As a fitness professional, I’ve heard may times, “This is just not a good time for me to lose weight. I’m too stressed to lose weight right now. I can focus on losing weight when…”. It feels so frustrating to want something but never have the time to make it a priority. As a busy parent, or spouse, or working adult, you may have so much on your plate. It seems unfair that you must put off your goals. If this sounds like your situation, here are some things you can do TODAY, with little effort. These strategies will have you headed toward your goal while you accomplish all the things that are supposedly getting in the way.
- Ask yourself if you are hungry. It’s important to listen to our body’s cues. You may be too busy to notice hunger. If you tend to skip meals, set a timer to go off every 4 hours to remind you to eat. If you do notice your hunger, wait until you are past a 5 on a 1-10 scale of hunger to eat.
- Eat without distraction. Try to plan 15-20 minutes to eat every meal without the distractions of work or screens. Eat slowly and listen to how the food feels in your body.
- Stop when you are satisfied. Again, it’s important to listen to our body’s cues. Stop just before full. Eat until you are satisfied but feel light and energized.
- Redirect your brain. If you find yourself thinking about food when you are not hungry, redirect your brain to another subject. This also goes for when you see the candy dish or donuts at the office, or there is cake at a kid’s birthday party, or the late-night snack attack. If you are not hungry, redirect your thoughts to something other than food.
- Develop a picture of your thin self in your mind. Ask yourself how this person would choose through out the day. Own this person and this image. Think positive about you being the smaller version you desire.
As you can see, these steps are more about your thoughts rather than following a complicated plan. Take these 5 tips and pay attention to your body. What is it telling you? Maybe you discover that you skip too many meals, and you could lose weight by setting the meal timer and avoid late night catch-up eating. Possibly you realize you have been filling yourself too much. You are ok with eating smaller portions and can still be satisfied. Maybe you really doubt you will ever lose weight at all, so any diet or habit change won’t work anyway. The answer for you could be just visualizing yourself as thinner and truly believing that it is achievable.