At first your motivation to lose weight may have been to feel better in your clothes. Or your doctor may have told you that you were pre-diabetic or had another health condition that would be improved from changing your diet and losing weight. But motivation often changes over time and it’s important that you re-visit your reason for wanting to lose weight from time to time, to be sure you are still doing it for the right reason.Often it is hardest at the beginning, when it seems like there is a long way to go, but once you start seeing results, motivation starts building on itself and you become even more focused and determined.
But then there comes a roadblock……….You have been eating right and exercising for a while, had great results and are feeling really good about yourself. You’ve got in the habit of saying No and then one weekend your self-control just completely goes out the window. You’ve been invited out and your No suddenly becomes Yes, Yes, Yes and by the time the evening is over you have consumed around 3000 calories and feel stuffed to the brim and totally uncomfortable. Worse than the overfull feeling though are the negative thoughts that are running through your head, things like :”I knew I couldn’t do it”, “I’m such a failure”, “I’m useless”, “what is the point, I might as well just eat what I like and forget trying to lose weight”.
Time to put it into perspective – it was ONE night that was different, one night. Don’t panic, just get back on track the next morning and don’t let that one night put you off. If you were brave enough to get weighed after the night of indulgence, you may have found that your weight crept up around 2 kilos, maybe more – but most of that will be water weight. Remember, weight is the cumulative total of fat, muscle, water, organs, tendons, etc. To gain 2 kilos of actual fat, you would have to consume 16,000 calories extra – not totally impossible, but very unlikely! Once you return to normal eating patterns and exercise, that extra water weight will just drop off and the scales will drop again.
One splurge isn’t going to make a big difference to your weight loss efforts. Just like you don’t lose weight with a single meal, rather it requires consistently eating right, one over the top meal won’t be an issue unless it sends you totally off track.
Do you need help to keep on track? Just drop me an email or give me a call, I'd love to help.
