In our last blog, we walked you through some of the reasons why the dieting culture is simply not the healthiest way to approach weight loss and healthy lifestyle. Furthermore, dieting culture is not an effective way to seek weight loss either, due to the practice of choosing a diet for a short amount of time but never making the needed long-term lifestyle changes. This week on the blog, Gaithersburg Dietitian Kay Loughrey wants to start opening the book of small yet impactful steps to maintain weight loss and thrive in your healthy life!
One of the most influential roadblocks experienced during weight loss is that of your personal expectations. This means that you may expect rapid results in your journey or have certain outcome expectations that you have placed on yourself. With that said, one of the first steps to successfully managing and maintaining weight loss is to first manage and establish healthy expectations! Although it may seem simple, the easiest way to do this is to start small. Often, we might find ourselves setting expectations too high, which – if not achieved – lead to discouragement in the goals we are pursuing and perhaps even a giving up on that goal. By setting small reachable goals you will set yourself up for continued success on your healthy lifestyle journey. We have three areas of small steps we’d like to share with you in today’s blog.
Mental-Emotionally
Balancing mental and emotional health is one of the first small steps you can take in managing expectations. A simple way to do this would be to find a way to ground yourself every day. Perhaps this is a short walk every morning as soon as you get up to promote quiet and meditation. Or it may be sitting with a cup of herbal tea while you quietly journal as the sun comes up. You may even choose to sit quietly on your deck without electronic distractions and stargaze while processing your day before you go to sleep.
Physically
Physical health is another area you can take small steps towards expectation management. While you may not have the ability or endurance to run a 5k every morning, you can begin thinking about small ways to move your body every day to work towards your goals! A short stretching session every day can improve your muscle health and set you up for success with bigger physical health goals. Walking daily, even roughly 5,000 steps according to one study, can dramatically improve your physical health and lower risk of disease and even death. Find an activity you enjoy and try to build a habit of doing it as consistently as possible!
Nutritionally
Finally, nutrition is our last category of setting small goals to manage expectations. It would be extremely difficult (and for dessert lovers quite sad!) to set a goal that you will never eat anything with sugar again. However, you could instead make strides towards lessoning your sugar intake even a slight bit as a small achievable goal! Furthermore, a small goal such as drinking more water each day. According to one study, roughly 80% of persons studied did not consume enough water daily which can impact weight loss, skin health, blood pressure, immunity, and many more areas of a healthy lifestyle. So, grab your favorite water bottle and remember to refill it often during the day!
One very important factor to remember as you go about planning and implementing your small steps is to recognize that this is a very personalized process. What may work for someone else may not work for you, but that does not mean that you are beyond help. By customizing small steps, you are showing that you believe that every person is different and has different needs and that is okay! We challenge you to take your first small step right now by taking the Sweet Life Wellness “What Are Your ROADBLOCKS to Weight Loss?” quiz. This will help you begin to think about different small areas that you can take to manage expectations and keep making progress towards a healthier you!
Resources
National Library of Medicine. “Diets.” https://medlineplus.gov/diets.html. Accessed June 19, 2024.
Mayo Clinic. “Healthy Lifestyle Weight Losst.” https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/weight-loss/in-depth/weight-loss/art-20048466. Accessed June 19, 2024.
National Library of Medicine. “How to Improve Mental Health.” https://medlineplus.gov/howtoimprovementalhealth.html. Accessed June 20, 2024.
News In Health. “Mindfulness for Your Health: The Benefits of Living Moment by Moment.” https://newsinhealth.nih.gov/2021/06/mindfulness-your-health. Accessed June 20, 2024.
Family Doctor.org. “Stretching.” https://familydoctor.org/the-importance-of-stretching/?adfree=true. Accessed June 20, 2024.
National Library of Medicine. “Rethinking 10,000 Steps.” https://magazine.medlineplus.gov/article/rethinking-10000-steps. Accessed June 20, 2024.
Garmin. “Over 80% of the People Don’t Drink Enough Water, Are You One of Them?” https://www.garmin.com/en-MY/blog/over-80-of-the-people-dont-drink-enough-water/. Accessed June 20, 2024.
Kay Loughrey, MPH, RDN, LDN
Transformational Speaker, Breakthrough Coach, Nutritionist-Dietitian
Karis N. Hicks
North Carolina Central University M.S. – Nutrition Studies
Thank you for reading this blog post. Join the Sweet Life Newsletter to stay up to date on blog posts, events, and other ways to live your best sweet life.