I have found different types of people who want to lose weight.
Not everyone is ready to lose weight, but they all want to lose weight... We have the “pill solution” person who is looking for a quick fix. Who says, “I exercise lightly, drink green tea or take a pill and I would lose weight in a matter of days.”
We have the “all in for three months” person who is ready to do the hard work for three months hoping to lose the one hundred plus pounds that she has carried her whole life.
We have the “I do it my way” person who thinks that losing weight is about bulletproof coffee and being in the fat burning zone.
We also have the “slow and steady” person who thinks that by exercising for an hour and not fixing her eating habits she will be losing weight. She thinks she will be there anytime because anytime is a good time.
Then we have the “I can’t lose weight because” person who blames it on the thyroid, genes, to the big bones, to her destiny, to her depression and so on.
When I was younger, my life never turned out the way I wanted. If I study myself, I have many of these personalities I just mentioned above. I wanted a quick fix for all my problems. I wanted to work hard for such a long period of time and then I wanted to relax hoping that the results from working hard stayed forever. I wanted to do it my way until I learned that there are natural laws to follow. I also thought that my problems will simply go away if I give them time.
I need to mention that I also blamed my parents, the government, the system and whatever I could for my misfortune...
However, I learned something I want to pass to you for you to be able to improve your life and lose weight. You may not like it, but the decision is yours. It is your life and you should do whatever you want with it, but it won’t hurt if you try what I am going to tell you next.
There are many babies or immature people who still depend of their parents at forty years of age, they complain about pain instead of acknowledge it, they don’t know how to control their emotions, they have not learn how to control pleasure, they try to make other people feel miserable as they feel, and they don’t take responsibility for what happens in their lives- responsibility for what they do, for what happen to them and for what others have don’t to them.
Let me tell you what my point is here. If you want your life to change for the better and you want to lose weight, you need to become a mature person. Age does not determine your maturity. Your way to cope with life and problems does.
Here are some tips for you to become mature or just to check if you are mature enough to take control of your life and be able to lose weight and keep off for ever...
1. Become independent of people. You should find the way to survive and go after your dreams and you should be able to solve your problems. Don’t let others take responsibility for your problems, especially your parents. Of course, you can ask for help, but such help should be repaid. For example, if you are broke and need money to eat, ask friends to lend you a couple of dollars, get your butt working and pay it back. Next time make sure you save enough money, so you are not in the same situation.
Another example is making your own food instead of letting a fast food restaurant do it for you. Get cooking and stop letting corporations take care of your food.
2. Once a wise man said, “Life is made of joys and sorrow, pleasures and disappointments. A well balanced person will face disaster with equal calm.” Learn how to handle physical pain just as you enjoy the pleasures of relaxation. Learn how to deal with disappointments as you learn how to deal with success. Learn how to deal with stressful times as you do with calm days.
When you are good at dealing with stressful times, you are more likely to stick to your weight loss program for life.
3. I do understand that we are emotional beings and emotions have their role in our lives, but emotions with no control become our master. Many people do emotional eating. When we control our emotions, we can rationalize decisions which are more accurate than emotional decisions.
4. A problem that our society has is that we have been taught that life is about pleasure only and we don’t know how to deal with pain. The reality is that short time pain leads to a pleasurable life and short time pleasure leads to a painful life. For example, exercising for an hour at least three times a week leads to a better life with many benefits that I don’t need to list here. However, not exercising leads to a deteriorating life. Learn to love temporary pain and don’t be seduced by temporary pleasure.
5. Many times life has been hard on us and we think it is not fear. We want many people to suffer what we have suffered. We like to play the victim. Maybe that is true. Life has not been fair to us. However, other people have no responsibility for our misery. I think it is a good idea to learn how to cope with our traumas instead of being jealous of other people and bringing hate to their lives. Our traumas are ours not everyone else’s.
When we deal with our own traumas and let those negative emotions go, we stop trying to destroy our lives by making better health decisions.
6. This I think is the best once I learned in life. Be responsible for everything that happens in your life no matter whose fault it is. This tip has freed me from the victim mentality. Every time something happens in my life that affects it in a negative way, I am responsible. This gives me the power to do something about it. Let’s say you are late to your meetings and you blame it on the traffic. If it is the traffic fault, there is absolutely nothing you can do to be on time. However, if you know that is your fault, you can leave a couple minutes earlier and despite that, you will be on time.
Your life will improve when you take responsibility...
Here is another example. A couple of years ago, a guy hit my car and he acted that he would take responsibility. Later, I got a call from his insurance that they won’t pay me because their client won’t accept fault. So I accepted responsibility from that moment from what happened to my car. I decided to take the insurance company to court in which I won the case.
However, if I would have lost the case, I would have had to fix my car letting any negative feelings go, hoping that life will take its course like it always does. My other option would be to be miserable for life.
I know many times our parents made bad decisions for our health when we were in the womb and when we were children that contributed to our overweight issues, but if we take responsibility and stop blaming our genes, we can take control of our health.
I know it is hard to hear it from a stranger, but if you really want your life to improve, grow up and stop being a baby adult by following the tips above. I promised that if you do that, your life will improve and your weight loss would be a lot easier.