Being bombarded with all the weight loss trends and fads nowadays is making me feel a bit philosophical. With so many weight loss paths to choose from, you can lose weight from the fatigue of thinking about all of them and worrying about what to go for (that’s an exaggeration of course, or is it?).
From my experience though, when confronted with a lot of choices, all having a lot of different features, promising all sorts of miraculous results, the way to make sure it works for you and give you the results you want is to always return to the basic principles and fundamentals.
So let’s drop all those “10 unknown secrets”, “100 guaranteed tips”, and “1000 latest celebrity diets” for a moment and stick to what makes any program you choose work for you.
Following the Right Path…
In weight loss, as it is in everything, if you trek the right path slowly, eventually you’ll get to where you want to go. If you trek the wrong path, you’ll never reach your destination no matter how fast you go.
In terms of your weight loss journey, the path represents the workout program and/or diet plan you choose. That is, the success or failure of your weight loss endeavor is highly reliant on what workout program or diet plan you choose. It sounds simple, but this is where most people makes mistakes and therefore not reach their ideal weight.
When it comes to choosing which diet plan or workout program to follow, there are a hundred and one factors you can consider. We love to make things simple though right? Therefore, if there’s one factor that you need to focus on to establish the effectiveness of a product, that factor would be 3rd party reviews or testimonials.
That’s right, read reviews and testimonials FROM OTHER SITES (most product sales pages have testimonials in them, however they may be from the product owner’s friends and colleagues). Also, it’s better to believe normal person reviews and testimonials against celebrity testimonials. Celebrities might have the more widespread marketing push, but normal person testimonials hold much more credibility.
Know the Meaning of Insanity and Sacrifice…
Insanity, in motivational and self-help parlance, means doing the same things over and over again and expecting different results. On the other hand, sacrifice, again in motivational and self-help parlance, means if you want something you have never had, you must be prepared to do something you have never done.
Therefore, combining the two together, it simply means try something different from what you have been previously doing and be prepared to do whatever it is the new program tells you to do, no matter how difficult or unfamiliar it is for you.
If you chose the right program like what we discussed above, you should put your faith in the program and all your previous biases and “things you think you know” should not get in the way.
Keep It Up…
It’s easy to say that you shouldn’t give up and see the program through the end. But in reality it’s hard to do. In most cases, it’s easier to get started on a program than to keep going and actually finishing it. From my experience, you tend to quit in the middle of a program when your actual results don’t meet your expected results.
In most cases, we set expected results too high and are unreasonably hard to reach. That’s normal and fine. It makes you strive harder and go out of your comfort zone. So the trick to be able to keep going is to not look at your results often and just put your trust on the program you are doing.
You see, you get shifting motivation if you keep looking at results frequently. That is, if you expected to lose 5 pounds in 1 week and you only lost 2, you get demotivated. On the other hand, if you expected to lose 5 pounds and lost 7 pounds, you get more fired up.
This fluctuating motivation is very unpredictable, which leads to unpredictable results. The key is to remove it altogether. Lessen the frequency that you look at your results. Weeks in between is good, months in between, if you can manage, it is better. You then get your much needed reassurance by just focusing on the program you are doing. Just follow the system and results will follow.
Kurt Lao is the Editor of weight loss product reviews resource: WeightRater.com. He has written several product reviews to his credit and serves as a contributor to some of the top health and weight loss blogs online.