Achieving your Nutrition and Weight Loss Goals

By Gwen Holtan, Nutritionist and Resident since 2020

The new year is a great time for new beginnings and fresh starts. Every new year, many people set new goals, intentions, or resolutions for the year. You start with incredible enthusiasm to reach your goals.

Losing weight is often at the top of many people’s New Year’s resolutions yearly! You may have already begun your weight loss journey in January. Here’s what may be getting in your way and how to overcome the five most common dieting obstacles:

• Eliminating or restricting foods that you enjoy

• Reducing your calorie intake too much

• Starting an ambitious exercise routine

• Creating an unrealistic timeline to lose weight

• Giving up because you’re frustrated

It doesn’t have to be this way in 2023! With a few small changes to your weight loss approach, you can maintain your weight loss for years to come.

Clinical studies show that strict diets are more likely to cause people to overeat. This happens when you are restrictive with food or your diet is too rigid. So, what’s the solution? Flexible Dieting. Flexible Dieting is a science-based, reality-tested method for achieving and maintaining weight loss. You eat healthy foods 80-90% of the time and allow some of your favorite “treats” the other 10-20% of the time. Dieters showed more restraint when they followed a flexible dieting approach. Flexible Dieting leads to lower body weight, causes less overeating, and has a higher probability of long-term weight loss.

Dieting is harder when you reduce calories too low for too long; it’s a common approach that won’t work well for lasting results. Chronic dieting, or cutting calories too much, can leave you hungry, irritable, lacking energy, and frustrated. If you cut your calories more modestly, you are more likely to maintain your weight loss. Use the approach of more stamina and less intensity.

You may have shown up at a gym on January 1st this year or in past years and seen overcrowded and bustling activity. By February, the crowds die because they set lofty, impossible goals. The better approach is to start small and build over time. Instead of committing to working out every day, try starting with two days a week. Instead of spending an hour at the gym, start with 10-20 minutes. You are more likely to keep going once you feel a sense of accomplishment from going twice a week. Small steps, compounded over time, lead to transformational results!

Many weight loss programs promise quick results, making it appealing to take the bait. You’ve seen the magazine covers at the grocery store: “Lose 30 pounds in 20 days.” You get excited that a promise of fast weight loss is possible. What’s inside that magazine holds the secret! We all know the claims are false. Ideal weight loss should be .5-1% of your current body weight per week. If you are going faster than 1% of your body weight, you will likely lose muscle, water, and only a bit of fat. When you lose weight at the right pace, you will preserve muscle mass, lose more body fat, and are more likely to maintain your weight loss. If you remove the timeline to lose weight and focus on creating new healthy habits, you will have won!

You might give up your weight loss goal because what you’re trying isn’t working. You’re not sure what to try next, so it’s easier to stop and try again later with a different approach. You haven’t failed; you aren’t a failure because your diet didn’t work. You might need personalized guidance and accountability from a nutrition coach. Asking for help may be what you need to reach your weight loss goals in 2023.

Beyond the Box Nutrition® could be your answer if you want 2023 to be the year you finally achieve your weight loss.