I have battled my weight most of my life, but after four pregnancies, three c-sections, and crossing into my mid-late thirties, it had become almost impossible to lose weight. I tried everything you can name, low-carb, low calorie, extreme exercise programs, etc. By the time I was 38, with three children under the age of 7, I was battling depression; overworked, overwhelmed, and exhausted. I was unhappy and I had completely lost my sense of self – who I was, my identity. I was probably at my worst in terms of how I felt about my body, myself, and my mindset. I knew I had to do something to be better for my children. Losing weight seemed like the obvious answer. My focus had always been a certain number on the scale and being a certain size. I thought if I could just accomplish those goals, everything else would fall in place. However, I learned there is a whole lot more to whole health.
Think about it. You aren’t just your body. Your weight doesn’t define you (though I know I allowed it to for most of my life). We have a physical body, yes, but your mental health is a huge component of your overall wellbeing, yet it is often completely overlooked when we think of “health.” Even more overlooked is our spirit or soul, the essence of each of us. How often do you hear spiritual health come up in the context of overall health? I know it hadn’t occurred to me at all until more recent years. In fact, for most of my “health” or weight loss journey, I was almost entirely fixated on my “weight;” the number on the scale and it dictated so much about how I felt.
Over time I realized even when I got to a certain number on the scale, I still wasn’t happy and that’s when I realized my focus was way too narrow. I started looking at my mindset and how I was talking to myself, what I was saying to myself. It was terrible! So, no matter how “skinny” I got it would never matter. I learned you have to accept yourself along the journey and love yourself at every stage. Otherwise, no amount of effort or success will ever matter. I have done numerous health and fitness programs, coaching programs, I’ve read countless books, and applied and integrated elements from all of these in my own life and my own journey of whole health. I have condensed all of it into this framework I am outlining here.
This is by no means the comprehensive end-all be-all. However, these are the steps I followed to get myself going. Just like you, it will evolve and change over time, but it is meant to help get you unstuck and in motion on your journey to body, mind, and soul health.
Step 1 is WHY. Why do you want to lose weight, improve your health? Be honest with yourself about this and go deeper than a certain number on the scale or the physical outcomes you might have in mind. Do you want to feel better? Do you want to have more energy? Do you want to be a better mom, wife, partner, daughter, friend, employee? These are just examples; there may be all sorts of other whys you may have. The point is it is essential to your long-term success to have strong motivation beyond just a certain weight, or even just how you look.
Your “why” is what is going to keep you pushing forward when it gets challenging. This is what you will come back to over and over and over as you do this. Hint: a spot-on, fire in your belly “why” will make you emotional thinking about it and writing about it. You want to find that feeling driving you toward doing this as well as the reciprocal feeling you imagine achieving it will bring.
Step 2 is research. Once you’ve decided why you’re doing this, the next step is researching ways to get there. For example, fitness/nutrition/weight loss programs. Stay away from the concept of “diet.” It has such a negative, and really, misleading connotation. It implies it is finite, something you are doing temporarily rather than the lifelong lifestyle or way of being and living that it truly is. You are ultimately establishing a new lifestyle for yourself. This step doesn’t have to be exhaustive. It is more about learning ways and methods or programs for exercise and nutrition approaches out there. As I mentioned earlier, I have tried it all and based on that, I cannot emphasize enough the importance of looking at this through the lens of overall health, as well as, what you know you can maintain long term. Quick weight loss or quick results are even more quickly lost because they often involve drastic and extreme measures, most cannot sustain in the long-term. Further, many of these approaches can destroy your metabolism, making weight loss harder and weight gained after more difficult to lose again. Therefore, personally, I prefer focusing on the quality of food and more simple approaches. Some things you might want to explore are macro tracking, “clean eating,” or intuitive eating.
I emphasize exercise and nutrition here since that is typically where our mind goes when we think of “health.” These are also good places to start, for building new routines and healthier habits. It can be challenging to make too many changes all at once. However, I encourage you to also look at building habits related to affirmations and shifting your mindset, as well as those for prayer, meditation, and Bible study. Too often the mind and the soul are overlooked, yet they are also part of your being and require care and attention. That said, keep it reasonable, aim for one change in each of these four areas as a starting point and build on this over time.
All this said, the purpose of this step is to help you find what you think you could stick with for at least 30 days. Now I know one of the steps is about detaching from timelines and that is true; but it takes about a month to establish new habits. So, this is about that initial 30 days to set you on your way toward those lifetime habits for whole health. This is all about laying a foundation for yourself. So, as you do step 2, keep that long view in mind, but recognize we’re starting with a 30-day window.
Step 3, determine your approach. The main thing here is what you think you can do. What can you realistically do in the long-term? For example, if you love bread and pasta, a keto or other low carb approach is probably not the best fit. You might be able to stick with it for a month, maybe even a year, but, eventually you’re gonna want pasta or a piece of bread. Similarly, if you hate cycling, going and getting an exercise bike or taking up cycling isn’t the best exercise choice for you. On the flip side, if you really like following classes or some structure, video workouts or home workout apps may be a good fit. The idea is to find the things that appealed to you as you were doing your research in step 2.
For example, when I began, I wanted ready to go workouts, on a schedule and more flexibility on the nutrition, because I knew following a bit of a schedule with exercise would help me establish a routine, but having learned the hard way, cutting entire food groups was not sustainable for me, so I wanted a nutrition approach with a variety of food choices. The point is: factor in the information you gather and hold it up against your circumstances, personality, and preferences – your schedule, food preferences or sensitivities, activity preferences and see what fits and would work best for you.
Step 4, detach from timelines and expectations. This could easily be step 2, because it is just as essential as step 1. The fitness industry will do anything to sell you a program, including promising practically impossible results in even more impossible timeframes. There is way too much to consider and I have learned these kinds of one-size fits all approaches, fit and work for almost nobody. Let go of the crazy goal and the short timeframe. Do not expect to lose 35 pounds in 21 days. In fact, try not to attach certain number of pounds to your goals at all. Believe me when I say this is terrible for your mindset in the long run. Numerous times, I bought the supplements or the program promising this, only to feel even worse when I stuck to it religiously and barely lost 3 pounds. This is not a realistic expectation for most people.
Shift your focus to looking better, feeling better, fitting your clothes better, and changing your body composition instead losing a set number of pounds. Now, reflect back on your why. Does that shift in focus seem more aligned with your “why?” The goal here is to make a lasting, lifestyle change that you maintain for life. Moreover, the goal is health – whole health, and yes, part of that is weight loss or fitness, but it is so much more than that, and the exercise is probably the smallest component in the bigger picture of overall health or even weight loss. I’m telling you, when I realized this, it changed the game for me completely and I didn’t even care what the scale said anymore.
Step 5, set your goals and objectives. Ok, so by now, you’ve done your research, you have figured out your approach, you’ve taken off the pressure of lofty goals in overly ambitious timeframes; so now it’s time to set some goals. Now, we are looking to either lose some weight and/or improve our physical fitness/physique; we want better nutrition; we want to feel better and have a better mindset, and we want to connect more to God; we want to tap back into that spiritual side of our being. So, now we need a goal for each of these things. Again, short-term we are laying our foundation; but we want to keep that long-term in mind. So, you’re finding a start and setting a goal for this first month. So, our buckets or pillars are:
A – exercise: whatever you chose for exercise from step 2, set a goal to do that exercise approach for 30 days.
B – nutrition: whatever you chose for nutrition from step 2, set a goal to do that for 30 days. You can do baby steps here or be more ambitious. Baby steps could be, I’m going to cut fast food for the next month, or I am going to opt for fruit or vegetables when I feel hungry instead of going for that bag of chips or candy bar. More ambitious, might be, I’m going to use a macro calculator and track my food for a month. This can and should also include what you’re drinking. Examples, drink only one soda per day; drink my weight in ounces of water each day; eliminate alcohol for a month, etc. Don’t forget there are often tons of calories in what we drink and so you want to pay attention to this too. Also, side note, alcohol is not your friend when you are trying to drop weight/body fat.
C – mindset: there are all kinds of things you may find in step 2 as you do your research. The main thing here is to be mindful of how you talk to yourself. How do you talk to yourself? What thoughts come up when you look in the mirror? Are they critical? Would you say them to someone you love, like your child or your spouse, or friend? If not, identify at least one thought and flip it to the opposite. For example, if you’re thinking “I look awful” as you look in the mirror, your goal for the month is when you catch yourself saying this, you stop and say, “I look great.” This may feel weird at first but doing this consistently will start to shift how you look at yourself. Another important component of mindset is gratitude, so another goal should be to list the things you are thankful for each day. An initial goal might be to list 3 things you’re thankful for before going to bed each night.
D – prayer/mediation: set a goal based on where you are. If you are spending zero time in prayer and meditation each day, a good goal is to spend at least five minutes meditating and connecting to God every morning. If you have a good prayer routine, a good goal is to add 10 minutes just sitting in God’s presence and allowing yourself quiet time to receive His love or guidance.
Step 6, make your plan. So now you’re taking your goals that you do in step 5 and adding some specificity. Again, approach this based on what you can do in a month, but which you could tweak to challenge yourself to go further the next month.
A – exercise: exercise at least 30 minutes, three times each week on M,W, and F. Based on your own schedule, where do you need to make adjustments? What will work best with your schedule? What will you stick to? If you know that after work you’re likely to be too tired, or get pulled into something else, that’s not when you want to plan your exercise.
B – nutrition: if you’re doing baby steps, then your plan could be only fast food one meal a week or include fresh vegetables in every meal. More ambitious might be to hit your macros every day, or stick to lean proteins, healthy fats, whole grains, fruit/veggies, and at least 70 ounces of water per day for 30 days.
C – mindset: find three affirmations and repeat them to myself at least twice daily for 30 days. List at least three things I am thankful for before I go to sleep each night.
D – prayer and meditation: get up 15 minutes earlier and do a daily devotional every morning. Spend 5 minutes before bed, breathing and focusing my attention on connecting with God.
Step 7, commit to yourself to see this through. This is, obviously, the most important step. You must commit to seeing this through for yourself. This is where going back to step 1 – your motivation, your reason for doing this will become essential. Your “why” is ultimately the driving force that got you to start and you cannot fulfill this if you give up or quit. You are capable and worthy of achieving better health for yourself. You can fulfil all the other roles in your life much better, when you prioritize your own wellbeing.
The only person who can see this through for you is you. The only person you can truly depend on is you. So, do this for yourself. Make a commitment to yourself to follow this plan you’ve laid out for 30 days. Do what you say you are going to do and follow through for yourself. It is an act of self love and it will resonate through your mind and your soul. I promise you, you will feel better, it will boost your confidence, and you will prove to yourself that you can follow through and accomplish goals you set for yourself. But you have to commit. It doesn’t have to be perfect. You might have off days, you might have setbacks, and that is totally OK; but no matter what keep moving forward. Commit to following your plan for at least 30 days.
Let me know what you think. I want this to be real for you. So, please leaver comments below on any insights or “aha” you may have gotten from this. Like and subscribe to the Faith Fitness Joy Facebook and Instagram pages.