Top 5 Reasons you may not be losing Weight

Many people come to me wanting to lose weight, but do not think things through. I want people to understand, the goal for anyone shouldn’t be losing weight. The goal should be how can I create the life I want. What does that mean? To me, that means having a work/life balance. Below are the top five reasons why many of my clients have trouble losing weight:

1. Stress

It means having a plan when you are under tremendous stress. What are you going to do when you are stressed out at work? Many people assume that most healthcare workers are healthy or at least should be healthy. I always assume that everyone working in a dentist’s office have great teeth. Right? The truth is it’s not always true. Many people in the healthcare industry are over-worked and under high levels of stress and do not have a plan on how to handle it. I see this first hand myself when I work in the hospital. I find many healthcare workers going outside of the hospital to smoke and that’s what they do for relaxation or to calm themselves down. Others use food as a way to handle their stress. Running to the vending machine to get a pop or a bag of chips is easy, and no one ever says anything.

2. Gut Imbalances

There are many reasons people struggle with weight and stress is just a factor. It could be food sensitivities that they were not even aware of. If someone, for example, is intolerant to bananas and are putting bananas into their smoothies every day, then how effective is that going to be for them? Another factor could be the quality of food someone is eating. Eating mashed potatoes from a box is probably not real food, but a lot of people eat like this. Although I am happy to say a lot more people are starting to become more aware of the foods they eat, people still need more of awareness about what they should be eating.

3. Playing Jedi Mind Tricks on Ourselves

We always like to believe that we eat less than we think we do. The truth is in study after study we always eat more than we think we do throughout a meal or a day even. It’s those hidden calories that no one can account for that becomes a problem. This is what we at Mandala like to call eating on “auto-pilot”. Unnecessary calories are being consumed and what’s even worse is those calories do not nourish the body in anyway. These foods could be a small bag of chips, cookies on your kitchen counter, the dinner bread that came with dinner at a restaurant, etc. There are strategies out there to trick yourself into believing you have eaten more than you have as well. Being aware of what you are eating and tricking yourself into believing that you have eaten more is a great strategy.

4. Ignoring our dreams/goals

The truth is many of us do this. We do this because we have mouths to feed or want a better life for the others around us. Making sacrifices for the greater good is very honorable, but realize some of those sacrifices come with a price. This price could be happiness, or we may even end up resenting people in our life because we had to give up something we truly want in our life. In most cases it doesn’t have to be this way. Find ways to making your life goals happen is critical because it gives one purpose and focus. When we have a purpose in our life, and we are focused on it, it begins to show up everywhere in our life.

5. Food – Rethinking how we look at food

Every day we are bombarded with food ads whether it’s the radio or television or even social media. Most of these ads have to do with indulging in food. Now don’t get me wrong, I love to indulge in food, but I also realize that food plays a role in my life, and that’s fuel. Think of it like this, if you had your dream car (money not being a factor), how would you treat it? Would you give it the cheapest most inexpensive fuel there is? Or would you give it premium quality gas? Would you take it to the local oil change shop or would you prefer the dealer to do all the maintenance? Looking at our bodies as it was a temple or something special is an approach that will also make you start to question your food choices, and that’s a good thing. Although, it’s not everything. There is a science on how to change your mindset about food.

Many people think weight loss has to do with having a food and diet plan and get going! If it were that simple, then many people would be able to lose the weight and keep it off. Changing our mindset and understanding our body on a deeper level is key to losing weight. We here at Mandala are starting our own Weightloss Program called Mandala Lifestyle program. It will be focusing on all the things I discussed above and much more. We have built this program on the concept of not only losing the weight but keeping it off.

To learn more about this program, please keep checking back on our website or simply add your name to our email list.

Aaron Howard Health Coach and Mandala Lifestyle Program Manager