WEIGHT LOSS BENEFITS

Make yourself accountable

After you make a commitment to yourself, share your plan with someone else. Articulating a plan to others can reinforce the level of commitment to the plan while also introducing social motivators. Setting reminders with digital technology or hanging up a motivating sign at home or in the office can also help us keep our goals in mind.

Modify your thinking

Pay attention to the messages you’re telling yourself, honing in on any negative or unproductive thoughts. Then consciously challenge these thoughts, replacing them with messages that reflect greater self-compassion. This is important to do in so any realm of personal thought, but particularly around weight management and body image. Our behaviors play a large role in weight loss, and our thinking really does help drive our behavior.

Learn to regularly manage stress

Ideally, stress management techniques will be a part of your daily routine. Developing healthy coping responses to stress can be helpful for many reasons, reducing emotional eating among them. Prioritizing regular self-care can be one way to help manage stress.

Educate yourself about weight loss

Many of us want to lose weight. When we struggle, when our attempts fail, or when we gain back weight we have lost, we may wonder what we are doing wrong. But knowledge is power, and making a plan based on misleading information is likely to inhibit progress. Weight loss does not have to cost a lot of money, nor does it require a gym membership. There is a lot of data that supports the type of approaches that can be effective—and those that are often less effective. Trending diets, expensive meal plans, and other fads may seem to yield results for others, and they may indeed yield results for anyone at first, but they are less likely to lead to lasting behavioral change.