3 Ways a Coach can Help with Self Sabotaging Your Weight Loss Goals
Research tells us that having a weight loss coach is an important predictor in how successful an individual is in losing and importanty keeping off weight.
Coaching has been shown to be efficient in allowing those being coached to experience and achieve, more motivation, more satisfaction, and a better sense of wellbeing.
Studies have shown significant reductions in weight and weight related measurements with the help of a weight loss coach.
I have been working one to one with clients, for over four years now, helping change habits and attitudes, habits that may have been there for a very long time; along with looking at how ways of thinking may have actually stopped weight loss for many people.
We know what we need to do to lose weight but why don’t we do it?
If I ask my clients how they succeeded in their weight loss journey and they will often say that having a weight loss coach is what made all the difference, in addition to understanding their triggers and habits/attitudes through our weekly meetings.
I can confirm that we all typically know WHAT we must do in order to lose weight, but why do we sometimes fail to make the right choices, when left to our own devices?
Having a coach helps to clarify, direct, and support you as you works toward identifying small and simple changes that will promote weight loss.
As a coach, I aim to help you activate the internal motivation, which is a feeling and motivation is not always going to be high, but motivation is required in order to change and sustain new behaviours, leading to your success.
Meeting regularly (via videocall) is the key to success:
During sessions, progress is tracked, food diaries are assessed, challenges and successes of the week are discussed and goals are monitored and set.
1. Being Accountable Matters
Being accountable works.
Who else will really care if you filled in your food diary/or snapped your food?
A recent study of 1,700 overweight men and women who joined a six-month weight loss programme found that those who kept daily food records lost – twice as much weight as those who kept no records
Who will really listen to how your week went, and the challenges you faced (and hopefully overcame)?
As a weight loss coach I am 100% interested in you and your progress, and it is often hard to match that consistent interest and willingness to listen than with a partner/friend or family member, for example.
This is what my clients really appreciate and value. It’s about being accountable. It’s about being listened to. And it’s about being fully and genuinely supported in your attempt to lose weight. As well as me as a coach always being available to answer any messages at any time while working together.
2. Do You Know your Triggers?
If for example over the last 6 months your habit is to get some ‘treats’ at the petrol station while filling your car up with fuel.
Or you tend to go off the rails with the biscuit tin (or the wine!) once the kids are finally in bed.
Turning to food for comfort — either consciously or unconsciously —
when stressed, anxious, bored or upset is often down to a long-standing habit that goes back to when we were a baby.
Because when we cried as babies, we were mostly given milk or a soother.
Comfort eating, as a trigger, can seriously sabotage weight-loss efforts, causing weight gain or even stand still – so disheartening when we really had worked hard that week or month.
Along with comfort eating can sometimes lead to intense feelings of guilt which, in turn, can lead us to wanting to throw in the towel when it comes to our weight loss goals.
Once you are open about your triggers, together we are able to come up with a plan to help eliminate them or cope with them depending on what they are.
In my experience a very important part of working one to one with people in helping you achieve your ideal weight:
Is helping you set
your personal goals: what you really want to achieve, these can be
long-term (i.e. I want to reach a healthy weight) and short-term (I want to be
able to enjoy the weekend with my family and stay on track as best I can).
Once you just say your goal out loud you are much more likely to follow through on that commitment, take it one step further and writing it down, is even more powerful.
When clients design their own goals – with their own daily life in mind – they are much more likely to follow through.
3. Attitude & Behaviour Behind You Reaching Your Ideal Weight
One of the most important parts is that gap between knowing what you need to do to lose weight and actually doing it.
One of the most crucial aspects of weight loss is accepting that you will likely stumble.
The key is learning how to get back on track, without guilt (which can often trigger a binge or overeating).
The key is to look at it with a different approach, those diet stumbles are not failures.
If we look closely, we’ll tend to notice that these stumbles usually happen when we’re at our weakest point emotionally, or when we’ve had a particularly hard day.
Setbacks are caused by insufficient coping skills at that time and/or inadequate planning, which both can be very easily fixed, once you are simply aware.
When individuals take an all-or-nothing approach, they are more likely to feel overwhelmed and abandon long-term goals in favour of short-term relief.
Also, a lot of our thoughts can become skewed at times; examples include ‘all or nothing’ thinking, ‘worst case scenario’ thinking or ‘black and white’ thinking. These thought perspectives often catch us out in general, and certainly do not help our weight loss efforts.
I help you choose a more positive way of thinking and a solutions-based approach.
Remember your powerful mind helps you get
the results
you really want.
By Elaine Baxter, Qualified Nutrition Adviser & Breathwork Meditation Faciliator.
Message 083 371 6831 to book
your Individual Online Video Consultation.