There is a secret to weight loss...but it isn't what you think it is!

I try to minimize my posts on 'weight loss' for a variety of reasons. I prefer to focus on health and wellness in a wholistic sense, which can include the physical size of your body and its relationship with gravity, but is so much more than numbers on a scale or the total amount of fat your physical form occupies.

However, of all the questions I get, the vast majority have to do with the desire to lose weight.

Let me be clear here: There is nothing wrong with wanting to lose weight. There is nothing wrong with wanting your body to feel healthy, strong and attractive to yourself and to others. I do believe that physical attraction is a much more complex equation than just body size, and that humans can be beautiful at any size. But there is nothing wrong with wanting to reduce your body size if that is your goal.

Now, you have likely heard a million 'facts' about weight loss. You've been inundated with promises of the 'secret' to success. Diet pills, magic herbs, potent protein shakes...you've seen them all. You've probably even tried a few, with varying levels of success. Most do not deliver on their promises.

The claims you've been sold aren't true.

You've also been inundated with catch phrases like "There IS no secret to weight loss", and told that weight is a simple relationship between food consumed and calories burned.  You've been told that being overweight is a choice, a lifestyle mistake, an error in judgment or a lack of self respect.

These claims aren't true either.

Weight is complex. Why? Because the body is complex. And every body reacts slightly differently to every stimulus introduced. Some people will have success with certain tactics, and others will not.

There is no one size fits all solution for how to reduce your size.

But, I believe that there is a secret to weight loss. And it isn't the one that the health and fitness industries have been trying to sell you.

It is the one tool that no one can give you except yourself, and it is the one thing that will help you succeed in your goals:

Weight loss, like all other forms of self-improvement, is fuelled by the mind and the heart long before it is fuelled by the body.

The secret to weight loss is self-love. 

"What?" you ask. "Isn't it the other way around?"

No. 

You must love yourself in order to truly be successful at weight loss, and the reason why is simple:

Losing weight is hard. Whether you choose to do it by focusing exclusively on diet, on exercise, or on a combination of both, it is hard. It requires massive changes to your lifestyle. It requires a strong sense of will and determination in the faces of sabotages and social pressures. It requires a commitment of time, energy and resources.

And for you to be willing to go through all of that, you must fundamentally come to terms with one thing: You are a valuable person, one who is worth investing time, energy, effort, and resources into. 

Pretend for a moment, that you have been given $5000.00, but that you have to invest it in order to keep it. I imagine that most of us would want to seek out businesses that are strong, successful and show indications of growth and stability in the future.

Some of us might be willing to gamble on the little guy, the one who doesn't have an established sales base but that has an idea or product that you genuinely believe will be successful and will make the world a better place.

But few of us would put our money into a business that didn't have a strong value, that was failing financially or was on the brink of collapse. We wouldn't see this business as worth investing in. We would deem it a waste of resources. The cost is too high for the potential benefit.

Many of our decisions in life are made by weighing costs and benefits. We think of some things as being worth the pain, effort and difficulty, and deem other things unworthy. One clear example that comes to my mind was having children. Pregnancy, for me, was a very risky affair. I knew that it was risking my health and even my life. But the benefit- the possibility of having children- that outweighed all the risks. It was a worthwhile investment, one that I have never regretted.

But even in simple every day decisions: whether or not to clean, what to cook for dinner, what to wear...we consider cost and rewards on a constant basis, and the dominant question is often: Is this worth my time and energy? If the answer is no, we generally do not proceed unless we are forced to do so.

Health, fitness and weight loss involve similar decision making processes. Every day, you decide what you will eat, what you will do, whether or not to exercise, etc. In making these choices, we ask ourselves: Is it worth it?

But what we really should be asking is: Am I worth it?

Am I worth the time it would take to make my body feel good about moving?
Am I worth the time it would take to eat food that makes me feel healthy and alive?
Am I worth the investment of energy and time required to meet my own health needs?

The answer must be a resounding yes. 

Because if it isn't, not only will you struggle with all the changes you are making; you will also struggle with understanding the point of it all.

And the sad truth is that weight loss can be a difficult, time consuming, sometimes frustrating, and  always vulnerable experience. And we, as human beings, tend to see ourselves in terms of the decisions we have already made, as opposed to the ones that we are making or are trying to make. We live in the world of 'I didn't do...' instead of the world of "I did!"

We see every poor decision as a sunk cost- a loss that has already been incurred and can not be recovered.

But this isn't true. Every side step in the path of life is an opportunity.

Human beings are works in progress. We are always growing, evolving and learning- which means that every decision made, even the unwise ones, has the potential to be an opportunity for self-betterment and growth. When we recognize in ourselves that we are always 'works in progress', we begin to truly realize the need and necessity of putting energy towards self-improvement and self-care.

When you begin with "I am worth the time and effort it takes to feel good about myself. I deserve to feel good about myself. I am important, valuable and full of potential", then it is a lot easier to push through when the going gets tough.

The fitness industry, and often even the health and medical industry, try to convince you that you need to be healthy/fit/thin/beautiful/etc. to be valuable. But one thing that we often forget in this journey is that these 'professionals' actually make their money and livelihood off of convincing people that they aren't good enough as they are. That they need to be 'improved'. That they need to change from the outside in.

What I am telling you- what I have lived, and what I have witnessed others living- is that wellness happens from the inside out.

When you begin to love yourself for who you- not for your body, or its relationship with gravity, but for the value that you bring to the world just by being in it- and when you begin to recognize that you are worthy of time, energy, effort and self-love...that is when you begin to feel empowered.

And, like all life changes, weight loss depends on your ability to feel empowered, confident and positive.

So before you hit the scale every morning, hit the mirror. Look at yourself- not necessary your appearance but your self- and remind yourself that you are a valuable, powerful, amazing human being who can move mountains.

When the numbers matter less than how you feel about yourself, you'll be surprised at how much easier the whole process becomes.