Weight loss, like anything else in life, can be a tricky road to navigate. It can be exciting to see progress and frustrating when you think you’re doing everything “right" but hit a plateau. Yes, you read the correctly. I put the word right in quotation marks. Sometimes there’s not necessarily a right or wrong way to do something. There’s several ways to go about doing something and you just need to find the one that works for you.
Before you even begin your weight loss journey, one important question to ask yourself is: Does your weight loss goal align with your values and vision for your life?
Now, you might be wondering what in the world your values have to do with weight loss. Or how the connection between weight loss and your vision for your life will help you burn more fat. I get that it might not make much sense now, but don’t worry. At the end of this article, you’ll have a better understanding of the importance of aligning your values and vision for your life with your health and fitness goals and how the two are connected through your Why. By the way, this is the very first thing I tackle with my clients when we start working together and the conversation continues throughout the time we work together. You’ll understand why this is first and foremost as you continue reading.
Ready? Okay, here we go!
Makes It Easy
The first and probably most important reason is it’s going to make your life easier. When you’re aware of what your values are you can create a strategy that aligns with what you believe in and how you want to live your life.
For example, it’s so easy to get caught up in following all the health and wellness influencers on social media who tell you how and what you “should” be eating to lose weight. Or there’s a specific workout that’s going to help you burn more fat when you complete it at least 5 days a week. Should you focus on eating mostly whole foods? Yes, of course. But you have the freedom to choose which whole foods you want to eat. Would it be beneficial for you to workout at least 5 days a week? Absolutely! But is it realistic for your schedule? Maybe not.
If you want to make time to help your kids with their homework at night, you can schedule your workouts around this even if it means starting with one day a week and building from there. If you want to get more movement in on the weekends but value spending quality time with your family on Sundays, you can include them in some sort of physical activity. My hubby and I love to go on hikes together on the weekends. We get quality time and sunshine, fresh air, and movement. This aligns with our values of staying connected as a couple and getting movement in on the weekends.
Keeps You Focused
Creating sustainable lifestyle habits that help you lose weight and keep it off isn’t always easy. In fact, some days it can be really messy. I actually just experienced this today. I was short on time this morning for my workout because of a last minute work commitment for my hubby. So, I had the choice to either skip my workout all together or squeeze in a 10 minute burpee workout. While choosing to skip my workout all together would have been a great choice (I’ll touch on why in a moment), I chose to do some sort of movement within the 10 minutes I had available. It was an easy choice for me to make once I talked through it with myself, and of course I felt awesome after my 10 minute workout.
Now, let’s chat about why choosing not to workout could have been a great choice. Obstacles get in your way in life and there’s really no way to avoid them. If I would have chosen to skip my workout and head straight for the shower, I would have been okay with that because I went through my options. I could have just shifted the workout I had planned to later in the week. In addition to being able to shift my workout, I’ve set realistic expectations for myself and am very aware that I’m not going to be perfect. Ever. Perfection does not align with my value system. In fact, I don’t even like using the word “perfect” with myself or with my clients.
Trust Your Body
Learning how to trust your body and give it what it needs is a skill that I teach in my programs. I’ve said it over and over again and I’ll say it again right now: when you give your body the appropriate input, it will provide you with the optimal output. Your body knows exactly what to do when you give what it wants. I’ll be saying this for the rest of my life and it will probably be the last words I speak because it’s true.
Getting really good at listening to your body and feeding it when it needs to be fed, moving it when it wants to move, and giving it rest when it needs to rest can be a bit challenging in the beginning. One of the reasons this can be challenging is you might need to unlearn some things. For example, when you’re PMSing and you’re craving sweet stuff, you could be telling yourself that it’s okay to eat an entire cake because that’s what your body wants.
Yes, your body most likely craves more carbs during this time in your cycle. There’s actually a biological reason for this being that your progesterone levels are low and your body is telling you to increase them. One way to do this is with starchy carbs. Rather than eating an entire cake, experiment with whole food carbs such as potatoes or even rice. Just to be clear, I’m not saying you can never eat cake. I love cake and I eat it! I just don’t eat the entire cake because I know if I did I would feel really sick afterwards and it’s just not worth it to me.
Advocate For Yourself
Most of my clients are working with other health care professionals in one way or another. Some are seeing therapists to work through trauma or life challenges while others are working with their physician to get a medical condition under control. Having a clear understanding of your values and your vision for your life will help you advocate for yourself while working with health care professionals. This includes working with me as your health and fitness coach. I’ll explain how advocating for your self while working with me benefits you later on.
For instance, if you’ve been experiencing heavy bleeding or insulin resistance with your PCOS diagnosis, your physician may want to put you on birth control. If you really do not want to go on birth control because you had a bad experience with it, you have the freedom to say “no thank you” to the hormones and work with them to create a more holistic way of managing PCOS. Now, I’m not a licensed medical doctor but I do know enough about PCOS to know that it can be managed with lifestyle habits such as food and exercise.
So, why is it important to be an advocate for yourself when you work with me? My role as your health and fitness coach is not to tell you exactly what to do. I’m here to help you find nutrition, fitness, and rest habits that align with your lifestyle, goals, values, and vision for your life. Being able to clearly communicate with me will help you get to a deeper level so you can get results. It’s what I’m trained to do and it’s actually the best strategy for you as my client to get results in the most efficient way possible. I may be the women’s nutrition and fitness expert in our coach-client relationship but you’re the expert in your life and you know what’s best for you.
Now it’s time to take action!
Write out everything you value in life. What’s really important to you? If you were the healthiest version of yourself, what would your life look like?
Need help with this? Go here to book a free call with me and we can work through this together.