Dear Kayla,

Why is this way of eating so hard?! I can do a few days, then go back to eating everything in sight.

Sincerely,

Carla (BMI = 28.6)

Dear Carla,

I hear your frustration. I used to be in the same pattern: set up a plan, stick with it for a few days, get disappointed with the results (or be too exhausted from the effort it took), give up. Lather, rinse, repeat. Then I learned the definition of insanity was doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. So I finally changed my approach. And lo and behold, I finally lost the weight and kept it off.

There are two big changes I made that speak to your exact frustration: difficulty and timeline.

Difficulty

My default mode is to be a hard-charging. I take the bull by the horns. I’m a very high D on the DISC profile. And a big downfall of mine is that I usually make things far harder than they actually need to be. Luckily, one day I heard some great advice from Tim Ferriss: if you have a persistent problem in your life, ask yourself, “What would this look like if it were easy?”

When I did this, I realized a major reason weight loss always felt hard was that I ended up restricting certain foods, which made me miserable. When I fell off plan (or got to my goal weight), I’d go right back to eating those foods and enjoying my life. But all that enjoyment led to weight gain, which ultimately led to misery. I thought, “Hey, if I could really just eat whatever I want, guilt-free, and still lose weight, that would be easy.” I used the same strategy for exercise and intermittent fasting. Walking 6 miles at a slow pace? Easy. Fasting window with coffee with half-and-half whenever I want it? Easy. Take a day off from fasting every week? Easy. In January 2016, I wrote down a plan that, for me, looked far too easy:

• Intermittent fasting 6 days a week. (Note: I was doing about a 16:8 at the time, which over the months went to OMAD)
• Eat whatever I want in the eating window.
• Coffee with half-and-half whenever I want it.
• Cheat day on Sunday.
• Walk 6 miles a day.

The results? I loved my life on this plan. I could eat what I want. No guilt! Cravings went away. I found stopping power because nothing was forbidden. I was consistently active. The biggest shocker of all? My weight dropped by about a pound a week. But that all would have been for naught had I not changed my thinking about my timeline a few weeks before.

Timeline

When I realized in February of 2015 that I was obese, I thought it was reasonable to set a goal to lose 5 pounds a week. I figured that if I lost 5 pounds a week, I could be down 80 pounds by June.

I went to the gym every day and did high-intensity workouts. I did intermittent fasting. I was losing weight, but slowly. So I pushed myself harder and harder. I’d combine IF with macros, or calorie counting. Then I’d quit IF altogether. Then I’d come back to it with renewed effort. I pushed my workouts so hard that I injured myself doing a deadlift. All that work, and by the end of the year, I had only lost 15 pounds. I was bitterly disappointed and ready to throw in the towel. Instead, I sat myself down with my tracking spreadsheet and took a good, long look at my numbers and my notes.

What I saw was that I had a problem with patience. I wasn’t sticking with anything for the long term. I was quitting constantly. Switching things up constantly. But I did have some short bursts of consistency. And those led to weight loss. The problem? It was slow. About a pound a week. I realized I had to get okay with that, and that was hard.

In my mind, my obesity was an emergency. This was the reason I was pushing myself to lose 5 pounds a week. I just wanted to drop the weight fast and fix the problem. But all that rushing only got 15 pounds off, and it took a whole year. At that rate, it was going to take 4 or 5 years to get the weight off, and that was if I could sustain the effort. I knew I could not. It had only been a year, and I was ready to hang it up.

So I sat there, studying my spreadsheet and thinking about my options. I realized that if I had just stuck with what was getting a pound off a week, I likely would have been down 50 pounds that year. Those weeks I lost a pound were simple. Intermittent fasting, no other add-ons. That became the basis for the plan we talked about above.

I decided that going forward, I would focus on consistency and patience. And with that, I changed my timeline. I decided to be happy with ANY progress downward on the scale. I would be consistent, no matter what. I would rejoice at every bit of decrease. I was hoping for a pound a week, since that would mean I’d be at a healthy weight in another year. But I knew that the weight loss might slow down. So I said, it’s okay. It might take 5 years. Or 10. So be it. I will get there, eventually.

When I made that decision, a huge weight was lifted from my shoulders. I got a whole lot more patient with the scale, with the people around me, and with life in general. Sticking with the plan was no longer something I would try for a few days and see how it worked. I was in it for the long haul.

So Carla, here’s my advice. Write down a very simple plan that looks enjoyable to you. And then stick with it. If it feels too hard, make it easier. If intermittent fasting isn’t your jam, figure out what is and do that. All the plans work, provided you stick with them!

If you get overwhelmed with how long it’s going to take, just focus on today. Slow is smooth, and smooth is fast. You can do this. It just takes time.

Sincerely,

Kayla

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