Why Find Your Why?
Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash
It will bring clarity.
Does your diet suck all the fun and joy out of your life? In order to stick to your plan do you have to eat differently than the rest of your family? Are you unable to plan for and include your favorite foods? Do you feel really constrained when you are socializing, or when you are in situations that feel beyond your control?
There is nothing more unsustainable than a program (ANY program, not just weight loss) that requires you to force it into your life in a way that feels difficult and burdensome.
Instead, start to behave and eat in a way that reinforces who you want to be. This is your WHY. This concept is often misunderstood as some automatic solution to all of our weight loss worries. Your WHY is not a magic solution but it can be a powerful tool. Once you clarify your WHY(S), it aids you in pausing during the times when you have to decide what or how much to eat. During these few seconds you can ask yourself if the decision that you are about to make is moving you towards or away from your WHY (aka the person you want to become).
Determining your WHY is not difficult, but you do need to be willing to take some time and give it some thought. Here is an example to get you started:
Why do you want to lose weight? So you are healthier.
Why? So you can stop taking medication.
Why? So you can stop worrying about your health and stop taking so many pills.
Why? So you can spend your time thinking about and planning things you love to do.
Why? So that your life feels more fun.
The last sentence is your WHY, and you can see how much more impactful that feels than the first statement. Let’s say that you are out with your friends and they are all ordering appetizers. You want to do the same, but then you pause and remind yourself that you are someone who wants to have a life that feels more fun. In order to do that you need to eat less so that you are/feel healthier and have more time for actual fun. Food itself is not fun. Our thoughts make food fun, the food itself is just food. You remind yourself of this in the moment and decide not to order an appetizer.
Brainstorm all of the reasons that you want to lose weight and go through the same 5 step process for each one. You need a list of them because different moments require different WHY’S. Avoid WHYS that do not make you feel powerful and strong, or that include words like don’t, should, need…
Write them down - they are only for you and can be as vain, deep, or surface as you want. Once you have them written down, USE them. Journal about them, put them in reminders on your phone, put them on sticky notes in your closet, pantry, or on your computer. Make seeing them a part of your daily routine. The more you expose yourself to them and work with them, the more they will become ingrained into a new way of thinking as you move through the day.
Losing weight to get to a certain number on the scale leaves us thinner, but often, after a short time, just as unhappy. Additionally, we start to become anxious about regaining and may fall back into our fear based relationship with food.
If you do not think about who you want to be, and how you want to live as you lose weight, when you get there, nothing but the amount or type of food you are eating has changed. You have not addressed how to include your favorite foods, how to socialize comfortably, how to manage during those times that are challenging like weekends, late at night, or on a stressful day.
This big picture thinking and dreaming will go a long way towards helping you move in the direction of your goals. It will not prevent setbacks, plateaus, frustrations, or challenges, but it will help you to recognize those for what they are - simply bumps in the road, not reasons to give up.
