After identifying your Weight Loss Goal, Target Date, Start Date for your weight loss plan and support person, you need to identify potential barriers to your success and, most importantly, ways around those obstacles. There are actually two kinds:
- The barriers that are likely to prevent you from starting your plan, and
- The challenges to following through on your Nutrition or Exercise Plans.
Barriers to Starting Your Weight Loss Program
This is a critical step. Unless you accurately identify those impediments to start your plan and, most importantly, solutions to overcome them, you won’t even be able to start.
What are some barriers that might stand in someone’s way? Well, for some there may be an upcoming event like a vacation or birthday that they may be inclined to use as an excuse. For others, it’s the extra time and energy that must be spent in choosing healthier foods for their nutrition plan or needing to identify where they will be doing their new exercise plan. If you consider each of these, they are solvable through a little extra thought. You can start your plan during your vacation or just wait to begin after it’s over. Ultimately, however, you will need to apply your new healthier eating and exercise habits no matter where you are. As far as identifying nutrition and exercise plans, most people do that research during their preparation phase so on their Start Date they hit the ground running. I’ll cover these in the next few posts.
Challenges to Following Through on Your Plan
Once you start your Weight Loss Plan, there will often be challenges to your staying on track. They usually occur more often at the beginning. As you learn to solve one, that same solution can often be used for others that come your way. These challenges may arise from schedule changes that you will need to make, such as, when to exercise or where to find the time to keep a food diary? By identifying these before you start your plan, you can devise strategies ahead of time so they won’t slow you down. Another common example is what to do at work when there is a celebration where food is served? Usually the foods aren’t the healthiest of choices. There are plenty of candies, cakes & salty snacks, but fruit is a rarity. One strategy is to eat only one or two items while drinking water. The water can help fill you up. Should the celebration be one that everyone is asked to bring in something to eat, you should be the one to bring in some healthier choices, such as a fruit or salad tray.
As you try to anticipate these Barriers and Challenges, don’t forget to discuss them with your support person to get their ideas.
If you have encountered any of these kinds of obstacles during your weight loss journey, please share them in a comment. Looking forward to any comments you wish to share! Also, don’t forget to check out my website www.insightsforhealth.com where there are tools to Make Your Plan as well as many other features to learn about nutrition & exercise.
For Your Health! – Dr. Bob