The biggest mistake busy mamas make when it comes to realizing their health and weight loss goals
What’s the longest you’ve stuck with a diet or exercise program? A few weeks? A month or two? A lot of us don’t stick with a diet for every long - let alone a lifetime! - because we don’t see the results we’re craving. Or more accurately, we don’t feel like we’re seeing results. We can’t immediately see a lot of the benefits that come from eating healthy, but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist. The only way to see those small changes, it to look for them and then celebrate them because what we celebrate we replicate.
Humans are remarkably gifted at pointing out their flaws. We are naturally drawn to looking for the bad in ourselves, our situations, and our journeys. Weight loss journeys are long and challenging, so if all we tell ourselves is how terrible things are going, we’re destined to give up and go back to our old habits.
However, when we take the time to notice the good that is happening along our journey, how we’re feeling more energetic, our jeans aren’t so tight, our sex drive has increased, we’re much more likely to stick with it and see the actual weight loss results we’re looking for. I use this tool with my Macros Made Easy clients every single week. Let me show you how you can use it too.
Why you need to acknowledge your wins
There is a part of your brain called the Reticular Activating System (RAS) which acts as a filter for the brain. When you decide to focus on one thing - positive or negative - the RAS will show you more of that thing.
The classic example is, if you are thinking about buying a new car, you will all of a sudden start to see that car everywhere you go. Basically, your brain is looking for evidence to support your thoughts or decisions.
So, how can we harness our RAS to work for us instead of against us? We have to choose to see the positive! We have to actively recognize the good that is coming from our healthy decisions.
Sometimes finding the positive is going to be difficult! Say, you’re working out, lifting weights and crushing it in the gym. You believe that all that hard work should show a drop in the scale; however, your weight increases. You have two choices here: believe in a positive story and keep going or believe in a negative story and give up. You could recognize that you’re probably building muscle, muscle weighs more than fat, so your weight gain isn’t a bad thing! Or, you could say, this isn’t working because I’m not getting the result I wanted and stop going to the gym.
Focusing on the negative story is never, ever, ever going to get you to your goals! Ever! By choosing to believe the positive story, you’re rewiring your brain so that next time, that positive story comes up quicker, and quicker and quicker until you begin to think positively almost immediately.
It might take a lot of time to undo the years, or decades, of negative thinking you’re accustomed to, so be gracious with yourself as you learn how to find the positive!
How to get into the habit of finding and writing down your wins
The fastest way to rewire your brain is to practice finding those winning moments as often as you can. Remember, a win doesn’t have to be something big. In fact, most wins are small. I mentioned a few examples above, but here are a few more examples of small wins to give you an idea of what to start looking for.
Choosing water over a soda
Being patient with your kids
Not yelling when someone cuts you off in the school drop-off line
Doing something kind for your husband
Taking time to journal or meditate
Eating a piece of your favorite candy
Speaking your mind
Choosing a mocktail instead of a cocktail
Moving your body for any length of time
Finding non-scale victories
Enjoying a hot cup of coffee without having to reheat it
Having a serving of veggies at every meal
Learning to recognize your wins isn’t just applicable to your weight loss journey. Learning to find your wins can apply to any aspect of your life. And honestly, when you do practice this in every aspect of your life it makes weight loss easier because your mind is in a better place, which makes making healthy decisions easier. My clients who make this mindset shift end up seeing the best results because they are finally free from the negativity that has kept them stuck for years!
While noticing your wins is crucial, it isn’t quite enough to really see big changes. You have to take one more step to turn this from a simple exercise into a way of life. And that step is writing your wins down.
As mamas, we have a million things going on and while taking notice of a win is great, we’re most likely going to forget about it when we’re inevitably interrupted two seconds later. Which is why we have to actually write those wins down! It doesn’t matter if you use a pen and paper or a note on your phone, you just need to do it.
Writing down our wins not only helps us remember them, but it gives us physical proof of how far we’ve come. If you’re having a bad moment and you feel like you’re stuck in the same spot, you can pick up that list of wins and you will have physical proof of how far you’ve come!
My birthday was this earlier month and I decided to look back at where I was at on my birthday over the last few years. I was shocked at the changes I had made over the last few years! The way I look at life now is not the same as it was even five years ago! I am in a much better place and I wouldn’t have seen the difference if I didn’t have that physical proof.
I can tell you right now that if you learn how to recognize your wins and you begin to write them down, you’ll start to see the changes that you’re making in your life.
The scale is going to go up and down during your weight loss journey, but your mindset doesn’t have to go up and down with it. When you focus on changing how you view your journey, you’ll be able to stay on track even when it to the outside world it looks like you’ve failed.
If you want more help working through the mindset blocks that come with weight loss, then join the Macros Made Easy program. We work on healthy eating along with mindset so that you don’t just lose the weight, but you shed the negative feelings that have kept you stuck for years.
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