don't give yourself a deadline

Y’know the one thing I did different in my weight loss journey that helped me successfully lose over 50kg?

I didn’t give myself a deadline. 

I’ll fully admit it back then it was a stab in the dark and I got lucky, but now looking back I can see that it was absolutely the right choice.

Let me explain.

Recap of my backstory, I was the fat kid growing up. The majority of my life was trying to lose weight. I’ve tried basically every method under the sun, and it always failed. One commonality between all those diets I was on was that there would always be a time frame where I’d feel I wasn’t making enough progress and the deadline was coming up so it would feel like there was no point continuing so I’d quit.

I’m sure you’ve felt that many many times before too.

It’s a big misconception that we’ve been fed by the media. So many programs out there have some kind of time limit; 3 week abs, 5 day detox, 16 week cleanse, eat clean for 90 days. It made us believe that there was a start and finish point in every weight loss journey.

I believed it too.

I mean it does make sense for business. Promise your customers a certain amount of results within a certain amount of time, that’s good marketing and sales.

But in reality?

That’s not how a weight loss journey works.

It took me 1 year 10 months to lose over 50kg. From January 1st 2015 to October 2016. Why did it take that long? Cos in the beginning of my journey I told myself I was gonna keep going and not stop until I hit my goals (it was really a declaration of war with myself cos I was so fed up with constantly failing my diets, but you’ve likely heard that story before if you’re reading this letter so I won’t bored you with it here).

In between those years there were months were life happened and I had to put my journey on pause, then keep going afterwards when it was dealt with. Main thing was I never quit. There wasn’t a date I was looking forward to, I just planned to keep going no matter how long it took, whether it be two, three, or five years.

When’s the last time you saw a weight loss program that promised results in 2 years? Yep, none.

Why?

That’s just bad business.

It was after I hit my weight goal that I reflected back and realized that a lack of deadline was a big part of me being successful this time. I remember before this journey, all the previous diets I was on the deadline was always so stressful and usually the main reason I’d quit.

Say the diet I was on was for 8 weeks expecting to lose 8kgs in that time, if by week 2 I only lost 1kg I’d quit cos I’d think to myself “what’s the point?” there’s no way I could make it now.

But what I didn’t realize is even if I only lost 3kg after 8 weeks, that’s still progress, and as long as I don’t quit and keep going perhaps I’d lose 8kgs by week 16 or week 20. Why follow a meaningless deadline?

Deadlines are arbitrary. They have no meaning.

Those expectations are set by ourselves, and there’s no reason to be so strict with ourselves. Sure it’s totally fine to have a goal and try to aim towards it, but do remember to keep going even if you fall short. 

There is no true time limit.

You have all the time in the world to reach your weight goals. Progress is progress. Would you rather eventually reach your goals within a couple of months or years (all the while making progress) or would you rather quit at month 3 and just never reach your goals this lifetime?

That’s the thing about the weight loss journey, there is no deadline. It’s such a huge misconception that once you reach your weight goals you get to go back to your ‘normal’ habits. There’s no more ‘normal’ habits. The habits that helped you reach your goals is your new normal. After you hit your weight goals the challenge is now to keep up those habits to sustain the weight that you lost and not gain it back.

The journey is forever ongoing. Deadlines create false expectations.

However much weight you’re planning to lose, give yourself all the time in the world to reach it. There’s no time limit. Just promise yourself to keep going and not give up, no matter how long it takes. 

When you really digest that, really take it to heart that there is no deadline, reaching your weight goals really just become a mere matter of time…

… and that’s kinda exciting, isn’t it?