It’s the New Year, which means people start off with the more than slightly unrealistic expectation that they will be a whole new person with a whole new personality all because it’s January 1st. It’s not that there’s anything wrong with setting New Year goals, I love New Year and it’s a great time to reset and a catapult into motivating yourself into healthier habits. However, unless you have the right long term strategy in place and realistic goals (and that doesn’t mean what you think it does so stay with me) then you will crash and burn (again!).
The truth is, by setting up your weight loss goals or resolutions to “lose a stone in January” or “lose weight from my stomach” you are setting what’s known as an outcome based goal. The problem with these outcome based goals is you have very limited control over them. You cannot control how fast you lose weight or the parts of your body you lose weight from, so when you don’t lose that stone at the end of January, you give up and blame yourself or the meal plan that “doesn’t work”. You end up miserable, disappointed and likely emotional eating and gaining more weight.
So does that mean we shouldn’t set goals or New Year resolutions?
Absolutely not! Goals give us something to work towards. The problem isn’t the goal itself, it’s how you state your goal. Your aim may well be to lose a stone, but instead of setting a time frame on this outcome set yourself action oriented goals that align with your overall aim.
If your aim is to lose a stone, instead of focusing on losing the stone by such and such a date, start thinking about what actions you need to take in order to lose that stone. Look at your current eating habits. What could you improve here? Perhaps instead of eating those high salt and fat ready meals you could find some quick and healthy recipes you can make from scratch yourself. Or you could research different meal prep methods so you have healthy meals to heat up or take out the fridge when you get home. Instead of that takeaway treat weekly you could do a takeaway treat every fortnight or research healthy fakeaway versions you could make yourself. Or maybe it’s joining a dance class or taking up a sport that you have always wanted to try. Notice here the focus is more on adding in things you enjoy rather than taking things away and deprivation, this is so important if you want to not only lose weight but maintain it.
And if you want more ideas and guidance on action oriented goals you can take to lose weight and keep it off while avoiding the diet trap then make sure to download my Healthy Habit Tracker below.
So if the outcome you want is to lose one stone, then your goal might be to cook more healthy meals with veg for dinner. Cooking more healthy meals with veg for dinner is something you can control and by achieving your goal it will eventually lead you to your overall aim of losing one stone.
Once you’ve set your action oriented goal, you can then start looking at ways you can make it happen, looking at what potential obstacles may get in your way and how you can overcome or prepare for them. For example, if your goal is to cook more healthy dinners from scratch but you work long hours, then you can look for quick 10 minute meal recipes or use meal delivery options like Gousto and Mindful Chef. This is all part of having a growth mindset which is crucial if you want real and lasting weight loss.
This is what I mean by setting realistic goals, it’s not about lowering your ambitions, being realistic is about setting goals that you have control over and being honest with yourself about the time frame you can achieve them in.
Losing weight isn’t as simple as calories in vs calories out (this was disproven some time ago). So many factors come into play, we all have different lifestyles, skills, working hours, some of us are neurodivergent which can make planning and meal prep more tricky, some of us have kids and caring responsibilities and others don’t. On top of that everyone has different metabolism rates, different ages and hormones which also play a big role in where fat is stored. All of us are unique and one size doesn’t fit all. It’s time to stop beating ourselves up and fixating on numbers on a scale and start focusing on all the positive steps we can take and the delicious healthy foods we can have rather than focusing on deprivation and beating ourselves up over things we don’t have full control over.
