When you build a house, the most important step is to build a strong foundation.
Without a strong foundation, the house will end up moving, cracking, and eventually falling down. The higher you want to build, the deeper and stronger the foundation needs to be, which is why foundations for skyscrapers are dug deep into the ground.
The same principle applies to long-term weight loss. Without the right foundation, your results will eventually crumble. Losing weight by focusing on food and exercise is just like building your house in the sand. Results might look good for a short while, but they will never last. This explains why so many people lose weight but end up gaining it back again.
If your goal is long-term weight loss you need to build a strong foundation and to do that, you need to focus on the following — in order of importance.
Habits and mindset
Contrary to what the weight loss and diet industry will tell you, the biggest influence on your weight are your habits and mindset — not food and exercise. This is why our DATSTM Personal Coaching Program is grounded in habit and mindset change. You see, the biggest influence over your weight isn’t what you eat, or how much you exercise. It’s why you eat what you do and exercise how you do — which comes down to your habits. You can read more about this in our blog The solution to your body weight problem is not in addressing what you do but why you do it.
Where most people go wrong is they start by going on a diet and focusing on food and exercise and use motivation and willpower to stick to their plan. But this doesn’t work for long-term results. We explain why in our blog Willpower versus habits. If you want to experience long-term weight loss, you must address your habits — the reasons you became overweight in the first place — and develop new ones that will help you lose weight and keep it off. We explain what these are in our blog 7 habits for effective weight loss.
Limiting beliefs and identity
The next most important thing you need to address to lose weight long-term is your limiting beliefs and identity. Limiting beliefs are false thoughts or opinions that you believe to be the truth. These can come from the family system you grew up with, or be formed as a result of different things happening to you.
These beliefs (also known as habits) shape your behaviour, and eventually define your identity. For example, if you were told you looked ‘big’, you’re likely to believe that you’re overweight, and then develop an identity of someone who needs to lose weight, and then turn to dieting.
The more you repeat a behaviour, the more you reinforce that identity because you create ‘evidence’ that supports these beliefs. So by going on diet after diet, you have evidence that you’re overweight, and you, therefore, reinforce your identity as someone who needs to lose weight. You can read more about this, as well as a member case study in our blog How your limiting beliefs and identity impacts your weight.
Changing your beliefs and identity around who you are is vital if you want to lose weight for good. You can read more about this in our blog How to build your self-worth so you can lose weight for good.
Metabolic blockers — sleep, stress, and alcohol
Did you know that there are things called metabolic blockers that impact your metabolism and make it harder for you to lose weight? These have more of an impact on your weight than food and exercise, which is why it’s important to focus on them. The three main metabolic blockers you need to be concerned with are:
- Poor sleep
- Stress
- Alcohol consumption
Poor sleep
Poor sleep is associated with weight gain, increased appetite and the likelihood of consuming extra calories, a lower metabolic rate, and increased stress levels. You can read more details in our blog Sleep and weight loss: the unexpected connection.
If you want to lose weight and keep it off, you need to focus on developing good sleep habits. You can read how in our blog Top tips to improve your sleep.
Stress
Stress is another factor that will wreak havoc with your general health as well as your weight. Stress elicits responses in your body that make it difficult to lose weight. You can read more about this in our blog How stress and weight gain are linked.
Most people’s solutions to reduce stress involve things like meditation, aromatherapy, or yoga. While there is nothing wrong with these activities, the only way you can successfully reduce stress is to address the reasons why you’re stressed. We explain how to do this in our blog Why stress management techniques won’t eliminate your stress and what you need to do instead.
Alcohol
While there is nothing wrong with having the odd drink here and there, if drinking is a regular part of your life, then it will impact your weight. You can find out how in our blog Alcohol and weight gain: 9 ways drinking affects your body shape.
You might think that the best approach is to cut out alcohol completely or drink alcohol-free versions of wine and beer. While doing this will reduce calorie intake, it doesn’t solve the reason why you’re drinking in the first place. For example, are you drinking because you lack self-worth and want to fit in? Are you drinking to reduce stress? The best approach to solving your drinking problem is to look at why you have a problem with alcohol. Because when you solve the why your problems around alcohol will take care of themselves.
Daily movement
Our bodies were designed to move, so incorporating daily movement into your week is important. Contrary to popular opinion, walking 10,000 steps a day isn’t the best approach. We explain why in our blog Why 10,000 steps a day challenge is bullshit and what to do instead.
Daily movement should involve focusing on the overall movement of the body through low-impact activities such as walking, cycling, swimming, gardening, or any other activity that keeps you moving without the intense focus of training. You should also work on your mobility (the range of motion of the joints) and flexibility (the range of motion of your muscles). Working on your mobility and flexibility will help you move better, which will help you train better and get better results. It will also help you do daily tasks more easily and will reduce the risk of injury. Having good mobility and flexibility is extremely important as you age and it can also help you avoid aches and pains often attributed to ‘old age’.
Nutrition
Most people believe that focusing on their food is the most important thing they can do if they want to lose weight. In reality, eating better won’t help you lose weight because your habits have the biggest influence on your weight. Similarly, creating a calorie deficit by under-eating, cutting out food groups or focusing on ‘eating clean’ will also backfire on you. The best approach is to eat a wide range of foods, forget food rules and restricting foods, allow yourself to eat your favourite foods from time to time, and learn to develop a good relationship with food.
You might like to read about our food philosophy in our blog Weight loss philosophies that will change your life.
Training
At the top of the pyramid is training. The diet and fitness industry would have you believe that exercise plays a significant role in weight loss. While exercise is important, it’s nowhere near as important as you think. In fact, exercise is just 3% of the weight-loss equation. We explain this in more detail in our blogs The truth the fitness industry won’t tell you about exercise and The 97/3 weight loss strategy.
When it comes to exercise, you need to make resistance training your focus (not cardio) and take a different approach to what you’ve been told by the diet and fitness industry. We explain the best approach in our blog How to exercise for weight loss after 40.
Nothing changes if nothing changes
If you’ve been struggling with your weight for a while, you’ve probably been doing the same thing over and over again — focusing on food and exercise to shift those kilos and paying little heed to your habits, mindset, and metabolic blockers. Yet this approach simply doesn’t work. Rather than change their approach to weight loss, most people blame themselves or go in search of the ‘magic bullet’ solution that will work for them. This explains why people go from one diet to another, never getting any results. It doesn’t matter what diet, program, or plan you follow if you’re still doing the same things (e.g. restricting food or focusing on burning calories through exercise), you’ll never lose weight.
If your goal is long-term weight loss, you need to stop doing what you’ve always done and do something different. Because the only way to lose weight and keep it off is to do the opposite of what you currently know. We explain this in our blog Nothing changes if nothing changes: How to lose weight for good.
How DATSTM Program help
The DATSTM Personal Coaching Program (habit, mindset, and weight loss) takes the guesswork out of your approach to weight loss and helps you identify the habits, beliefs, and mindsets that are contributing to your weight problem. We then work with you to develop a personalised action plan that focuses on the things that have the biggest impact on your weight, so you can finally start moving in the right direction. DATSTM will give you the knowledge, systems, tools, and skills to help you lose weight — even on your worst days.
In summary…
- To achieve long-term weight loss, you need to build a solid foundation.
- Most people get weight loss wrong because they focus on the two things that have the least impact — food and exercise.
- Your weight loss foundation should begin with habit and mindset change because these are the two things that have the biggest impact on your weight.
- You also need to work on your limiting beliefs and identity, metabolic blockers and daily movement
- Food and exercise are at the top of the long-term weight loss pyramid because they have the smallest impact.
- If you want to lose weight and keep it off, you need to stop doing what you’ve always done and do something different
- Our DATSTM Personal Coaching Program turns weight loss on its head and helps you build a strong foundation that supports long-term weight loss.
- Our DATSTM Personal Coaching Program gives you the knowledge, systems, tools and skills to assist with your mental health even on your worst days.
