I’ve written another blog post on how important having the correct WHY is if you’d like to read: click here) and one programme I’d not tried before was Slimming World. I found the details of a relatively local group and just went along. It was quite brave of me to turn up to something like that on my own and I won’t lie, I was terrified and did hide around the corner of the group watching people go in to see if I was going to be by far the biggest person in the room). I did eventually pluck up the courage and walked into a very busy church hall full of people of all shapes, sizes, ages, genders – no-one batted an eye-lid, a few people said hello and welcome and before I knew it, I’d signed up and was sat in a large circle for my first ‘group talk’.
What I remember most clearly about that first evening was that in this group talk, people were vocalising so many of the thoughts and feelings I experienced on a daily basis but was to ashamed or embarrassed to admit or talk to my friends about. No-one was laughing at them or judging them and instead were nodding along in agreement and offering tips, advice, encouragement and support.
Along with the guidance on healthy eating and nutrition, this group session really opened my eyes to how it was possible to make changes and lose weight and change some of those behaviours that up until now, I’d just thought were as much a part of me as having red hair, blue eyes and size 6 feet were.
I wasn’t a particularly vocal member of the group for quite some time, my lack of confidence took a while to work through but within a few weeks, I’d made a few friends, we added each other on social media and messaged through the week to see how we were getting on. Before long, I joined a Zumba class with people I’d met in the group and looked forward to catching up with them there too.
The next big step was I told my family and my closest friends that I’d joined a weight loss group as I really wanted to change and lose weight in a healthy way. I was met with unanimous support and encouragement from everyone I told and before long, I’d told all my work colleagues, my whole social group and began posting my weight in updates online on my Facebook profile for literally anyone to see.
Suddenly, I had a huge squad of cheerleaders – people were invested in my progress and checked in to see how I was getting on, friends asked what restaurants were good choices for me before booking meals out, colleagues brought in fresh fruit as well as the cakes for birthday celebrations, my friends from group were there to pick me up when I was struggling or finding things challenging and I didn’t feel like I was in this alone. As I lost more weight, I began to inspire other people around me to start their own journey and people would come to me for support and advice which felt great that I was able to give things back to others and ultimately led me to my complete change in career from working in marketing in the corporate world to becoming a weight loss consultant myself, a role I’ve had for almost 10 years now.
What sort of support do you need?
Support comes in many different forms:
- Emotional: someone that really understands what you are going through and can listen without judgement, can be a shoulder to lean on when things are tough or challenging.
- Practical: cook you healthy meals, watch the kids so you can attend your weight loss sessions or workout, help you shop / meal plan
- Inspiring: a work out buddy, someone who is on the same journey as you are, someone who’s worked through some of your challenges and can provide tips, ideas and motivation
Saboteurs and jealousy
This is something that comes up more often that you’d imagine – it’s something I experienced myself and I know from my 10 years’ experience in the weight loss coaching world is something that quite a few people have to deal with. It’s quite a strange one as you’d think that people would be really happy for you that you are looking to change your life and make yourself healthier and happier but often, people feel threatened or guilty that they aren’t doing the same. I’d always been the largest person in any of my friendship or social groups but suddenly that wasn’t the case any longer and some people didn’t like the change in dynamic and would make snide or nasty comments about I was becoming boring because I didn’t indulge in things the same way. I remember very clearly when I was a size 14 and feeling really confident and good about how I was looking but was still technically ‘overweight’ a ‘friend’ telling me I’d gone to far and was starting to look ill. This friend was a size 14 herself and actually, she didn’t want me to become ‘slimmer’ than her.
It’s hard to deal with and these sort of things can come from your nearest and dearest. My advice would be to really explain to people as to what you are doing and why it’s important to you. Ask for their support but not their approval. If they do continue to make comments that make you feel uncomfortable, either pick them up on them if you are willing to do that or maybe it will take putting a bit of distance between you for a while.
I found that as I embraced a healthy way of living more and more, I made new friends with people with the same interests as me or found more in common with people in my social circles that wasn’t just based around partying and nights out and we started spending our social time together doing completely different things to what we had done previously.
Support is a form of Accountability
I’m a huge believer in the importance of accountability – not just in weight loss but in all areas of your life. I run weight loss accountability programmes and this summer have run my first group accountability programme online which is a roaring success with some amazing results coming in from the club members. Here’s my blog post if you want to read more about the role of accountability in your weight loss success.
Knowing that you have others checking in on you as well as supporting you and encouraging you can make all the difference when you are struggling or thinking of giving up.
Motivation won't get you to your goal
Controversial this may be, but I absolutely believe that motivation is overrated. I’m not dismissing it at all and I do believe that it plays a roll in your weight loss success but if you rely purely on motivation to keep you on track, then you are really going to struggle. Again, speaking from experience – I really believed that it was my lack of motivation that kept me over 20 stone, unfit and unhealthy and I’d hope for some miracle to happen that one day I’d wake up, been magically given unwavering motivation and from that moment on, my life would change and the weight would fall off me.
Motivation comes and goes – it can be there one second and gone the next. It can vanish for months at a time and usually when life is tough, motivation does a runner just when we need it the most. Without support on your weight loss journey, you are relying on self-motivation 100% of the time – there’s no-one checking in on you if you go off radar for a few days, there’s no one to ask for help if you hit a challenging patch, there’s no-one to call you out on your excuses. Going it alone allows you to easily talk yourself out of things, make up excuses and put things off.
Stop listening to the critical voice in your head
We all have one and we listen far too intently to what they say.
Had a blip at the weekend?
What your inner voice says: you’re a failure, you’ve written off the week, you’ll never be slim, you’re a disappointment, you’re an embarrassment, what’s the point of even trying, you may as well give up.
What your support network says: one blip is no big deal, look at all the brilliant choices you made all week, that blip was nowhere near as bad as what you used to eat or drink on a Saturday night, look at how far you’ve come, you got right back on track the next day, everyone slips up – that’s normal
Your support network can really help you put things in perspective and see things in a completely different light.
And so much more!!!!!
I could probably write a short book on the value, benefits and success having a successful support system in place makes but I’m conscious this is a blog post rather than a book so I’m going to end it here but if you are stuck without a support system in place, I have my free Facebook group which is a great community of people all on the same journey and you’d be very welcome to join. Just click on the image below.
New monthly support club coming soon!
I’m also really excited to let you know that I’ll be launching an online support group programme very soon – it will provide members with accountability, support, understanding, tips, advice and motivation to help you achieve your goals and get off that ‘on a diet / off a diet’ rollercoaster that so many of us have spent far too long on!
If you want to be added to my mailing list to be amongst the first to know the details, just click here
As a weight loss coach, I love helping people discover the best ways to reach their individual goals – from working on their mindsets and habits to help with nutrition and healthy eating advice and recipes. If you would like to find out more about my programmes or how I can help you, please do get in touch.
Email me or phone/message: 07834 442607
Join my free Facebook weight loss support group for weekly live sessions, more tips and strategies and motivation: https://www.facebook.com/groups/theweightlossgroup