Take the focus off weight and put it on the skillsets you need to succeed.

When people start dieting to lose weight, many times they go on a plan of eating. Sometimes this is a large shift from the way they were eating. Many of us have all or nothing mentality, especially when it comes to dieting. Another difficult angle is that people think they should start losing weight almost immediately and will likely quit if they don’t.

Have you considered instead of putting the emphasis on pounds lost, you focus on creating good habits?

In order to keep the program going, it might help to focus on something that is already a recommendation, like eating more vegetables. You can always ramp it up later but this will actually prepare you for that or any plan.

What habits would it take to maintain your goal weight? What if you started working on them now, as if your weight goal were broken up into skillsets? You will most likely need to include them anyway. Maybe a skillset is sleeping 7 hours a night, drinking more water, eating vegetables at dinner and having fruit in your diet. If you frequent restaurants, maybe it is learning to eat out and make healthy choices or exercise regularly. The skillset is what you need to succeed with weight loss anyway. This way you are not ‘on plan’ or ‘off plan.’ Instead, you have incorporated vegetables at dinner and made that skillset work for your whole family. You haven’t ‘ruined’ your diet by eating something else, you are still in the habit of eating vegetables every day.

Let’s take the example of eating more vegetables, something we know is good for us anyway. What if you really put some focus into eating vegetables for a time period until you had it down? I mean your total focus is on making sure you have a vegetable at lunch and dinner. The habit of doing that, created for the rest of your life, is what will create the environment for sustainable weight loss and change.

The interesting thing is that usually people see themselves as ‘on plan’ or ‘off plan’. When they are on, they are tracking and meeting the complete diet, following the rules. When they eat something or a meal off the plan, they think that they are ‘off’ plan and therefore eat more off plan.

The type of on or off dieting mentality has been especially difficult for people that have been on and off diets. This can create a last supper mentality when one is off. Furthermore, many people are constantly expecting themselves to ‘get back on track’ on Monday or ‘after the holidays’ which perpetuates eating more now. Compare that to just enjoying a meal on the holiday as if there was not a scarcity mentality of being ‘on’ again. What sometimes happens too, is they never end up getting back on plan because life got in the way again.

Think about a country that has a reputation for eating well, being slimmer, and better health. In France, if they were having a big meal and planning to eat more. I am certain there would still be vegetables to eat.

Learning a habit like ‘eating vegetables anyway’, will help you manage any dinner party, pizza party or holiday. Eat them even though you are eating pizza. Eat them even though you are on holiday.