Is everybody ready for bikini season!?
Ugh. If I see one more ad for getting a ‘bikini body’ I’m going to lose it. What about a one-piece body? I’m really into one-pieces lately. Or what about a high waisted two-piece body? Huh? What about that?!
I’ve been avoiding the topic of weight loss around these parts because, to be honest, sometimes I feel conflicted about it. Who am I to talk about positive body image and then also give you weight loss tips? Feels shitty to me, a conflict of interest.
However, I do know that a lot of women are struggling with it. Their own conflict of interest being that they want to lose weight and feel good in their own skin but, they also want to just live their life and eat pizza.
And being stuck in a place where you want to lose weight but just can’t. seem. to. do. it., is a terrible place to be. It can make us feel like hopeless failures doomed to a life of feeling self-conscious and never enjoying ourselves, a life getting pushed in the pool with our t-shirts on. We just want to sit down in jeans and a t-shirt, on a couch, and not have to hold a pillow. Is that so much to f’in ask!?
I know. I’ve been there many times. Trust me.
We try to be good all day and then we blow it once we get home… because we’re starving.
Or we are good all week, working out and ‘eating right’, and then Thursday happy hour comes around and the wheels come off. You totally lose your shit. You find yourself sitting at your desk on Monday morning feeling like a bloated failure and vowing to be better this time. Today is the day that you start being that perfect version of yourself that’s in your head, the one you remember being from the last time you felt skinny.
I seriously, seriously get it. And I want to share a few mistakes that I have made over and over and over again that got me nowhere. Mistakes that if you can manage to avoid, you just might be able to get off that damn hamster wheel for good.
#1. Calling yourself fat.
Seriously, stop it. Every time you call yourself fat, imagine calling a six year old girl fat. Would you call a six year old girl fat? No, you wouldn’t, unless of course, you’re a monster. And you’re not a fat monster. You’re beautiful.
And honestly, has calling yourself fat, putting yourself down and berating yourself ever actually lead to weight loss? No. It has not. So maybe stop doing it and see what happens then. Maybe start telling yourself how skinny you’re feeling, even if you’re not. Just keep telling yourself you are. Most of our life experience happens inside our own heads anyway, so why not feel skinny up there?
#2. Eating low fat and low calorie food.
Eating low fat and low calorie is just so 90s. Don’t do that. Your body needs fat. Fat is not the enemy. Your body needs calories, calories are not the enemy. Eating exclusively low-fat, low-calorie is exactly what makes the wheels fall off at the end of the day/week/diet. Fat is really satiating, so when we don’t eat it, we are hungry.
Throw a whole avocado into your daily routine, add some nut butter to your smoothie, have an omelette with cheese, you’ll actually start feeling full. You won’t feel like eating all. of. the. time.
#3. Punishing yourself with exercise.
Do you really love that crushing boot camp? Or do you just feel like you should be doing it because you ate too much? This is a very important distinction to make. Only you know if you’re being honest with yourself.
I don’t know about you but, when I force myself to exercise when I don’t really feel like it, I wind up feeling like crap and eating more. I’m not advocating a sedentary lifestyle here but, if you’re really feeling ‘fat’, forcing yourself to workout is just punishment, and punishing exercise isn’t the answer. It’s stressful and more stress is the opposite of what you want.
Try just relaxing for a night, try just having a very light dinner, like a soup, and going to bed early. Do some stretching. Be easy on yourself, relax.
#4. Trying to be perfect.
Another conflict I have is that I’ve done a few cleanses and, when adhered to, they really can make you feel amazing and shed pounds quickly as a side effect. I’m talking ‘cleanses’ that include actual food though, not juice cleanses.
If you cut out caffeine, sugar, alcohol, gluten, dairy, soy, corn, peanuts, and processed foods, you’re likely going to feel amazing after a few days and lose weight. But, is that really going to be realistic for your life? Is that really how you want to live your life? Trying to eat perfectly?
Instead, my suggestion is to focus on just a couple of bigger impact changes like, drinking more water or cutting out processed foods entirely. The margin for error is quite large when we’re trying to be perfect.
#5. Obsessing.
I know it’s easy to feel hopeless and disgusted with yourself, and I have gone through phases of obsessing for sure but, I’ve found the best thing to do wen we’re in that place, is just some light, mental, crazy-combating work.
Stop obsessing and mentally re-frame the situation. Tell yourself that it’s all fine, that you’re literally the only person who is noticing your weight to begin with and that this struggle, is mostly in your head.
Tell yourself you’re eating healthy and taking care of yourself and because of that, you’re effortlessly moving towards your ideal weight. The weight loss you’re after is not going to happen overnight, but it is going to happen. You just have to keep up the good work of taking care of yourself.
I know, it sounds crazy but, so does obsessing about our weight. Just try it. Try talking to yourself like you would talk to your best friend who’s having a meltdown over it. What would you say to her? Say that to yourself, as many times as it takes.
Once I was able to correct these weight loss mistakes, I was actually able to start losing weight.
The funny thing is though, I started to feel really good, long before the scale moved. If you’re struggling to lose weight, avoiding these mistakes can go a long way to gaining some momentum. Besides, if the old weight loss paradigm was going to work for you, wouldn’t it have started to work by now?
Love you.