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> Hints > Past Newsletter Editions > Articles > Getting on track when your weight is spiraling out of control

Getting on track when your weight is spiraling out of control

Imagine that some time ago you started taking steps to improve your health or your appearance. For a few weeks or months you followed the steps you knew you needed to take, choosing nutritious foods, eating only when you were hungry, carving out time for physical activity. Maybe you lost some weight or noticed your body improving. Perhaps you started feeling elated and in control, even though you knew you still had a way to go.

Then for some reason - holidays, stress, travel, sickness or whatever - you lost focus and your efforts started coming undone. With time, old habits reclaimed their place in your life and you practically went back to where you started.

How would you feel?

Maybe you don't have to imagine how you'd feel in this hypothetical situation; maybe you're already living it?

You may be slinking around in your elasticized waistbands, wishing that you could somehow get back to where you were before you came undone. Maybe you're feeling lowly, like you're the only person on the planet who can't achieve their health goals.

If this applies to you, I want to assure you that what you're experiencing is completely normal. In fact, if you started a plan to improve your health and you didn't have set backs along the way, you wouldn't be human. Only fictitious characters set out on journeys of self-improvement, do them without a hitch and live happily ever after.

Back in the real world, relapses are a normal part of the change process.

Shortly after I met my husband, I was surprised to learn that he used to smoke at least a packet of cigarettes a day. Having known other people who struggled for years to give up smoking, I asked him how on Earth he managed to quit. His answer?

I kept on giving up.

Before he finally succeeded at giving up smoking, my husband had tried to quit approximately fifty times. What motivated him to keep trying when he had failed so many times before? He just knew he had to quit.

By repeatedly getting back on his wagon, my husband eventually broke the camel's back and gave up smoking for good. He can't even remember his last cigarette, which was over 11 years ago.

A major difference between people who achieve their health goals and people who haven't yet achieved their health goals is that the achievers learn from their mistakes and keep getting back on the wagon after their inevitable lapses. They don't let a lapse become a collapse.

So how do you get back on the weight management wagon if you've fallen off, when getting back on track can sometimes feel overwhelming?

This winter I received an e-mail from a young woman named Yvonne who had lost 8 kilos using The Don't Go Hungry approach. In recent months, however, Yvonne had lapsed into old habits and had gained back more than half the weigh she lost.

In Yvonne's e-mail I read a lot of panic and confusion. Was she gaining weight because she was now drinking more alcohol than she had been when she was losing weight? Or was it the overeating at occasional weekend sausage sizzles or birthday parties with friends and family that was piling the weight back on? Or was her weight gain due to the fact that she'd stopped going for as many long weekend walks with the dog as she'd done when she was losing weight?

In reality, if you're gaining weight the culprit is rarely a single factor; it's usually a combination of several things that do the trick. On the other hand, to lose weight it's rare that changing a single factor in your life will bring you results; it's usually a combination of two to three things that pull together to shift the weight.

In answer to Yvonne's e-mail, I suggested that instead of trying to pinpoint the cause for her weight gain, she simply start doing the things that had helped her to lose weight in the first place.

For Yvonne, this entailed using a Success Diary and aiming for all 2s and 3s, enjoying no more than two standard alcoholic drinks per week (this is the level she'd learned she needed to stick to when she wanted to lose weight), and making a concerted effort to add some structured exercise sessions to her week, in addition to the incidental activity she normally did.

Within 11 days, Yvonne had lost 2 kilos and felt re focused and positive again.

I have every faith that if Yvonne commits to repeatedly bringing back her new habits whenever the old ones try to carry her back to her starting point, it will only be a question of time before her new habits become stronger than her old ones and she will reach the weight she's meant to be.

The more experience you have of falling off the wagon and climbing back on again, the stronger you become and the better you get at relapse recovery. In time, your lapses will become a thing of the past.

Over a decade ago I stopped binge eating, lost 28 kilos and have kept it off ever since. My journey was full of lapses.

I remember once being home alone one sunny summer Sunday afternoon. All of my flat mates had gone out, doing what seemed like very exciting adventures. I felt that life was passing me by, and that everyone except me had stimulating lives. Feeling like a puppet on a string, I cooked up a stack of greasy pancakes and ate them until my stomach hurt, then polished off my flat mate's gourmet ice cream. I hadn't binged like that in months, and there I was, feeling like I'd never stopped binging.

I remember many smaller lapses, too, particularly at Easter time in Geneva. For the long Easter weekend, the whole city would be deathly quiet. Everyone seemed to have family to visit in the mountains or in neighboring Europe. With all my family far away in Australia, I ate Swiss chocolate Easter eggs until I felt physically sick.

After each lapse, however, I'd climb back on my wagon and keep going. I'd start eating according to my body signals again, I'd get those veggies back into my meals and I'd keep being active.

Over the years my lapses became less frequent, less grandiose and less drawn out. I deliberately made my wagon low, wide and slow moving by contenting myself with steady weight loss. This meant that I could still eat fun foods as I lost weight. As such, it was quite hard to actually fall off my wagon in the first place, and it was easier to climb back on it when I did.

Now, I almost never fall off the wagon in terms of what and how much I eat, it's just that sometimes I eat more than I need at one meal or one snack and my weight remains steady at 64-66 kilos. By repeatedly climbing back on my wagon, the problem of weight is completely solved in my life.

Over to you

Here's something you can do immediately to put these ideas into action.

If you've ever felt bad about lapsing into old habits as you journey towards your ideal weight and size, it's time to stop beating yourself up and instead remind yourself that relapse is normal.

Everyone who's ever improved their health has experienced multiple relapses.

The one thing that will make or break your ultimate success is what you choose to do after each relapse.

If you decide to drag yourself up again, dust yourself off and hop back on that weight management wagon every time you inevitably fall off it, you'll learn amazing things about yourself.

With time you'll realize that falling off the wagon is no big deal, because you'll gain confidence about jumping back on quickly. And the more you realize that falling off the wagon is no big deal, the easier it will be to stay on it in the first place. If you commit to relapse recovery every time you lapse, it will only be a question of time before you reach your optimum biological weight.

So, if you've lapsed in your weight management goals in recent times, what can you do today to get yourself back on track?

Whatever it is that you know you need to do, I encourage you to just do it.

If you'd like to learn scientifically-based physical strategies and gain inspiration for getting back on the weight management wagon, click here to register for my up-coming workshops.

Happy relapse recovery, and I look forward to seeing you in person soon.

Sincerely,

Amanda

Dr Amanda
Connect with your body
www.DrAmandaOnline.com