8 Ways To Restart Your Weight Loss Path (Part 1)

November 30, 2022 Ashley 0 Comments

Those initial days of weight loss and strength gains are blissful, aren’t they?

The feeling of freedom? Of accomplishment?

Like you could do anything?

And then… it hits. The de-motivation wave.

How do we get over this feeling? When it hits, our number one question is about how to fix it. But, what we really need to do is to first understand why it’s happening. Only then can we stage a plan of attack. If your best friend came to you and was crying her eyes out, would you just immediately start throwing solutions at her? No. First, you’d ask her why she was crying. Then you’d try to help her fix it, now that you were well equipped with the source of the problem. The same goes for a spontaneous case of the don’t-wanna’s. A sudden unwillingness to continue on our weight loss path when we’ve been doing so well can be caused by a number of reasons. And while they are many, the solution is usually about upgrading something in our lives to help us get back on track.

Here are some examples…

YOU DIDN’T WIN

When I started jiu-jitsu, I had no intention of competing.

It was a hobby. It was for self protection. Then it became a community of friends. Before I knew it, I was getting pressured into competing. (I hadn’t even wanted to or planned on it.) And, before long after that, I was so invested that, after I lost, I fell off on my training for a bit. For me, that meant an upgrade of perspective: remembering that I never intended to compete when I began, that competion is where you go to learn – not always win, that I’d won more tournaments than not, and that jitz is a journey. For someone like my friend, a man who lives to compete, however – it looks a bit different. For him, he had to go home and do some self reflection. He should have had a coach there. He hadn’t been cross training much. He saw his weak areas. So, he went home, mourned his loss for a little, and then started upgrading all those areas as soon as he emerged from that cocoon of introspection.

YOU DIDN’T WIN… THE GIRL/GUY

This is one you’ll see (and fall victim to, potentially) a lot.

And it’s got layers to it because it actually swings to the extremes. On the one end, there’s completely losing motivation (unhealthy) and on the other, there’s overdoing it (also unhealthy). Sometimes we’ll get the weight loss or the gains we only worked for because of that one person. Once we were there, we told ourselves, that person would suddenly love us. But we worked and we worked and they still didn’t want us once we crossed that goal finish line we had in mind. Sometimes this means we fall off completely. And we slowly spiral back into a state of unhealth. On the contrary, some of us started hoping to achieve a connection with someone else. When that doesn’t come to fruition, the adrenaline and endorphin boost that comes with going to a gym, doing an exhilarating workout, and connecting with the friends you make there itself can feel like all we have. That’s when it may turn into a compulsion.

It doesn’t sound like a bad problem to have until you face burn out and body wear and tear (and injuries). Because we’re not enjoying the well roundedness that a meaningful relationship coupled with a healthy fitness routine brings (oxytocin in addition to all those endorphins and adrenaline and serotonin), we just OD on the stuff we can do on our own. So, what’s the upgrade? To start hitting our internal gym. There’s a GymFailNation meme circulating, showing this ultra ripped giga Chad lamenting over his weight bench while the prompt reads something like, “Next set is ten reps of talking to a girl”. If this sounds like you, it might be high time to start working on your people skills. Youtube has a plethora of channels on how to build your confidence and interpersonal interactions on a real – not just physical – level. Because, let’s face it. If getting guns and massive calves were gonna give you the self affirmation and people skills you needed to “get the girl”, she’d be with you by now.

Keep reading for more tips on how to upgrade your motivation…