Reframe diet failures for successful weight loss
I want to talk about failure. Diet failures.
Let’s start with my diet failures.
Have a seat. How long have you got? (Oh, and settle in for a long night. We’d better get some wine…)
Seriously. I used to wear diet failures so heavy, like a massive dark cloak around my soul. I’d start a plan, all hopeful and purposeful, and eventually bail out. It used to really bring me down. I’d wallow in the land of “I suck”. Nowhere, but nowhere else in my life did failure occur more often than any time I tried to lose weight.
You know how I felt, I know you do.
Each time I failed, I became more afraid, cautious of trying another program. The desire to lose weight was as fixed as ever, but the feeling of fear, because I thought I might fail, kept me looking for evidence that would support my fears. I always found evidence that I was not going to get the results (comparing, contrasting, doubting).
My fear of failure literally led to my failure. Did it lead to yours?
A few months ago I started coaching J. on weight loss. J.’s tale of weight loss failure was long and storied. J’d spent a lot of money on weight loss programs, and coaching programs, and did not reach her goal, or even get within sight of it. And just last week I talked to a woman, S. who was afraid to sign up for coaching because of all the diet failures she’d had.
My coaching strategy for them, and you, is this:
For any goal you have in life, adopt a “fail fast, fail often” mindset. Be willing to fail 100 times. But learn from those failures instead of sweeping them under the rug.
Fail fast, and learn from each micro-failure.
When businesses want to innovate, they often adopt a “fail fast, fail often” culture. Failure is seen as a positive thing: one step closer to the answer of what works, what doesn’t. Failure is good.
Example: so you overeat last night. Instead of beating yourself up, you decide to get curious about what was happening in your environment that triggers the desire to eat or eat more.
We were taught an entirely different cultural meaning of failure.
We were taught that failure meant you were stupid or lazy or useless. It meant blame, shame, and hiding. THAT’s the failure J. and S. are thinking about.
I used to think that way too. But I look at all my beautiful, less than perfect diet failures as education. I asked J. to write a list of her last 10 weight loss attempts and what she learned from them. She learned that she had not been all-in, that she had committed to the idea of whatever plan it was, but hadn’t always done the work, showed up for the class, etc. But still wanted the result, and blamed the program when she didn’t get it.
When I looked at mine, I saw a similar pattern of hesitancy and fear. No therapist. No diet plan lady who put me on a scale ever mentioned that it is damn near impossible to reach a goal if you’re stuck in fear of failure.
EMBRACE failure as part of the process.
I have spent a crazy amount of money on weight loss programs. And had some epic fails that left me bruised and battered in my soul. For sure. But these days I have no doubt – none – that my weight goal I announced in March (50 lbs by New Year’s Eve) is good as done. I expect to fail along the way. Let’s say I might overeat 100 times in the next 267 days. That’s OK. I’m going to fail fast and learn from each one of those episodes, and totally nail my goal. (PS: I’m 8 lbs closer this month.)
So my ask of you this is to mull over how you feel about things like weight loss you’ve told yourself you’re failing…and consider a reframe. Let me know if I can help. It’s one of the topics we’re covering in the 42-day Jump Start beginning next Monday, April 17. (Link)
Free your mind. Weight loss will follow.
