How to get your weight loss mojo back
It’s hard following a plan, believe me, I have tried a number of different regimes, each one takes dedication, energy, motivation and one very important factor, time.
I wouldn’t beat yourself up for falling off the wagon, I have many a-times, quite spectacularly so on many occasions, it’s how you recover from your wobble that counts. If you allow yourself flexibility, you are more likely to stick to it in the future.
When you have work trips, holidays or big events such as weddings or birthdays, a day or a week of non-calorie counting is not going to undo all your hard work. Trust me. Just ensure that your bad eating habits don’t start to resurface.
If you want some help getting back on the wagon once you’ve fallen off it? Here are some quick easy steps that I’ve used in the past to help get my exercise mojo back and start achieving and exceeding those goals again. Trust me I am the queen of plateau’s! Because it is soooo easy to hit a plateau in your weight loss. My journey in particular has taught me new ways of getting over them, hopefully this is will help you too!
1. Focus on eating well, or exercising
Most plans fail because you are doing too much, if you have fallen off the wagon the temptation is to try and reduce calories and increase your exercise all at once, remember with your journey, it is a marathon not a sprint. We all know this from crash dieting! If you want sustainable changes and results, take your time, try and stick to a gym routine first off but be more flexible with your diet. Or reduce your gym workouts to allow yourself more time to prepare healthy meals. Build yourself back up to hitting the gym hard and being in a calorie deficit again… take your time and be easy on yourself.
2. Take a week off
Are you feeling a little disheartened with your plan? Do you need a break? Don’t force yourself to do something you don’t want to do especially when it comes to food, don’t be afraid to have a weekend (or even a whole week) off. Unless you know that you have problems when it comes to binge-eating, there’s only so much damage a few days can do. Eat that pizza, drink the wine, skip the gym, and press the pause button. I bet you won’t enjoy the pizza as much as you thought anyway, but hopefully it will get that urge out of your system. The key is to set a strict deadline to end your over indulgence. Just try to keep these over indulges down to a minimum otherwise you won’t strengthen your weight loss moving forward, let yourself fall off but get back on and pick and choose those social occasion wisely to match your weight loss goals.
3. Track your food and macros with precision
If your weight loss has stalled? Are you guesstimating your portion sizes? Perhaps, it’s time to start weighing them again, don’t forget to log EVERYTHING, even the little bites of someone else’s sandwich (yes guilty!) or the treats you sneak at work during the day, and don’t underestimate your alcohol measures either. Each one on their own are tiny, but when you add them up over the week, it can be the reason you’re in a plateau. Before you lose faith in whatever system you use (calorie counting, macro tracking, weight watchers or slimming world), ensure you’re really following it correctly.
4. Try something new
When it comes to exercise, variety is key. We all have our favourite exercise (hello, weights) and so long as you’re increasing the difficulty or length of your workouts as you get stronger, there’s no problem in having a go-to. But adding in some strength training and more cardio such as, walking, swimming or cycling these will all help avoid you getting bored and you learn to sculpt your body in new ways. Even buy yourself a fitness tracker and see how much you are moving throughout the day and set yourself some new targets.
5. Make your workouts harder and less enjoyable
Sometimes, when you are totally over it, you are bored of your workouts and totally over the gym, have a week of doing something completely different. Try something new. Tough love is often a good way to reset your motivation: rather than looking for an easier program, try something like HITT training, some Long Slow Duration exercises. After doing that, your original workout plan will seem very simple in comparison and will become a breeze to complete.
6. Create a playlist and buy some new gym clothes
Nothing gets me going more than a good playlist! You can easily follow my circuits playlist on Spotify which I consider to have some real workout bangers on there… your music taste might be different to mine, so start your workout playlist now with all those feel-good tracks to get those endorphins flowing next time you are in the gym. Another tip is having a new gym top or trousers that make you feel body confident walking into a gym so you look like me, all the gear but, no idea! ;O)
7. Be kind to your body
This is one of the most important points! It’s OK for your motivation to go up and down. It’s like my moods being a female, some days are good and some days are bad, some days I look great, other days I don’t! It’s fine to gain weight one day and lose it again the next. Take some time out for you and if you are still not feeling great. Book a massage, get a blow-dry, try to learn something new like a language, volunteer for a charity.. looking after numero uno is the key. Become an expert in you to succeed in getting results with your weight loss journey.
Good luck, I am here for you every step of the way if you need me to be!