Last Updated on June 1, 2016 by Michael Brockbank
A lot of us get wrapped up in feelings of doubt when trying to lose weight. There may be weeks were it seems like you fall off the wagon on a daily basis. This can then easily lead to depression. For example, I lost a great deal of weight only to gain half of it back. However, I am still determined to look like a super hero by Halloween. What do I do to get past those feelings of doubt?
Avoiding the Belief of Doubt
The most effective thing that will prevent you from losing weight is yourself. When you start believing that you can’t do it, you won’t. I know it can be extremely difficult at times. But you need to realize that you are the one who is controlling the outcome. Here are a few things I do to try and correct my mindset.
Monitoring Your Progress
I know I preach a lot about monitoring your food intake. That’s because it will be instrumental in helping you stay focused. When you start seeing those numbers go into the red, you begin to realize just how unhealthy you truly are. I use MyFitnessPal for this. It not only keeps track of the number of calories I am consuming, but it will also give me a read out of carbs, sodium and many other health factors. When you start to see the calories in the green after each day, it can be motivation to keep on track. The hardest part is making sure you record every morsel of food you eat.
Facing Each Day
Another aspect I bring up a lot is facing each day as it’s own piece of the health puzzle. If you gorged yourself yesterday, it shouldn’t affect your focus for today. Learn from the mistake and make better choices in the future. Myself, I ate way too much macaroni and cheese last night. I have a soft-spot for Velveeta. Although I felt angry at myself afterwards, I won’t let it affect my goals for today. Once you start dwelling on the bad things you do, it can be difficult to see the positive.
Maintain Your Goals
When you start to experience doubt, it can be difficult to care about meeting your daily goals. However, it can be very powerful for helping you maintain a positive attitude if you continue to try. Achieving goals does more than just help you get into better physical shape. It can be influential in your mindset about health in general. Ever goal you meet, you develop a sense of pride and accomplishment. This will then feed into feelings of confidence. It’s this confidence that will help you subside the feelings of doubt. You just need to take those first few steps to get the ball rolling. Before long, you’ll have the sense that nothing is impossible.
Find Your Focal Point
Goals can be helpful when set up correctly. However, establishing a focal point for your health can be quite the motivator. For instance, I am looking forward to dressing up for Halloween. This isn’t to mention that I am also looking forward to visiting friends and family this holiday season while looking like a new man. Finding that thing that helps you continue can be very helpful when trying to push past those feelings of doubt. Just make sure you find something that is realistic. Believing you can lose 100 pounds inside of 30 days is only going to disappoint you. Personally, I’m going to have to work extra hard for the next five months to look as good as I want. If it doesn’t happen, at least I’ll go into the holiday season being lighter than I ever have been in the past. You need to find those silver linings as they will help you keep the right frame of mind.
Make a Game Out of It
Another one of my favorite tricks is to make a game out of fitness and health. Like I’ve mentioned before, I love getting involved in friendly challenges for the competition. This is why I never back down from a game with the kids on the XBox Kinect. I’ll make my children work to beat me at anything. Currently, my brother joined me on MyFitnessPal. Call it sibling rivalry, but I’ll be damned if he loses more weight than me this summer. Set records for yourself and continue to try and beat them. This is one of the biggest reasons why I use Exercise.com so much. I love being able to see where my records are and what I need to do to surpass my abilities.
Faith in Yourself
The number one aspect that can help you avoid sinking into doubt when it comes to fitness is faith. You need to believe in yourself. I know it can be incredibly difficult at times, but having faith in your abilities can be monumental in achieving better fitness. You have to know that you can do this and attack each day. Don’t wallow in self-pity, it will just make matters worse. Stand up, look at yourself in the mirror and say, “I got this” and actually mean it. Open up that can of whoop-ass and know that you are the one who can change your lifestyle.
Doubt in yourself can make virtually any task seem impossible. When you start to doubt your abilities, you begin making mistakes more often and lose momentum. It’s really not that difficult to create a maintainable daily goal for eating and exercise. You simply need to make sure you can follow the plan. Even the smallest of alterations to your daily routine can impact health for the better. Believe you can achieve a better way to live and commit to the follow-through.
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