While I am most concerned with the general health of my clients, let’s face it, I get a lot of people coming to me for help with weight loss. So I think it’s important that people understand my health coach perspective when it comes to changing body weight.
For some people, weight loss may be necessary, but often excess weight is just a symptom of a lifestyle that is not health promoting. And ‘excess’ has a very broad definition that depends on a huge list of factors that I won’t get into here.
Weight Loss: The Health Coach's Perspective
So what is a health coach’s perspective on weight loss? That weight loss should always be approached with sustainability and health as the primary drivers.
Many of you may be reading this post and thinking “Yeah, I’ve got pounds to lose”. I’m willing to bet you didn’t consciously choose to gain those pounds. You didn’t necessarily weigh the pros and cons of each choice, in the moment, before making those choices that added those with unwanted pounds.
Our brains our programmed to seek pleasure and ease. For many of us, fast food, the snacks in front of the TV, skipping our walk, trying to please everyone else, or skimping on our sleep are easy to do and bring pleasure – in the moment. We do these things because we have built a lifestyle that makes these things the easy, pleasurable choice and we equate changing those things to being difficult and perhaps a little painful.
To achieve weight loss, we need to undo the lifestyle that put them there so that they don’t just take a temporary vacation but are permanently disposed of. Undoing a lifestyle and designing one that you love that also supports your health and your preferred body weight, is not an overnight process. It involves way more than following a cookie cutter meal plan, macronutrient breakdown or calorie limit.
Changing a Lifestyle Takes Time
Change takes time and we need to layer small change over small change to build a life that allows your body to gain health, which in turn will support weight loss, if there is weight that your body needs to lose. Changes like:
- Learning to grocery shop and cook food that you enjoy.
- Discovering ways to move your body that you love AND that will build strong bones and muscles, and a healthy heart.
- Getting to know your hunger and fullness cues so that you know when to eat and how much without having to count calories or follow a meal plan.
- Learning how our bodies respond to different types of foods.
- Developing a love of foods that love you back in the form of good digestion, stable energy and great flavour.
- Learning how to sleep and manage stress like a boss so that you aren’t turning to food for a ‘pick me up’ or a mental break.
- Establishing priorities and ensuring your actions reflect those priorities through intentional planning.
- Managing our mind and maybe changing some beliefs about food and the role it plays in your life.
True weight loss progress comes not from completely overhauling our lives overnight, but by building small skills and habits that, when layered one on top of the other, create sustainable change, not a temporary “Oh my goodness it’s beach season” change…
Taking Time for Weight Loss is Not a Bad Thing
Ultimately this means that if weight loss is your goal, it’s likely going to come slowly. Now before you groan with dread, remember that this is not a bad thing. Slower weight loss helps to maintain muscle mass. It minimizes some of the adaptive metabolic responses to a lower calorie intake, like disrupting our hunger hormones and metabolic rate. Some of these changes can stay with us for years after the initial weight loss if that weight loss occurs too quickly and without proper nutrition.
When we try to lose weight quickly and without fundamental changes in lifestyle and mindset, we resent the process and can end up in a cycle of losing and gaining weight every year instead of taking the time needed to lose it once and for all.
So sure, as a health coach, I can certainly help with weight loss but it’s a by-product of building a healthy, sustainable lifestyle you love.
If you want to drop pounds fast, I am not your coach but if you want to lose pounds for good then consider booking a free consultation to explore working together to get you to your healthy weight loss goals.
