Unsustainable Plan
When creating your first initial plan, you may think that you need to be very strict and restrictive with it. Due to this, you may end up creating a plan that is too tight and one that requires drastic changes.
This may look amazing on paper but human beings are not so good when it comes to sudden psychological changes. Therefore, you may find yourself following the plan for a couple of days only to end up neglecting it a few days later. To avoid such a scenario, it makes a lot of sense to create a sustainable and practical plan. Only change a couple of things at first and learn to adapt to them. Once you are used to the plan for some weeks or even months, you can change a few things. Since dieting is a long-term lifestyle, make small adjustments as weeks go by and you will have few issues following your plan.
Setting Unrealistic Goals
When starting out your weight loss journey, you may find yourself setting goals that could be a bit unrealistic. It is good to be optimistic but being too hopeful can instead lead to bad results. We all want to have that ideal body type in our minds but it takes time to achieve that. This is the reason why it would make more sense to create a plan that focuses on the journey and actions you need to take rather than the actual results. Always looking at yourself in the mirror can be quite frustrating because chances are high that you will not see any results every other day. Instead, focus on the journey and consider making small and gradual changes as you go. This will keep you in the game for longer and ensure you are able to achieve your results.
Emotional Eating
Emotional eating can be the worst thing to do when you have weight loss goals that you would like to achieve. If you are always turning to food for stress relief, comfort, and distractions from negative emotions, then you will experience tough times in regards to achieving your desired weight. Eating should be done in response to hunger and not due to emotions. If you are always finding yourself in situations where you snack because of stress, then you really need to come up with a better coping mechanism for boredom, sadness, depression, and loneliness. You can do this by identifying triggers and creating a better management method like talking to friends, going out for a walk, and even hitting the gym.
Lack of a Proper Plan
You may be struggling with your diet mainly because you do not have a good plan that you are following. You are most likely doing everything haphazardly without any clear plan of action. This is something that you definitely need to solve because it is not sustainable. You need a well-structured meal plan that contains nutritious foods. You should also know the amount of calories you are taking in so you are not going overboard. The plan should also contain methods to deal with cravings or dining out.
Lack of Accountability
If you do not have a person or system to keep you accountable, chances are high that your diet plan will fail. Since you are just by yourself, you may lose the much-needed motivation to stick to the plan. When this happens, you will easily give in to temptations and continue with your unhealthy eating habits. To avoid this, you need a coach, friend, or tracking system to help keep you accountable.
Weight loss is tough to achieve and requires a lot of discipline, especially in regards to what you put in your mouth. This article has given you various reasons as to why your meal plan may fail. You should therefore implement the aforementioned tips to ensure it does not happen.