Author: Monica Reinagel, MS, LDN

It’s easy to get discouraged when your goal feels too far away. And that’s why it’s so important to celebrate your incremental progress.

To that end, I have to share this idea that one of the members of the Fall 2020 group shared with us during Office Hours the other day.

When she reached her 5% milestone, Kris bought a beautiful sun-catcher and hung it in the large window of her master bath. When she reached 7.5%, she bought another smaller one and added it to the window. She’s already got her eye on a larger one for when she reaches 10%.

“My plan, when I reach my goal, is to have one custom-made, maybe with a bright red cardinal, for the very center. It’s going to be a while, but I figure I’m not going anywhere, so I’ll just enjoy the periodic additions to my collection.”

How brilliant is this?

Every morning, when she steps into her bathroom to get ready for her day, Kris is greeted by this heart-lifting display, signifying what she’s accomplished and reminding her of her goals for the future. An ongoing, tangible celebration of her decision to be someone who weighs less.

I want you to steal this idea!

Step 1: Think of something that would bring you genuine pleasure–ideally something that you could enjoy in an ongoing way.
Step 2: Head over the forum and tell us how you plan to celebrate your next incremental goal.
Step 3: When you reach that milestone (whatever it is), reward yourself! And post a picture!

A lot of us use food as a coping mechanism. 

We eat to cope with stress, fatigue, boredom, anxiety, anger, grief…did I mention stress?

This might be OK — after all, coping is good, right? Unless all that “coping” is leading to unwanted  consequences. We gain weight or we can’t lose weight…and that is creates stress, fatigue, anxiety, anger, grief. 

Maybe we actually need to do less coping. 

If you stopped using food to “cope,” maybe you’d be compelled to make changes that made your life less stressful, boring, or exhausting. 

And maybe that’s the difference between coping and self-care.

So, here’s a question to consider: Is self-medicating with food allowing you to tolerate things that maybe you shouldn’t be tolerating?

What about your life might you be moved to change if you stopped “coping”?

We’ve talked about why our weight may fluctuate from day to day and how this does not reflect fat loss.

• A high-salt meal (or hormonal swings) can lead to water retention
• A high fiber meal (or slow digestion) can increase waste in the system
• Strenuous exercise (or other issues) may lead to inflammation

All of these can cause your weight to fluctuate from day to day, or even week to week.

And here’s the truth: Becoming someone who weighs less doesn’t necessarily mean that we won’t continue to experience these fluctuations.   If your weight fluctuates a good deal now, it will likely continue to.. And that’s OK. 

As you practice more weighless behaviors, your entire range will slowly slide down. So instead of your weekly checkpoints fluctuating from 175 to 180, they start fluctuating between 170 and 175 and then between 165 and 170, and so on. 

So, we may expect that if we’re doing this “right,” our graph will look like this:

But often, they look more like this:

Both have lost approximately the same amount of weight.

The point here is that fluctuation is not a problem–unless we allow it to throw us off our game. Unless we make it an excuse to give up. So if you’re a high flux individual, try to take those weekly ups and downs in stride. As long as that bumpy curve is trending bumpily down. you’re doing fine.

And if it’s not, let’s figure out where your most impactful wins and missed opportunities are lurking.

In the Weighless program, we are not just here to give pep talks or give you something interesting to think about. We are offering tools that can help you create the results you want. But they have to be picked up and used.

So often we see people whose entire effort is comprised of completely passive activities: reading, researching, thinking, planning. All of those things have their place. But you’ve got to actually take some action if you want to see change happen.

If you’re thinking but not doing…

If you’re learning, but not taking action…

If you’re “inspired” but not actually moving…

…then you are sitting on the sidelines of your own life.

The only way to reach your goal is to get on the field. Yes, you might drop the ball or lose yards. But you can’t win (or lose!) by standing on the sidelines