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UNF*CK YOUR WEIGHT LOSS

10 Weight Loss Mistakes You Might Be Making

by | Oct 3, 2022

Are you making mistakes in your weight loss journey that could be holding you back? The answer is…probably. There is so much noise out there in the media and in the online space telling us what we should and should not be doing to lose weight. 

So… I have compiled a list of 10 weight loss mistakes you might be making. But that’s not all. I am also going to pull these mistakes apart and then put them back together for you so that they make sense. It’s one thing to give you a list of don’ts. It’s a completely different thing to give you that list of don’ts and then tell you what you can do to correct the problem. Now, to be clear, this list of mistakes is going to be broad, but very relevant. It’s time to put some action behind the words.

1) Dismissing Mindset

The mistake I see many women make, including myself, is dismissing the mindset aspect and being hyper-focused on the tips and the tricks to make the scale go down because you just want to lose weight!

This makes sense because our brains aren’t really in the business of wanting to think differently. That would be like putting them out of business. Your brain has self-preservation in mind when it’s looking for all the external answers. 

What you need to do instead… 

Be really open to the idea that we can do all the diets and all the workouts, but until we really address how we think and what we believe about ourselves, we are going to be stuck in the struggle for a long time. 

2) Lack of Clarity

When we have a lack of clarity, we then find ourselves with a lack of commitment. What do I actually mean by this? Have you asked yourself recently what it is that you really want?

  • Do you want to lose weight? 
  • Do you want to lose body fat? 
  • Do you want to build muscle? 
  • Do you want to just be more confident in your body?

The good news is that there’s no one answer here. There is no right or wrong answer. But I do find if we don’t have clarity then what happens is we start to try to lose weight, and then it stops. We’re flirting with weight loss, we’re playing grab ass with weight loss, or we’re kind of one foot in one foot out. 

What you need to do instead… 

Ask yourself some of the following questions: 

  • What is it that you really want? 
  • What are you afraid of? 
  • Is there something that is holding you back from getting what you want? 

3) Being Too Focused on the Scale

How do I know if I’m losing it if I don’t use the scale? In all fairness, yes, using the scale is a data point for weight loss. So is a tape measure, how your clothes are fitting, or a mirror or photos. There are a lot of different ways that you can actually track your weight loss. 

There is just something about that scale. We always want it to be a lower number. We’re going to try to do everything in order for it to go down. When it does not go down, there’s a problem. That is immediately what the brain says that this isn’t working and you have to change something. 

What you need to do instead… 

Try to have one weigh-in day, every week. Just one. Look for other data points as well. Take a photo. If you’re going to weigh in every Monday morning, snap a photo of yourself in your bathroom mirror. Use a tape measure to measure your waistline, your hips, and/or your arms.

Ultimately, you don’t need a scale to lose weight. I know it seems kind of crazy, but you don’t. It is about focusing on your end result. If you want to lose weight, and you want to be a smaller size, have better health, or feel more comfortable in your own skin, that’s where clarity comes in. Think about the actions you should be taking to get there and try to focus on just doing those things over time. 

4) Instant Gratification

I see two sides to instant gratification. One is impatience which goes along with weight loss and the scale. The “I’m not seeing any progress, so I’m going to quit.” The other part of instant gratification is allowing our brain to indulge in every urge or craving and not letting our prefrontal cortex take charge.

What you need to do instead… 

Think about how you can practice delayed gratification. How can you calm your brain down? How can you have a reasonable conversation with yourself and say, “Of course I want Oreos.”? It is practicing the ability to allow there to be an urge, but not make it mean anything.

An urge that is unmet will be loud and a little uncomfortable at first. But it gets easier over time as long as you’re not indulging everything that your brain wants. 

The same thing with the impatience of getting results. There is a way to talk to yourself and assure your brain that you are on the right path, and you are going to achieve your goals. It doesn’t have to happen right now. We’re in it for the long game!

5) All-or-Nothing Thinking

I see all-or-nothing thinking happening for a lot of my female clients and a lot of my high achievers when we’re raised in this idea that an A plus is the only answer. Anything less than perfection, anything less than 100% is an F. So what happens is that we tend to self-destruct. 

If your car had one flat tire, would you go out and slash the other three? In many cases, that is what we end up doing when we’re trying to lose weight. We self-sabotage. 

What you need to do instead… 

Truth be told, it’s going to take a little time to unwind it. There is not an on and off switch. You’ll notice with all-or-nothing thinking that there is a lot of judgment and a lot of negative self-talk. You have to be less self-critical and be able to show yourself some compassion. 

Look for the small wins. Being able to do it on purpose, because your brain is going to always go for the negative. You’ll have to keep reminding yourself that you are successful. Give yourself grace. Know that it is normal.

6) Abdicating Your Personal Power to Circumstances

Life is uncertain and stressful. We can’t control everything, but we can control what goes into our mouths. When I talk about abdicating your power to circumstance, I want to remind you that you do have a choice. You do always have the ability to pick and choose what you eat and drink. It is normal for our brains to make it somebody else’s fault. But in order to get the result that you want you do have to control what you think and what you put in your mouth. 

We start to think about what other people say. “My family will be so disappointed if I don’t eat exactly what they’re eating.” or “What will my co-workers think if I need to special order a salad?”. Here’s the thing../who cares what they think? You’re giving away all of your power to circumstances. 

What you need to do instead… 

Something always comes up even when we have the best intentions. We make our lunch, and we leave it on the f*cking counter. So we have to be able to say, “Okay, where can I go get lunch? How can I feed myself according to my goals?”

We can’t let outside circumstances dictate what we can and cannot do for ourselves whether that is eating, drinking alcohol, or getting whatever it is that we personally need for ourselves. You create certainty in your life by taking back your personal power.

7) Your Environment

Your environment for weight loss matters. You are probably doing the grocery shopping or helping with a grocery shopping list. There are trigger foods for you. I’ll bring in ice cream and be like, “Oh, this is for my husband,” but it’s for me. 

What you need to do instead… 

Have an honest conversation with yourself. Ask yourself:

  • Where am I contributing to my environment?
  • How can I make it easier for me to lose weight? 
  • What things should be in my house?
  • What things should not be in my house right now?

It doesn’t mean in the future that wouldn’t change. I’m not asking you to have your whole family hide snacks all over the house for themselves. But if you live in a house, you should have a say as to what is in the house. 

Your environment is also who you hang out with. Are you hanging out with people who have those same goals? If you aren’t, that’s okay. But is that going to help you long term? Who you’re hanging out with is a big part of success. 

This is why weight loss can be difficult. We start to realize the only thing we had in common with certain people was that we liked to eat or drink. It can be a process that is painful. Try hanging out with people from the gym, or hanging out with people who are more aligned with what you are going through. 

Your environment is also what you are feeding your brain. Are you watching a lot of negative things on TV? Are you reading positive things? What you take in matters!

8) Waiting To Be Motivated

Motivation is actually created by taking action, even small ones. A lot of us wait around to feel motivated. Your motivation has to come from within.

What you need to do instead… 

We have to override what we feel like doing in order to get it done. Motivation doesn’t have to be this grand action in order for it to be effective. Doing something small can get you started.

9) Being Too Restrictive

Our brains will make weight loss and dieting all about eating less and less. That is just not stainable. Could there be some days that you eat less? Sure! But for the long haul, trying to take away all the calories is going to produce a boomerang effect. The,n you are overeating and get caught between the two extremes of over-restricting and overeating. 

What you need to do instead… 

Think about making some small, gradual changes. Get back in touch with true hunger. That is different from urges and cravings. Allow your body to be hungry. Feed your body when it is hungry. When you’ve had enough, stop eating before you hit full. 

This might take you a couple of days or weeks to get used to. Really try to walk that middle ground. Try listening to your body and slow down while you eat. Ask yourself if you’re hungry. If you’ve had enough, notice how it feels in your body. 

10) Unsustainable Diet

Things that just don’t make sense for who we are, where we’re going, our lifestyle, or our schedules. If you don’t love bacon or high-fat diets, then maybe keto is not for you. A lot of my clients will go into intermittent fasting and take on these really long, restrictive fasts. They will go 24 hours, 48 hours, and 96 hours all in the name of health. What will happen is that they get very hungry, they get very edgy, and they end up overeating. This is not fun. It’s too hard, and I don’t like it. 

What you need to do instead… 

Take a look at what you’ve done in the past for weight loss. Our brains love to go to the past and say, “Oh, that Weight Watchers really worked for me.” That worked for me so I keep going back there. If they really worked, then we would have kept going in that direction. We would have stayed there. We would have actually kept the weight off. 

What you can do about unsustainable diets is know that you can lose weight by eating almost anything. You know the difference between eating chicken and eating a Twinkie. You know the difference between real food and processed food. You do know what to eat. It is just a matter of breaking some of this diet mentality that the only way to lose it is to do something extreme. 

Extreme things work in the short term. They don’t work in the long term. You might be losing and gaining the same 20 or 30-plus pounds. That’s no fun, and that’s what we’re trying to do here at Unf*ck Your Weight Loss. We’re trying to lose weight and lose it forever! So if you are committing one of these 10 weight loss mistakes, try doing some of the things I have suggested and see how it works for you.

NOTES IN ANCHOR

Are you making mistakes in your weight loss journey that could be holding you back? The answer is…probably. There is so much noise out there in the media and in the online space telling us what we should and should not be doing to lose weight. So… I have compiled a list of 10 weight loss mistakes you might be making. But that’s not all. In today’s episode, I am going to pull these mistakes apart and then put them back together for you so that they make sense. It’s one thing to give you a list of don’ts.

It’s a completely different thing to give you that list of don’ts and then tell you what you can do to correct the problem. Now, to be clear, this list of mistakes is going to be broad, but very relevant. It’s time to put some action behind the words. Let’s get to it! 

ABOUT THE HOST

Bonnie Lefrak is a Life & Body Transformation Expert and Founder of Selfmade, a program designed to help you tackle the physical aspects of health and weight loss as well as the beliefs and thoughts that drive our habits and behaviors. It is her goal to help women create certainty in their own lives, their own results, and their own abilities.

Weight loss is not about the one “right” diet – it is about MUCH more than that. Weight loss is not about the one “right” workout. Weight loss is not about being positive and putting a big smile on.

Weight loss is about FEELINGS. All of them. Not trying to bury them or hide from them but knowing and allowing the full human experience. Weight loss is not about grinding hustling and will powering your way to some end line. Transformation (when done well) is done from the inside out.

By addressing both the physical and mental aspects of dieting and weight loss, she has coached thousands of women ages 30-55+ from all over and helped them ditch the mindsets that are holding them back, achieve permanent weight loss, and get the bangin’ body of their dreams.

Bonnie is an expert at Demystifying weight loss. She helps you unf*ck your diet brain. She is on a mission to help women love themselves, to find PEACE in the process of losing weight, taking care of themselves, and leveraging the power they do have to become who and want they want right now.

Connect with Bonnie-

Facebook Group- https://www.facebook.com/groups/707942356603835

Instagram- https://www.instagram.com/bonnielefrak/

Website- https://bonnielefrak.com

Application- https://bonnielefrak.com/application

Email- bonnie@bonnielefrak.com

With Bonnie Lefrak

UNF*UCK YOUR WEIGHT LOSS

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