A 'Trying' Time: Making Weight Loss or Any Change 'for Keeps'

For most people losing weight is a trying experience. Trying every diet that comes along, trying what each and every weight loss expert says you should do, trying to stay away from the “bad” foods, trying to exercise, trying to eat the ‘right” foods, trying to stick to the plans and goals you’ve set for yourself, trying again to lose the weight you regained after the last time you tried to lose it. 

Yes, it’s about trying, trying, and trying some more. Many people who are "trying to lose weight" say they are doing so because they need to for health reasons, or they have to because their doctor told them so, or they should lose it because everyone tells them they should. Certainly there are times when your physician says your health, even your very life, is dependent on losing weight. When someone who is told this loses weight and keeps it off, it is because that person has had an internal shift of values and has decided their health is more important than their old relationship to food and exercise. They have stopped trying and started doing.

'Trying' is a word used to describe the period of time in which a person is experimenting with something to decide if they will commit and actually do what is necessary to behave in a new way. 'Commitment' is about doing something that is extremely important and for which the reasons underlying that importance can be clearly stated. Lasting change requires a commitment to action based on what you personally desire for your life, what you personally have determined to be of value. Commitment cannot be imposed as a 'should'.

In almost every situation the words should, have to, must, need to and got to are associated with trying, and are ultimately de-motivators, stopping lasting change from happening by immediately, or eventually, creating an inner rebelliousness that says, “No one can tell me what I have to do!”  And, no one includes you saying these words in an attempt to get yourself to do something. 

Rather, in order to stop trying to lose weight, and begin to do it for keeps, ask yourself what you value about changing your body and your health.  What do you want, desire, prefer and/or value that will be a result of making a change in your relationship to food and to exercise?  

Make a list of what is important to you and remind yourself daily of what you intend to do for your life and how come it is important to you to make the changes you have decided you want to make. Then you can stop having a trying time and start doing weight loss for keeps.