It’s very easy to treat the effort of losing weight as a totally uniform experience for everyone. It’s not necessarily a bad thing to do so. After all, there are universal principles and efforts that WILL help you lose weight if you follow them and remain disciplined in that approach. For instance, the calories in/calories out method may not be perfect, but if you eat less calories than you consume in a day, in general, you will lose weight over time. Even if this isn’t a linear process, the greater trend there defines this as an actionable truth.
But simply acting as if one solution will work for everyone is a bad idea. As there are many habits, behaviors and practices that can be involved in helping you gain weight, there are many ways to lose weight also. For instance, some people may opt for the CICO method as discussed, some may gain benefit from intermittent fasting and keto diets, while another may even opt for a weight loss jab, or even gastric surgery in extreme cases.

In this post, we’ll discuss how you can identify which route is ideal for you – and if you should partake in it.

How Did You Get Here?

How did you get to the point that you’re at? This might be a specific weight, or lifestyle, or diagnosis, or combination of all of that. Perhaps you find that you comfort eat when stressed out. Perhaps you have a pretty intensive sugary-drink habit which is taking its toll. Maybe you’ve just been somewhat stressed during quarantine and turned to baking way too many goods to give yourself something to do and calm yourself. Maybe you’ve been drinking too much.
It’s okay to admit you’ve made a mistake or that a habit has gotten a little out of control. Often, it can help you resolve the issue with more care and attention, treating a cause rather than a symptom. For instance, seeking help for a drinking habit can help you slowly curb that addiction while also giving you the tools to eat more healthily. This way, slip-ups are less likely, and a healthier routine can be integrated.

What Are Your Goals?

It’s hard to lose weight and keep it off unless you have goals. Otherwise, this process is relatively amorphous and is hard to track and measure.
Perhaps you hope to lose 15 kilograms by the spring next year. That’s a very achievable goal. This way, you can plan your diet for each week, including what calories deficit you need to keep up with to lose this weight healthily. You can then use apps like MyFitnessPal to scan the foods you eat and how much you consume. This can lead you to kee pa relatively ballpark figure going forward, keeping you on track.
Then, mark the loss you’re making each week and mark your progress. It will make a massive difference in how motivated you feel, and how much more likely you are to keep up with your new routine.

What’s A Reasonable, Realistic Approach For You To Take?

Often, people fail in their weight loss attempts because they set overly ambitious goals for themselves. This isn’t to say you can’t achieve great things, you can, but one step at a time. So, what’s a reasonable and realistic approach for you to take? Perhaps right now, you can cut off your sugary drink consumption or work on learning how to cook proper, nutritionally dense meals with good ingredients.
Maybe you just need to cultivate your shopping list by visiting better stores and making a food budget for each week rather than continually ordering food from a service like Uber Eats.

This might sound patronizing, but the best way for anyone to find results is to approach their tasks one step at a time. When you climb one hill, you can then focus on the next one, a little wiser and more capable than before. Keeping up with this can help you, over time, establish yourself as someone who can take the small victories as momentum. This way, you can avoid taking on the entire burden of fixing your entire set of ill-adjusted eating habits in one fell swoop. In some cases, the first hill simply involves setting up an exercise regime. This way, you can take your own weight loss journey* step by step in the best manner.

With this advice, you’re more likely to identify what weight loss means to you – and benefit from that in the best way.