WEIGHT LOSS: Pick the Low-Hanging Fruit

When your curves are getting out of hand. Photo by Shumilov Ludmila on Unsplash

The new year is just a breath away; at the risk of making myself sound old - where did the time go?

Anyhow, we're all still in throes of holiday celebrations, so most of us aren't thinking about weight loss, yet.

But once the clock strikes midnight on December 31st, your thoughts might turn towards resolutions and all the ways in which this year will be different.

Before you go ahead and make a resolution to get in shape or go on a diet and finally drop those pounds (which is what most new years resolutions are about) let me give you some advice: identify the low-hanging fruit.

What does that mean?

Identify the one habit that's really holding you back and deal with that first.

Yes of course you can get really ambitious and overhaul your entire diet. You can commit to *perfect* eating according to this wonderful new diet - ahem - lifestyle change. You can throw out all the bad food because from now on, you're going to live like the ascetics and deny yourself any worldly pleasures, like yummy food.

Now when that fails - and it will because all diets fail unless you stay on them forever, and forever is too long to go without chocolate / cheese / bread - come back to this idea here about the low-hanging fruit.

Low-hanging fruit is the obvious thing, the red flag, the bad habit.

It's something you consistently do that definitely isn't helping your waistline.

EXAMPLES:

• Finishing the food from your children's / husband's plates
• Snacking mindlessly in front of the TV after dinner
• The (daily) afternoon bakery run with your co-workers
• Skipping meals and getting so hungry that when you finally do eat, you eat all the things

You don't need chia seeds, Goji berries, or some other wondrous miracle food. Those things are fine, but they're details.

If you want to trim your waistline, you need to look at the big picture and find the one or two things that, if you changed them, would help you tremendously.

That's low-hanging fruit; it's about getting the most bang for your buck.

Instead of making a zillion changes and overhauling your entire diet (lots of effort), make one or two changes that you can actually stick to (less effort), and that - in time - will actually give you results.

I know that preaching small changes + patience isn't as sexy and alluring as "Lose 10 pounds in 10 days!!!!"

But unfortunately, it's the only thing that stands a chance of working.

If you need help identifying areas for change, keep a food log for a few days; write down all the things you eat (no judgment) and then look through it for areas where making one or two small tweaks could make a big difference in the long run.

See, when it comes to weight loss, you need sustainability. The question is always: can you do this thing forever?

Because weight is managed, not cured.

Diets are cures (temporary ones), but identifying small changes you can stick to is management.

I don't think water-fasting is going to work for me. Photo by Hans-Jurgen Mager on Unsplash

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