- We’re conditioned to believe weight loss is hard
- It’s time to see weight loss through a new lens
- What happens when you understand that losing weight is easy
Understanding weight loss is easy helped me stop making self-defeating choices and focus on good information.
I wanted to write this post because our attitudes play a huge role in our ability to reach goals. Believing something is possible helps us pave over rough patches and persevere.
My hope is that by understanding losing weight is easy, you can embrace this challenge, reject weight-loss approaches that are hard and enjoy the rewarding process of reaching and maintaining a healthy weight.
Why it’s hard to believe losing weight is easy
The message “losing weight is hard” is everywhere. Whether you’re watching tv, reading the news or talking to friends, we’re told weight loss is all about sacrifice and struggle. Even the language we use suggests conflict. For example:
- fighting fat
- blasting pounds
- burning calories
- breaking your diet
- battling the bulge
- being bad for wanting to eat a brownie
When you hear something enough you start to believe it. How could so many sources be wrong?
Right now I’m reading In the Unlikely Event. It’s Judy Blume’s latest book written for adults. I love it. On page 113 it says:
… They changed into their nightgowns, leaving on their underwear since they weren’t going to sleep for hours, and enjoyed pizza from Spiritos’s … Only Natalie resisted. She’d given up sweets and bread for dancing. “Something every dancer has to do,” she told them. “And I don’t mind. I’ve never had a sweet tooth and bread just leaves me feeling bloated.”
Robo told them her mother goes to a diet doctor every week, Dr. Kalb, who gives her pills. “It’s like a candy shop at his office. Except instead of candy the bins are filled with different-colored pills. He scoops them into a brown paper bag and tells my mother how many she should take a day, and what colors. Some of them give her diarrhea.”
… “I don’t need pills,” Natalie said. “I have willpower.”
This part of her book takes place in 1952. But Judy Blume captures the kind of conversations people are still having, more than 65 years later. Conversations that happen in offices, coffee shops, school yards and even with kids on sleepovers. These discussions make it more and more difficult to believe losing weight is easy. Instead, we start thinking pizza should be off limits, diet pills are a good idea and willpower is part of losing weight. When the world is throwing this kind of information at us, it can be difficult to believe another narrative.
Why it’s important to recognize losing weight is easy
No matter what you’re aiming for, believing it’s possible helps you achieve goals. When you feel optimistic everything is easier.
A bad attitude is like a flat tire. You can’t go anywhere till you change it.
– Earl Nightingale, author
But adopting a can do attitude toward weight loss can only happen when you understand why losing weight is easy. And understanding only happens when you’re willing to challenge old ideas by being open to new ones.
Understanding weight loss is easy helps you ignore false information
Weight loss is a 148 billion dollar industry. When so many people are pushing different approaches to weight loss, our brains become full of misinformation. The world has taken something simple and turned it into something difficult. How? Via special diets, heavily packaged and processed low-fat snacks, calorie counting, fancy workouts with personal trainers, surgeries, taking extremes, lipo, lasers, lotions, gadgets, gimmicks, hypnosis or injections. But none of these are necessary to reach and maintain a healthy weight.
Before I understood losing weight is easy, the passage from Judy Blume’s book In the Unlikely Event would have supported my own experience of struggling to lose weight for 10 years.
Now that I understand losing weight is easy, I feel frustrated when I see that the world sells weight loss as a big secret; one we can only access by buying into the weight loss industry. I want to bust into every conversation at sleepovers, school yards, coffee shops, offices and everywhere else they’re taking place, and explain why losing weight is easy. I want people to get on with their lives and throw themselves into the incredible opportunities that await open minds and open hearts.
When you understand what sets you up for success, it helps you recognize false information.
Educate yourself. Understanding is knowledge and knowledge is power.
Build healthy eating and exercise habits. A healthy weight will follow.
Go back to the basics and normalize your relationship with food by:
- eating balanced meals and snacks made mostly of whole foods
- exercising 3 times a week
- enjoying an active lifestyle
Having a strategy for change also helps you turn unhealthy habits into healthy habits. Sign up (below) to receive the best strategy I learned.
Mo Kenney, Telephones
Break up with the idea that losing weight is hard. Be open, educate yourself and understand that losing weight is easy.
If you’re difficulty letting go of old beliefs and trying new ideas ask someone you trust for help. They can direct you toward good choices or an expert.
These kinds of meals and snacks unlocked my HAPPY weight 21+ years ago (I lost 30 pounds without dieting!)
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These kinds of meals and snacks unlocked my HAPPY weight 21+ years ago (I lost 30 pounds without dieting!)
You'll also be subscribed to my newsletter. Don’t like it? Unsubscribe in one click
Sharing what I learned makes the 10 years I STRUGGLED worth it
Where have you seen messages that challenge the fact losing weight is easy?
I read the same book. I actually googled, “judy blume – only natalie resisted. she’d given up sweets and bread for dancing”. I was trying to find the passage to cut and paste it into my diary blog because I liked what she said about will power. That’s how I came across you. I love the book. It was really good wasn’t it?? For now on it’s lettuce and grapes for me. Ha Ha. Anyway, I’m going to make and effort. I’ve been trying to lose weight for years also. I’ll start reading your blog because every bit of advice I can get is helpful. Thanks for putting it out there 🙂
Thanks for such a kind comment Sherry! Yes, I LOVED Judy Blume’s book: “In an Unlikely Event.” Since you’re new to this blog, here’s a good place to get started: https://www.the10principles.com/about/
Thanks again! 🙂 Kelly
I think this is great. Honestly, as long as you lose the weight in a healthy way (not starving yourself etc), you are winning. I truly believe you should do whatever program is most sustainable for you. I’m currently counting calories.
Hi Criss, Thanks for your message! I counted calories for 10 years and although I’d lose weight in the short term I always ended up gaining it back and more weight too 🙁 Everyone’s experience is different but I always like to be open about what I went through in the hopes it saves others precious time. Here’s a blog post I wrote about counting calories: https://www.the10principles.com/stop-counting-calories/ I LOVE that you said NOT to starve yourself… And I completely agree. Restricting leads to bingeing and both of these behaviors confuse your body… so your body goes into survival mode and slows down your metabolism—which makes it even harder to lose weight.
My 11 year old daughter loves this author! She read her first one by Blume last year- “Are you there God? It’s me Margaret”, and she has been hooked ever since. I just thought I would share
Your daughter has lots of great reading ahead of her, Teagan! Judy Blume has written so many books that stay with you. “Are you there God? It’s me, Margaret” is such a classic and one of the first books of its kind. You’re a great mom to get her onto Judy Blume books! xo