Trying to Lose Weight? Stop Rushing It!

Stop Chasing Fast Results!

This is the first in a three part series about fat loss, body composition, and the way we think about progress. Over the next three blogs, I want to help you better understand why slower progress is often better progress, why comparing your results to somebody else’s makes very little sense, and why fat loss and weight loss are not the same thing.

One of the most common things I hear when someone is trying to lose weight is some version of, “I’ve only lost five pounds,” or “I’ve only lost two pounds this month.”

And almost every time, the word that stands out to me is only.

Only compared to what?

Usually, it is compared to an expectation that came from a diet they did years ago, a friend who lost weight faster, something they saw on social media, or a program promising dramatic results in 30 days.

We have been conditioned to believe that faster is better when it comes to changing our bodies. If the scale is dropping quickly, the plan must be working. If it is moving slowly, something must be wrong.

But fast weight loss and successful fat loss are not necessarily the same thing.

In fact, one of the biggest mistakes I see people make is becoming so focused on how quickly they can lose weight that they never stop to ask a much more important question: What is this going to require of me to keep it off?

Because losing weight is only one part of the equation. You also have to build a life that allows you to maintain the result.

This is something I talk about often with Angie, the nutrition coach I work closely with. Good coaching is not just about handing someone a calorie target and seeing how quickly we can make the number on the scale go down. It is about helping someone understand their habits, their behaviors, their lifestyle and the choices they are making consistently enough that the result becomes something they can actually sustain.

That process takes time.

You are not just trying to lose weight. You are learning how to eat differently, train differently, think differently and respond differently when life inevitably gets busy, stressful or unpredictable.

You are building skills.

You are building habits.

You are building trust in yourself.

And ideally, you are building an identity around being someone who takes care of her body instead of someone who is constantly either “on” or “off” a diet.

If you have spent years bouncing between restriction and overeating, dieting and not dieting, losing weight and gaining it back, it makes sense that you want the next attempt to work quickly. You are tired of dealing with it.

But that is exactly why I think the goal needs to change.

If you are willing to do anything, can you allow yourself to do it right? Can you allow yourself to do it right once and reap the rewards of that work instead of spending the next decade losing and regaining the same weight?

Because doing it right probably looks very different from the diets and quick fixes most of us have been taught to chase.

Doing it right will probably be slower than you would like, but when it comes to weight loss, I strongly believe slow is steady and steady is fast.

The goal is not to see how miserable you can make yourself for eight weeks. The goal is to figure out what you can realistically continue doing when nobody is watching and there is no deadline hanging over your head.

That might mean eating more food than you expected during a fat loss phase. It might mean strength training instead of trying to burn as many calories as possible. It might mean taking maintenance periods instead of dieting continuously. It might mean learning how to navigate weekends, vacations, holidays and meals out instead of avoiding them.

Those things may not produce the dramatic before-and-after transformation in six weeks that gets attention online. But they are far more useful if your goal is to change your body and still recognize your life when you are finished.

I often think about it like fixing a problem in your house. If your air conditioner is not cooling properly because there is an issue with the ductwork, you could keep lowering the thermostat and running the system harder. You might get temporary relief, but you have not actually solved the problem. Eventually you are going to have to address what is causing it.

Fat loss can be similar.

You can keep pulling calories lower, adding more cardio and trying to force the scale down faster. Or you can take the time to address the behaviors, nutrition, training and lifestyle that got you where you are and build something better.

One approach gives you a temporary result.

The other gives you something you know how to maintain.

So when you catch yourself saying, “I’ve only lost…” I want you to pay attention to what comes after that sentence.

If the scale is moving slowly but you are getting stronger, eating enough protein, maintaining or building muscle, learning how to manage your nutrition and creating habits you can realistically continue, you may be making much better progress than you realize.

You do not need another dramatic reset.

You need a process you can trust.

Do it once. Do it right. Never do it again.

In Part 2, we are going to talk about another habit that can make even good progress feel inadequate: comparing your results to somebody else’s.

Be Capable,
Laci

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