Personal development (thanks to the coaching process) holds the key to long term weight loss

Home » Personal development (thanks to the coaching process) holds the key to long term weight loss Published: 20th November 2019 This Article was Written by: Nik - Weight Loss Ninja

Diets do not work, yet they don’t! Let’s get gutsy here and tackle this head-on to unveil the reality!

Are diets useful in order to lose weight? For sure they are.

The dieting industry wouldn’t exist if there weren’t any success stories. If diets were to fail everyone who decides to go on them then there would be no industry at all – yet it’s worth many billions around the world.

However the medical community says that diets don’t work!

Confused? I am.

On the one hand we’re told that crash dieting and fasting works. Then someone else says it doesn’t and that slow, regular weight loss is the only solution.

Then we’re told to avoid certain food groups – like carbs. That’s the solution. Then another person says that not having a balanced diet is the only way to lose weight long term.

Still confused!!!!!

Let’s dig deeper.

Diets do work but for most of us we put the weight back on. No massive surprise there!

So what therefore is the solution?

Well, the big buzz-word is “lifestyle changes” and yes, that’s very true.

Lifestyle changes are indeed utterly crucial to losing weight but, as soon as those two words are muttered, don’t you find that you don’t really know what the term “lifestyle changes” actually means? And without breaking it down, people are then left just as baffled as before. Lifestyle changes. Lifestyle + Changes. That’s just two words. An answer doesn’t come out of just two words. That doesn’t help anyone understand what they mean.

Environmental factors hold the answer. Your own environmental factors that is.

Once you’ve lost weight, the sad reality is that life, for most of us, returns to how it used to be:

• The same old relationships
• The same old house
• The same old job
• The same old daily pressures
• The same old temptations etc.

…and there lies the problem. All of the old psychological “triggers” are there to tempt you back into your old patterns of behaviour.

• The kids still eat the same food that you used to nibble on before plating up
• The “treats” basket is still full of chocolate
• The canteen at work still serves the same dishes
• …you get the gist?

So yes, diets do work because, if you stick to them, they do lose you the weight but they don’t teach you how to change your life on a mental and emotional level. For that you need self-development and coaching…..as well, of course, as lifestyle changes. But lifestyle changes that work for you specifically. Let’s break the process down further.

Coaching. What is it?

Coaching is not advice-giving. Many people call themselves coaches yet they are not. They are consultants. If you give advice, that’s consultancy. A coach is a person who works with the client’s specific and individual outlook on their own life. The best metaphor for a coach therefore is that they are a catalyst for you to change your future direction in life but it’ll be you doing all the work yourself.

In our Weight Loss Ninja online course, I use my coaching skills in a consultative, advice-giving way to teach the principles and then the client can download over 60 self-reflection exercises to self-coach themselves once they have acquired the knowledge of how the process works. That’s what our courses do.

How does the coaching process work?

Coaches and the coaching process looks at where you are now, identifies where you want to be in the future and, through personal development techniques (involving a lot of self-reflection and planning), gets you doing things in a different way that disrupts your old patterns of behaviour so that you re-learn how to do things for the better.

Over time and through repetition, you make these lifestyle changes as ways in which to bring your plan to life. Those lifestyle changes start to then become habitual and that’s where the magic happens. Now your lifestyle changes put you in direct contact with a new, different set of environmental “triggers” that makes you impulsively feel like behaving in a different way…..and all that makes it easier for you to keep your weight off.

The power of a cup of Marmite

Here’s a rather strange example. For me, if I stay hydrated, that’s one of my simplest strategies for keeping myself away from snacking between meals. But after the 2nd cup of coffee I start to get bored. So I consume half a litre of water. Shortly afterwards I often start to feel hungry again. Usually I don’t feel like coffee. Plus I’m not thirsty. So my strategy is to boil the kettle and drink a cup of Bovril or Marmite because it’s savoury. (I love the fact that for half of the population, according to the Marmite adverts, by now you might be reeling in disgust….yup….can you guess…..I’m a Marmite lover 🙂

And that “distraction” is enough to keep me going until I’m ready for another cup of coffee or tea or water or whatever. So one of my many lifestyle changes involves a simple cup of marmite as and when I feel the urge.

“Distractions” are also key

The subject of “distractions” needs a whole blog to itself but let’s keep it simple. Distracting the mind from falling back into the old patterns of behaviour can be achieved by coming up with a strategy, such as the mug of Marmite example above, which “distracts” the mind away from the old triggers until the emotion / temptation subsides. Look out for a future blog specifically about this topic.

“Distractions” arose out of self-coaching.

You have just read about the simplest of strategies that I use in my own journey. It’s 13:09 here in the office as I’m writing this. In the old days of being over 19 stone, right about now I’d be seeing my colleagues start to eat their lunch (environmental triggers for me) and that would prompt me to whizz down to the local supermarket for my lunchtime “feast”. Sandwich, crisps, fruit, maybe a pack of nuts…..you get the picture?

Now, again through the coaching process, I’m sitting here largely satiated with liquids from 2 cups of coffee, 1 cup of Marmite and about 750ml of water so far today, but I’ll head off shortly to buy my salad and maybe a tin of tuna. And I’ll happily do so without feeling tempted to gorge on high calorie food because the lifestyle changes I made off the back of my own self-coaching, all those many, many months ago for me personally, have now become a habit.

Lifestyle changes come out of the coaching process.

So making lifestyle changes doesn’t happen by accident. You need to make the changes yourself by first working out what you want, why you want it and what you’re going to do to disrupt old patterns of behaviour for the better. Over time your repeated new behaviours take root and through repeated exposure to these different environmental triggers (that you consciously have put in place), you get results. Then, the best bit happens; your belief-system changes because you start to feel the benefits of your new behaviours. Essentially you start to see the world differently. Your self-belief goes up (self-belief that you can be slimmer and healthier) and then you start finding that the concept of putting weight back on starts to actually become rather alien to you. You begin to not want it so passionately that you find yourself automatically doing things to avoid gaining weight again. And it’s all through the process of re-learning. Re-learning is where change comes from.

Self-coaching or physical coaching?

I will always recommend face-to-face coaching if you can afford it. A great place to start is with The Association for Coaching (of which I am a proud member) in order to find a local coach to you. In the absence of this, there’s always our online course albeit it’s designed only for those people who are devoted and dedicated to commit to change in their life – and the reason why it may seem like we are trying to talk people out of buying our course is simply because we only want people on the course who are committed. It’s because of the fact that the onus would be on yourself to be self-motivated enough to complete the self-reflection exercises, so it’s not for everyone, only for those who seriously want change in their lives.

Not yet sure?

Losing weight takes time. And you have to be in the right place mentally and emotionally for it to happen. If there are any historical and emotional blockages that you can’t seem to get over, please don’t do our course. Coaching is all about personal development. Coaching is not clinical therapy. If you feel there is any emotional trauma that might be presenting you with a blockage in your life, speak to your Doctor in the first instance.

If you suffer from everyday stress, never seem to have the time to do what you want and you’re up for a bit of personal development linked to losing weight, why not start by checking us out on Facebook in the first instance.

Here’s to your success!

It’s a tagline of mine, and one I often say, along with many other coaches in my community. And the reason why is simple. A) because coaches love to see their clients grow and b) your success starts with you.

Here’s to your success. Nik and the Wright Loss Ninja Team. x