Written by: Rebecca Laurel-Hill, RDN, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
There is a belief people have that changing the way you eat or being able to lose weight and keep it off is all about willpower.
But the truth is it’s never about willpower. Forcing yourself to eat differently or using deprivation to lose weight is not the answer to creating a real change in your eating or body.
Most people who diet already have very strong willpower. That willpower has allowed them to go on diets and have success on them. But that willpower to diet has not served them in keeping weight off long term, and it keeps them stuck in cycles of losing and regaining.
Changing eating behaviors by relying on willpower and dieting strategies is a fear-based way to lose weight and it backfires most of the time. By fear-based, I mean that you fear being a certain body shape or size or fear a certain health outcome by carrying extra weight, and that fear drives you to want to lose weight.
However, any behavior change that is driven by fear, or a feeling of "I'm lacking something", comes with resistance, and therefore it is difficult to maintain that change long term.
The reason fear-based motivation is not sustainable and doesn't lead to lasting results is that what you are wanting is not a true desire, which means it creates lots of inner resistance that you think you have to overcome with willpower. In fear-based motivation, you are choosing a goal because you want to avoid something else, not because you are in love with pursuing the goal.
A true desire, and then true motivation, comes from a feeling of love. Such as “I would love to pursue this goal simply because I’d love to experience it and be that version of myself”. It excites you and feels joyful and true to your soul. It’s very much a “want to” and never feels like a “have to”.
To lose weight with more joy, ease, and also permanently, you have to choose weight loss because you would love to give yourself your time, care, and attention; because you are deciding to love living in your current body and want to take even better care of your body; and because you love how it feels to live in a vibrant body.
This shift from fear-based motivation (I fear that I'm lacking something so therefore, I must change) to love-based motivation (I love my body and my life and want to experience being this new version of myself) is the key to achieving a permanent change.
4 Steps to Finding Your Love-Based Motivation for Permanent Weight Loss
1. Believe you and your body are worthy, capable, and good enough right now.
People often turn to dieting out of fear of not being enough in some way. They fear they can't eat well enough or that their body is not good enough, and turn to dieting to learn how to eat better or feel better about their body.
In this article, I talk about practicing body love at any size and how it allows you to create lasting weight loss. Your body is always good enough as it is. It's your best friend and partner in achieving lasting weight loss so it deserves all your love right now even if you don't like the reflection in the mirror.
Whatever you currently believe about yourself, your body, or your eating is all optional. The thing about beliefs is that they are not facts, but rather stories and ideas we tell ourselves over and over. Often we hold so tightly to limiting beliefs that don’t serve us because we are constantly looking for evidence to support them. This makes them feel true to us, but they are not truths, they are merely ideas we have accepted as true. This means you can always choose another truth for yourself.
Start looking for reasons why you can eat healthy without dieting and give yourself more and more evidence of this by practicing eating in a way that feels healthy and enjoyable for you without rules. Real and lasting weight loss comes from experimentation and finding what is right for you, your body, and your life. It also comes from loving food and not fearing it. Dieting and dieting rules can cause us to fear food. Fearing food will fuel overeating habits. Allow yourself to fall back in love with food and truly savor it and you will eat less.
2. Believe your body is always seeking health and balance.
Losing weight naturally requires you to have self-trust and body trust. Dieting unfortunately damages self-trust and body trust. If you have a history of dieting and don’t trust yourself with food or trust your body’s natural ability to lose weight, be patient with yourself as you rebuild that trust.
You learn to trust yourself by allowing yourself trial and error and doing this imperfectly, while also staying committed to your vision of change. Self-judgment and self-punishment for "failing" destroy your ability to have self-trust because you are acting as your enemy instead of as your cheerleader. This means you must always be kind and encouraging to yourself, even on the bad days when you overeat or when the scale goes up.
Trust that nothing has ever gone wrong and that you are always on track as long as you stay committed to your vision. Keep showing up for yourself and your body. A trusting and respectful relationship with your body is what allows it to lose weight without dieting and keep it off. Your body is always seeking health and balance and it will find its ideal way of eating, its ideal weight, and its ideal health when you can trust it and support it with baby-step improvements in your beliefs and actions.
3. Believe your body knows exactly how to eat well and be nourished.
Dieting and diet gurus lead us to think our bodies are not the experts and can't be trusted. This is a huge problem because it disconnects us from our bodies and causes us to seek guidance outside of ourselves. Dieting strategies and meal plans may be useful to experiment with to see if eating a certain way feels good to you, but your body's guidance trumps all. Pay attention to what food feels good in your body. Notice your energy and digestion. Also, eat what you enjoy, deprivation is not necessary. Imagine the version of you who is feeling balanced and healthy and naturally at her ideal weight. Is she depriving herself of all the foods she loves? No, she has found her balance.
This means you have to let go of any rules that are not your own and be willing to experiment. Practice listening to your body's cues and learn to understand them, and then practice honoring what they are telling you to do. Every person's body is unique and every person's life is unique. This means healthy eating and easier weight management is forever a dynamic process that requires an open mind and willingness to adjust to your body's needs and your lifestyle changes. The goal is to learn how to stay in the flow and not get caught up in outside opinions or other people's eating strategies. Honor yourself and honor your body's guidance and responses, and find your unique path to optimal wellness.
4. Find your joyful “why.”
This is the most important step for creating a new result that lasts. As discussed earlier, your "why" needs to come from a feeling of love for your motivation to last and have changes feel more enjoyable (instead of feeling like you are fighting with yourself). Choose a weight loss goal because living as that version of yourself day in and day out lights you up and feels joyful.
Here are some journaling questions to help you get to know this healthier, more joyful version of yourself:
What does she think and believe about herself?
How does she see herself?
What does she do in her day-to-day life?
What habits does she have?
What does she surround herself with?
Who does she surround herself with?
Where does she go?
What things bring her joy?
How does she bring more of that joy into her daily life?
What skills or capabilities does she have?
If she were a loving coach and mentor, what would she say to you to guide you forward to achieving your weight loss goal?
What loving suggestions, advice, or encouragement does she give you each day to help you be this next version of yourself?
In summary, to lose weight permanently and without willpower, you have to be willing to practice loving who you are now, and accept where you are now, even though you are seeking a change and becoming a new version of yourself. You have to be willing to experiment to find actions and behaviors you love to do that allow you to become this new version of yourself. You have to allow yourself to have fun in the process and not take bad days so seriously. You have to be willing to let go of other people's rules and discover your own. You have to be willing to start trusting yourself that you can eat well, and trusting that your body can lose weight and keep it off without a diet program. You have to let go of perfectionist thinking and embrace experimentation and play.
Rebecca Laurel-Hill, RDN, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Rebecca Laurel-Hill is a registered dietitian-nutritionist and mindset coach who previously struggled with exercise bulimia. She teaches other driven, high-achieving women how to end cycles of over-striving, over-stressing, and emotional eating to cope. Her mission in business is to create a world of women who have an easy, healthy relationship with food and love living in their bodies.
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