As a nutrition coach working with people to improve their eating habits, lose weight, and improve their self image, I get a lot of surprised reactions from my clients.
Some of them are surprised that I don’t ask them to completely give up sugar or other favourite foods.
Others are surprised that they can eat as much as they do and still lose weight.
But at the end of our collaboration, most of my clients are surprised by how easy it all was. When asked to evaluate their effort during the months of work towards their health and fitness goal, they almost always say it was much easier than they expected.
Before they contacted me asking if we could work together, many of them went through weeks of pondering, doubting whether they had the energy and willpower to go through another weight loss journey, or whether they were strong enough to do all the things they imagined they had to do, or wondering whether working with someone to help them reach their goals faster was a good idea.
These fears and unanswered questions only create friction. And that friction is paralysing, because it keeps us on the same spot, facing the same problems, even if it’s been years since we’ve been thinking about dealing with them.
And that’s the catch.
We usually tend to overestimate the amount of effort we have to put in before starting a “task”. We create all these scenarios in our heads based on the information that we filter. And we usually filter the negative side, the fact that change takes some effort.
It has a lot to do with risk aversion. We’re more likely to suffer from losing a 5 euro bill on the street than be happy about finding a 5 euro bill. When it comes to weight loss, this kind of risk aversion is what makes us put off, avoid or postpone our transformation plan – we fear the cost that we’ll have to pay in terms of comfort.
However, we really overestimate that cost and usually underestimate the results that we can achieve. And this underestimation of the results is based mostly on the low self esteem that we have due to all the diets that we’ve tried without any success or with temporary success, all the times we said we’d start doing something or quit something (good/bad habits) and gave up.
Each time we promise something to ourselves and don’t go through with it, we lose a little bit of self esteem. So that’s what makes us believe, in the end, that real lasting change is so difficult, and almost impossible.
But I can tell you from all the clients that I’ve worked with that it’s not. Not that hard and not at all impossible.
So if you’re thinking about changing something in your eating habits or just learning some tweaks that can improve your health and exercise performance, just ask yourself a question:
“Am I estimating the effort that I’ll have to put in for this change on real facts or on assumptions?”
When you reach your goals and look back, it will all seem easier than it does now. And it’s definitely worth it.
Drop me a line at foodcoaching@carmenalbisteanu.ro and let’s schedule a free and no strings attached call. We’ll talk about your goals and see whether my habit based nutrition coaching approach is the best way to achieve them.