May's Meeting Topic-Setbacks in Weight loss

I hear so many times from fellow WLS members the desire for their weight loss to be faster, quicker, without any plateaus.  What’s the song….”What A Wonderful World That Would Be”? 

We didn’t gain weight overnight and we won’t lose it that way either.  How many times have we went on some fad diet, lost weight rapidly only to regain it plus a few bonus pounds in the process of our way back up the scale. 

Slow and steady wins the race.  It is true.  The tragedy is that most people never even get in the race.  Many of those that do hope that success comes easily and rapidly.  When it doesn’t, they drop out of the race, give up and throw in the towel, before it really begins.  What they don’t realize is that the decision to be unstoppable is never made just once.  It is a choice every single day, made sometimes multiple times throughout the day by the choices we make.  Do we exercise, do we eat this or that?  It is all a choice that moves us forward, stay the same or backwards in our quest for weight loss. 

Whether you’ve had weight loss surgery or losing weight on your own or a diet program, setbacks are inevitable.  In fact, they are proof that we are doing something.  Sometimes the greatest lessons come from a challenge.  Those lessons in doing something different in our healthy lifestyle path takes us one step closer to achieving our weight loss goals and maintenance.  When we focus on learning a lesson from a slip up or setback, and stay the course, reaching our weight loss goal will happen.

It is important to remind ourselves that failure is an incident or event, not a person.  If you don’t achieve your weight loss anticipated in a certain period of time, does that make you a failure?  If you make an unhealthy choice in eating or skip exercise, does that make you a failure.  Of course not….Absolutely not!

Failure does not characterize who you are.  It is simply an incident that happens in your life at times.  When you continue to move forward, despite difficult experiences, you have already won. 

If a setback comes your way, find the gift in the setback by asking yourself:

1.  What can I learn from what happened? 2.  What am I grateful for from the experience? 3.  What are the potential benefits from this experience? 4.  What is the best way for me to move forward?

Commit to find the gift in any setback.  Tell yourself that you will never, never, never quit.  If you don’t give up, you cannot fail.  Not only will you achieve your weight loss goals, but the combination of your commitment, courage, and belief in yourself will rise as the greatest victory of all.    BELIEVE IN YOURSELF!