103 weight loss tips: How to lose weight (40+lbs)

I used these weight loss tips to lose 40lbs of fat while building muscle. Each of these strategies has been rigorously tested. I spent years researching and testing these strategies and only included the best.

Let’s jump in to find out how to lose weight and keep it off!

• Mental game: Weight loss tips – How to lose weight
• Nutrition Weight loss tips – How to lose weight
• Exercise Weight loss tips – How to lose weight
• Track your progress – Weight loss tips – How to lose weight
• Self-care: Weight loss tips – How to lose weight
• Get Accountable: Weight loss tips – How to lose weight
• Goal Setting: Weight loss tips – How to lose weight
• Master the Mental Game: Weight loss tips – How to lose weight
• Other Weight loss tips – How to lose weight

 

Mental game: Weight loss tips – How to lose weight

1. Master your mental game. All the best strategies in the world won’t work unless you get your mindset right. Let’s start with that!

 

2. Get wise and get ‘why’s: Why do you want to lose weight? Why do you want to be even healthier? List all of the benefits in bullet points. Revisit this list and keep adding to it until you have such a compelling list of reasons to get in shape, that you would have to be ‘off your rocker’ not to follow through with your goals

3. Start with ‘why-nots.’ Create a list to answer the question ‘why not lose weight?’ Why would you not want to bother losing weight? When I made this list, my answers included things such as, “because I might get lazy and not want to work out” and “I might want to continue binge-eating” or I” might doubt myself and give up.” Make your list. 

By confronting these reasons, you can plan ahead so that you will win in those moments of weakness. View your list of ‘why nots’ as a personal challenge to overcome these weak points.

4. Make it easy to get health-wise . Put your list of ‘why’s’ and ‘why nots’ in a table. Keep this list on your phone so you can easily review it and update it. Better yet, print of this list and use Google Docs so you can review it from any device whenever you have downtime, need motivation, or feel lazy, guilty, shameful, or unmotivated.

Below is an example of putting this strategy to work:

5. Review and update this list daily for a month. Do this every day for a month and watch your resolve for your fitness goals skyrocket. Make this a habit by following Charles Duhigg’s advice and set a time and place to do this. You might also use emotions such as fear, doubt, guilt, shame, or laziness as reminders that it is time to review your list.

 

Nutrition Weight loss tips – How to lose weight

6. Nutrition accounts for 80% or more of weight loss. Unless you’re planning on hiking or working out for 6-12 hours a day (like when I lost 60lbs walking from Canada to Mexico while eating mostly junk food) you will need to decide upon and stick to a nutrition plan.

After reviewing the data of multiple randomized controlled trials, Drs. Curioni and Lourenco (2005) found that:

• people who focused on weight loss through diet and exercise lost about 29lbs while
• those who only focused on diet were still able to lose approximately 22lbs.

It makes sense that diet is essential when you consider that most people could consume 2000 calories in a 20-minute binge and it would take many sweaty hours of hard work to exercise those calories off.

When I weighed an obese 257 lbs, I can say with confidence that I binged weekly and my 60-minutes of walking per day and three 1-hour weekly weight training sessions didn’t stand a chance. Despite my active lifestyle, I was putting on weight each week.

7. Eat enough. As I mentioned before, I was obese and weighed 257lbs. The first 20lbs came off fairly easy, but then I hit a plateau. I paid for and started a highly restrictive diet app and only consumed 1800 calories per day. I was stuck here for months and almost gave up. In fact, I put all my weight back on and then started the same paid program over again. I usually ended up binge-eating out of starvation. It wasn’t until I started consuming 2600 calories per day that I started losing fat consistently.

8. Dial in your daily calories. Use this calculator to get an estimate of the amount of calories you need to maintain your current weight. Then subtract this number by 400 calories. Slow and steady wins the race. Most people will tell you to eat less, but this can slow or stall your metabolism. Give yourself plenty of room to drop pounds consistently. 

Macronutrients and Nutrition Weight loss tips – How to lose weight

9. Hit your daily protein goal. Dr. Breen et al. (2005) and other researchers found that participants who consumed 15-30% of calories from protein lost nearly 11lbs in 12 weeks. Better yet, by consuming more protein, the subjects reported feeling hungry less, and ‘full’ more often. Protein slows the digestion of carbs which helps keep our appetites in check.

10. Determine the amount of protein for you and your body. Proteins contain 4 calories per gram. If you are strength training, the National Academy of Sports Medicine recommends consuming 0.7-0.8 grams of protein per pound of body weight based on the research of Karpinski and Rosenbloom, (2017). By eating enough protein you may find that you not only burn fat, but you also build muscle and strength. Don’t miss the tips on tracking your gains below.

11. Don’t skip the carbs. If you plan on training hard, Dr. Burke et al. (2006) emphasizes the important role of carbohydrates for optimal performance and for improved recovery. Similarly, Dr. Antonio et al. (2018) highlights the importance of carbohydrates for replenishing lost muscle and liver glycogen. By consuming carbs, you will maintain the energy needed to workout hard and consistently. Neglecting carbs can leave you feeling exhausted and stalled in the gym.

12. Don’t neglect healthy fats. Not only do fats support cell function, they also help protect our organs and help our bodies absorb essential vitamins and nutrients. This is important in order to stay healthy and energized throughout your journey.

13. Track your calories and protein, carbs, and fats using an app like MyFitnessPal. This will be far easier, faster, and more convenient if you…

14. Keep it simple. Eating variations of the same nutrient-dense and delicious meals not only keeps you satisfied but also eliminates the need to recount every calorie. For example, at least 5 days a week, I eat a variation of what I call turkey salad. I cook 1-2 lbs of ground turkey, onions, peppers, ginger, garlic, chilli flakes, (and sometimes okra). 

I place the turkey on a generous serving of lettuce or spinach. I might switch up the spices, but it remains a delicious, nutrient-dense, lean, and high protein meal. This meal makes it easy to hit my calorie and protein goals. Knowing how many calories and grams of protein this meal has also eliminates the need to recount the calories and grams of protein every time. Whatever meals you choose, record the nutrient and calorie information to save the hassle of having to do the math for every meal or snack.

15. Keep some delicious frozen protein on hand. Make it convenient to hit your protein and calorie goals on most days even if you are out of proteins. Make it count when you are going to break your rules – you don’t want to have to settle for something like protein powder or scrambled eggs just because you didn’t have a more delicious protein on hand.

16. If money is tight, look for budget-friendly proteins. You don’t have to eat steak and lobster to get protein rich meals. Turkey and chicken are some of the highest protein and most delicious options. Oftentimes perfectly fine steaks are priced for quick sale to

17. Shop around for budget-friendly proteins. Since I eat a lot of extra lean, ground turkey, I know the local store that sells it for half the price of other stores. I stock up, keep it frozen, and honestly can’t tell the difference from fresh, higher-priced, ground turkey.

18. Use intermittent fasting. An easy way to do this is to fast in the morning and make lunch your first meal of the day. If you find it challenging, have black coffee to blunt your hunger. I first heard this tip from Gregory O’Gallagher at Kinobody.com. Give it a couple of weeks to become a habit –  it can be a bit of a challenge at first.

19. Base your meals around delicious, satisfying proteins. What’s your favorite type of protein? What is another type of protein that makes your mouth water? Eat more of that! Why not have it for supper at least a few times a week? Now do the same with satiating carbs and fats.

20. Enjoy satiating carbs. French fries or garlic mashed potatoes anyone? Make your meals around the carbs you truly enjoy and find satisfy to make it easy to succeed on your daily, monthly, and longer-term goals,

21. Enjoy extra delicious treats in moderation. I was not able to stick to my calorie budget by eating meat and veggies alone. Enjoying ice cream treats and delicious meals has been my secret weapon to breaking my fat loss plateau. By treating yourself, you will have fewer ‘weak moments’ where your inner-rebel can sweep in and set you back a few weeks by making you hammer a family-size bag of Doritos

22. Treat yourself! Experiment until you find enjoying ultra-satisfying snacks. Yo-yo diets are those that have you subsisting on boring foods where you temporarily lose weight, but it comes back with a vengeance. Not here. What is your favorite treat? Cookies and ice cream? Oreo bars? Cheezies? Full-size chocolate bars? Keep room in your calorie budget to enjoy treats. Just make sure it fits within your dietary needs while still hitting your protein and calorie goals.

23. Avoid slippery-slope treats. Choose treats that you will be less likely to go overboard with. For example, I can easily stick to eating 1-2 ice cream bars, but for whatever reason, I find it harder to ‘say no’ to a full container of ice cream. Find the treats that you are able to exercise discipline with so you will be able to consistently stick to your calorie budget. I have heard plenty of other people have found they have the same issue with having ice cream tubs in their freezer, while not having any issues stopping after one or two ice cream bars.

24. Drink plenty of water. Drinking more water can make eating in a calorie deficit easier. The findings of two studies indicate that drinking more water has led to increased weight loss (Constant et al., 2012; ,Comber et al., 2010). Similar to foods that are high in water content, water can help make the stomach feel full without any additional calories.

25. Make it easy to drink plenty of water. Keep a glass or water bottle in the places where you spend most of your time. I keep a glass in my home office, in my kitchen, and 2 water bottles at work. Every time I see my glass or water bottle I remember to drink water. ,The goal is remove as many barriers and steps so that drinking water is easy and pretty much guaranteed.

26. Don’t forget your veggies! Vegetables are dense with nutrients, low in calories, and high in fiber. Various research studies have shown that participants engaging in high fiber diets have lost much more weight than people on low-fiber diets.

“From those same studies it was found that an increase of 14 grams of fiber a day was associated with an average weight loss of 1.9 kg (4.2 lb) over 3.8 months. These analyses highlight the importance of fiber-rich foods, such as fruit and vegetables, in weight regulation.” (Center for Disease Control and Prevention,2012, p. 3)

27. Keep fresh vegetables in sight and within reach. Don’t do like the grocery stores do and hide the healthy stuff in the furthest, hardest to reach corners. Keep fresh vegetables on the counter and in plain-sight in the fridge. Make it as easy and as convenient as possible to enjoy veggies.

28. Keep frozen vegetables on hand. Sometimes you will run out of fresh vegetables and keeping some frozen vegetables on hand makes it much easier to get those low-calorie-density, nutritious essentials. This is key in those moments when you simply can’t or can’t bare to leave your cozy home to go to a grocery store.

29. Don’t feel the need to eat vegetables with every snack. Many overly-obsessive health gurus say you have to have vegetables with every snack. No thanks! A delicious Oreo cone with a side of broccoli just won’t work for me. Being too rigid can cause many peoples’ inner rebel to flare up and go overboard on unplanned calories.

30. Use food labels and food scales to track your calories. Studies have shown that people tend to under-estimate how many calories they consume in a day. Know how many calories you are consuming. This daunting task is super easy if you keep it simple. Many people who get the leanest, tend to eat variations of the same meals with the same amounts. Don’t forget that many cooked meats and other foods have less water-weight and thus more calories than the same weight of uncooked food.

31. Don’t forget to include sneaky calories in certain sauces and especially oils. Fats have 9 calories per gram unlike carbs and proteins which only have 4 calories per gram. Oils are pure fat and many sauces tend to be packed with sugar.

32. Find an arsenal of delicious, low-calorie spices and sauces. My go to sauces are Sriracha, powdered garlic, onion powder, powdered ginger, chili flakes. Ranch powder is also a low calorie alternative to ranch dressing and combined with Frank’s hot sauce can make some mean buffalo bites.

33. Keep your lunch under 500 calories. I have found by making it to supper with 75% of my calorie budget yet to be delighted upon, I can eat lavishly and enjoy the heck out of my evenings without experiencing the slightest bit hungry or restricted.

34. Plan ahead for restaurants. Sometimes you might want to spend a little more to get a simple steak, carb, and vegetables. I have found that many restaurants offer a simple, delicious protein, carb, and vegetable combination.

35. Drink fewer calories. Our bodies were evolved to digest whole foods. For most people, liquid calories are quickly digested leaving us feeling hungry and unsatisfied. You will most likely find it much easier to hit your calorie budget by replacing sugary juices and sodas with zero calorie alternatives or better yet, water.

36. Keep your coffee black. Having coffee each day packed with cream and sugar is a quick, un-filling way to add plenty of calories. Worse, the spike in blood sugar actually makes us feel hungry.

37. Avoid sugary drinks. Many juices and other drinks that are marketed as ‘healthy’ are high in sugar and no more satisfying than zero calorie drinks. The spike in blood sugar leads to hunger which can make this lifestyle seem needlessly challenging.

38. Limit alcohol to two days a week and don’t have more than a couple of drinks. Even when eating in a calorie deficit, I found that drinking alcohol completely stalled my progress. After months of belly measurements and checking the scale, my results were stagnant. My results instantly accelerated when limiting myself to 3-4 drinks per week.

39. Enjoy some spontaneous, unplanned meals and treats. Some days you will feel hungrier and delicious ‘surprise’ snack will be offered to you. Say ‘yes’ to enjoying some treats knowing that “you’ve got this” and that you don’t have to be obsessive all the time. Measuring food and counting calories can seem tedious so you want to balance this with a little variety. Once you consume variations of the same delicious meals and snacks, hitting your calorie goal becomes automated and you can afford to indulge once in a while. I have found this also makes it less likely that I will indulge on something less worth it – like packaged cinnamon buns.

40. Don’t worry if you don’t hit your protein goal once in a while. For example, at a staff party or other get-together you might go extra heavy on the carbs or fats. Brush this off and view it as an enjoyable reward for having your calories on automation. On these days trying to hit your protein goal can be worse because you might then go way over on the calories. Don’t worry about it – just dial it back in tomorrow.

41. Make a contingency plan or plan b. Of course you will try not to consume 8000 calories but if you do, you may set yourself back by a week or more of perfect eating. This can be demoralizing. One way I get this back dialed in is by performing a prolonged fast that lasts between 24 and 36 hours. The next day, I go back to eating as usual. The meals taste better, I feel better knowing “I’ve still got this!” and I have recovered a weeks worth of calories in one day.

Exercise Weight loss tips – How to lose weight

42. Include strength-training:

Strength training will help build up muscles which will speed up your metabolism  (Campbell et al. 1994;,Bailey et al., 2009).

• • Resistance training sessions also require energy and you will burn additional calories (Harvard Health, 2021)
  • Better yet, research has found people continue to burn even more calories after strength-training sessions (Mcbride et al., 2002)
  • Including resistance training makes it more likely that you will burn fat while maintaining muscle (Byrne et al., 2007)
  • If you overeat, your weight training will help your body mobilize the calories to build muscle as opposed to storing fat (Espinar et al., 2008).

43. Track your strength gains. Recording the reps, sets, and weight can provide some much-needed self-congratulations to combat lulls in motivation. In addition, by seeing your lifts increase, you will know that you have gotten stronger and put on muscle. This serves as further proof that you are on the right track even if the scale is not going down.

44. Schedule your workouts. Habit expert Charles Duhigg, explains that when we schedule our habits at a specific time and place, you will be far less likely to forget or miss. Treat your scheduled workouts like your most important appointment because it just might be. If someone asks you to stay late or for something else, tell them the truth and say “Sorry – I can’t right now – I have an important appointment.”

45. Get at least 10,000 steps per day. Start small until it becomes a habit, but walking every day has been the single biggest win for mental, physical, intellectual, emotional, spiritual, and even financial health. (My wife and I only pay for one car and much less gas since she bikes and I walk to work each day).

Walking has been found to come with the following research-backed benefits:

• Improve sleep quality for a wide range of people (Boros et al., 2021)
• Lead to healthy fat loss and weight management (Espinar et al, 2008;Hanson et al., 2015)
• Reduce blood pressure (Abraham et al., 2008; Hanson, 2015), and
• Lower stress levels and improve psychological health (Bang et al., 2017).
  
  Watch documentaries that inspire healthy living. That Sugar Film made me think twice about eating processed, sugary foods.
  
  46. Do 2-3 high intensity interval training session per week during down-time. Drs. Vollaard and Metcalfe (2017) found that “interval training protocols with fewer (two to three) and shorter (10–20 second) sprints are as good as or better than [longer, more grueling sessions] at improving important health markers”. You could bust one of these HIIT sessions out in the time another person takes to have a smoke

Track your progress – Weight loss tips – How to lose weight

47. Weigh yourself every day. Dr. Askew et al. (2015) found that participants who weighed themselves daily lost more weight and sustained the healthy behaviors needed to keep the weight off. Over 6 months, the people who weighed themselves daily lost a whopping 6.1 kg or 13.4 lbs compared to the people who did not weigh-in daily.

48. Measure your belly every 1-2 weeks. Losing 20lbs or more of fat can take a while. Stepping on the scale only to see it stay the same or even go up can become a daunting and even defeating task. When you are lifting weights and eating a high protein diet, it is entirely possible to put on muscle while burning fat. By measuring your belly around your naval, you will help inoculate yourself from giving up due to frustration of not seeing the scale budge.

49. Create a photo-journey: Each month, take photos to track your progress. At one point in my journey, I stayed stuck weighing around 224lbs for 4 months. I felt frustrated with my progress until I saw a picture of myself from 4 months ago. Comparing the photos, it was clear that my body had much more muscle and less fat in the more current photo. The scale wasn’t telling the whole story and I am glad I had other evidence to change my mind.

50.  Schedule the days for tracking. Open up your calendar and schedule the recurring dates that you will measure your belly and take your photos. I like to use Google Calendar. This way you can set a recurring event for say the 4th Sunday of every month. Otherwise, it can be easy to forget and this isn’t as useful unless you do it consistently.

51. Get a step tracker. Researchers conducted a meta-analysis of randomized-controlled trials including 1258 overweight or obese participants who wore step-trackers. Cai et al. (2016) concluded that wearing a pedometer “led to significantly decreased body mass index and reduced weight.”

Self-care: Weight loss tips – How to lose weight

52. Schedule relaxing time and make sure it actually is relaxing. Stress-eating and emotional-eating can be a real challenge for many people. Plan ahead by brainstorming a list of all the things you truly enjoy and make time for those by putting them in your schedule.

53. Be intentional with your downtime. Have you ever found you actually feel more stressed out after watching a movie or tv show? I have….and I swear my stress-eating and stress-drinking is more likely to happen during or after watching an overly intense show. Holding your body in a tense, stress state can be hard to shake off – even if it is from a so-called relaxing activity. Just because you can’t wait to press play on that addicting tv series doesn’t mean it is in your best interest.

54. Prioritize feeling good. When I got to my heaviest, least healthy point, I also felt the worst. This led me to feel more stressed, to drink more alcohol to combat the stress, and to keep getting further out of shape. By prioritizing positive emotions such as gratitude using Gabby Bernstein’s ‘Choose again’ method, I put myself back in the driver seat and stopped needing food and drink to cope with these challenging emotions.

55. Aim for 7-8 hours of sleep each night. Researcher Cauter et al. (2008) found that people who don’t get enough sleep are more likely to suffer from obesity, type II diabetes, and metabolic syndrome. Not only that, but a lack of sleep leads to “Reduced leptin and increased ghrelin levels” which can make you feel hungrier…more likely to kill an otherwise perfect day of eating with a mischievous late night feast. Get your sleep!

56. Go to bed at the same time each day. Many people find their will power wanes the later in the evening it gets. Whether this is due to decision fatigue or something else – you might find that by getting to bed at a descent hour you will eliminate the need for super human discipline

57. Wake up at the same time each day and prioritize your #1 priority. I first heard this tip from Craig Ballantyne, former fitness coach turned business coach. If you have a hard time squeezing in your workouts, try waking up 15-30 minutes earlier and do it then. Former bodybuilder, Tom Venuto, explains that working out in a fasted state might help you burn fat much more effectively than any other time.

58. If you have neck pain or hold stress in your neck, consider getting a standing desk. After telling my chiropractor about how my neck was so tense due to stress, he told me to get a standing desk. I had been hunched at a desk so much of my day. The standing desk immediately improved my posture and the stress knots in the back of my neck vanished overnight. This made me even less likely to turn to unhealthy alternatives such as food and drink to release the stress.

Self-care and Benefits: Weight loss tips – How to lose weight

The next five points are meant for people who receive employee health benefits and/or are able to afford regular massages, dental visits, etc. If you can’t yet afford these or don’t yet have access, this section might not yet apply to you.

If your employer provides benefits, use them! If you are fortunate enough to have a job that provides health and dental benefits, treat yourself! Find out how much you are covered for and research to find the best providers. Ask around and Google to find the best spots for counseling, massages, chiropractor, physiotherapy, dental work, and anything else your benefits provide. These are called benefits for a reason – make the most of them!

James Clear, habit-expert and best-selling author of Atomic Habits explains, each of our actions cast a vote for the type of person and identity we hold. By scheduling these self-care, healthy activities you will cast votes that you are the type of person who is healthy and proactive.

59. Visit a physiotherapist. My physiotherapist assessed my overhead squat form and found a major flaw. Even though I had been working out for years, I was unaware of this error and no one I had worked out with caught it. Now, I regularly ask my physiotherapist for form checks and advice on many of my key lifts and for suggestions for exercises I should add or remove from my workout routine.

60. See a counselor. I suggest asking around and searching reviews so that you find a great fit. Find a counselor that you jive with.. This has been an absolute game-changer for me in terms of creating healthy ways to decompress so that I no longer rely on food or drink to deal with stress. Many superheroes have a confidante or coach – you might enjoy having one too!

61. See a chiropractor. If for nothing else, I suggest you go there and ask for help and inspiration to improve your posture. Look at fit, healthy people you see around you and those in movies and tv. So many have great posture. By focusing on improving your posture, you not only feel better, but start to develop the identity of someone who is healthy, fit, and mindful.

62. Schedule time to book however many massages your benefits will provide. Space them out accordingly, but do it. By consistently scheduling self-care activities like massages, you reinforce the message that you and your body are worth taking care of. You may even be motivated to exercise and eat better while you are at it.

63. Go to the dentist. If you have put this off, schedule your next visit now and don’t leave the dental office without your next one booked. If you have ever avoided the dentist, you know it gently gnaws at you and gets worse with each passing day. Healthy people take care of their teeth and gums. Get there!

https://twitter.com/jamesclear/status/1048612840615997441?lang=en

Get Accountable: Weight loss tips – How to lose weight

64. Use video meets for added accountability for your workouts. You could do this with a friend, or easier yet – try focus Focusmate. Simply schedule a time and you will be paired with a partner you have never met. At the start of your session, you tell your partner your workout plan and get it done. At the end, you check in and tell them what you accomplished. It’s like a mini-celebration for making it happen. Bonus points if you leave the camera on so your partner knows you weren’t slacking! At the time I’m writing this, the free plan allows for 3 sessions per week.

65. Get an accountability buddy or buddies. Especially when starting your new habits, it is important to be extra diligent with making it happen each day. I recommend finding an ambitious friend or friends who you deeply respect. Start a WhatsApp or texting group with them. I recommend taking these actions each day to help you stay consistent…

66. Share a photo of your sweaty self after workouts with your accountability team. Make sure to tell your team or partner to expect this photo the day before.

67. Post a screenshot of your MyFitnessPal App each day. Show your accounta-billa-buddies you hit your protein and calorie goal today. I recommend doing this right before bed so you can’t sneak any snacks in after.

68. Show your partners a photo of the scale each morning. I found this especially helpful when starting out to help me stop unnecessary snacking before bed.

69. Reveal your belly measurement with your team each week. While the scale will fluctuate, this measurement should be going down each month. This will help you hit the goals that matter most. Take this measurement first thing in the morning on the same day each week.

70. Reward yourself for your efforts. When I focused on reducing my alcohol intake, I deposited $7 each day that I went without. I chose $7 because it worked out to about $50 a week. I figured it would help my brain quantify the health and life benefits. I promised myself and my best buddy, that when I hit $250 I would use that money to buy myself really healthy, Vivo Barefoot shoes as a reward. I knew every time I put those shoes on, it would reinforce my healthier, fitter identity.

71. Include consequences if you don’t follow through. With the example above, if I had more alcohol than I planned, I told my best buddy he was to take that same money and order the exact shoes for a friend in his shoe size. I have some healthy competition with this friend, so it added an extra layer for me wanting to make sure I followed through.

 

Bonus tip: Commit to sticking with your calorie and protein goal for 21 days or more. I did this with my accountability partner. The first guy to go over with calories had to send $20 plus a screenshot to a charity or political campaign he despises.

72. Bring your friends with you. Do you find that many friend-hangouts revolve around eating and drinking as the main event? I learned from a super healthy colleague, to start scheduling walking hang outs instead. The conversations are as good or better and instead of consuming calories, you are burning them!

73. Make health a priority. Look at your last 12 months and ask, “What do my habits say about me?” Are there things you have been doing daily, weekly, or monthly that someone who puts health first wouldn’t do? What would a healthier version of you do more of? Make a plan to replace one outdated habit with one that fits more in line with the healthiest most inspired version of you.

74. Don’t miss twice. If you happen to ‘drop the ball’ one day with your diet or miss a workout, don’t stress too much. Letting our minds run wild with guilt and self-deprecating thoughts has derailed the best of us to eat ourselves into a comatose state. Take it from the author of Superhuman By Habit – and don’t miss twice!

75. Treat weight loss habits like juggling. Best-selling author, Seth Godin explains in his book, The Practice, that the hardest part of juggling is picking up the ball after failing to catch it time after time. This is where most people get fed up and quit. Focus on continually picking up that ball (aka good habits mentioned in this article) and don’t worry too much about the outcome. With time and deliberate practice, you will drop fewer balls and the results will take care of themselves (Godin, 2020).

Goal Setting: Weight loss tips – How to lose weight

76. Set stretch goals. In his book, Smarter, Faster, Better, Charles Duhigg details many examples of organizations, teams, and individuals who used extremely ambitious goals to stretch their imaginations and zeal for their daily SMART Goals. Set goals so big you don’t know how you will achieve them. Then make them happen with daily actions by making sure you also…

77. Set daily SMART goals. Your SMART goals are the daily actions that will take you to your stretch goals. Use the following questions (from this article) to guide you:

• Is this a clear, specific next step I can take today to move me closer to my big fitness goals?
• How will I measure this goal so I know when I have hit it and how far I have to go?
• Is the accomplishment of this task attainable and based on my discipline, effort, application of effective strategies, and/or willingness to get the help I need?
• Is this goal realistic or do I need to prepare for obstacles that could come up today?
• What is the specific time that you will start and complete this task?

Master the Mental Game: Weight loss tips – How to lose weight

82. Allow yourself to aggressively pursue your ambitious fitness and other goals. Many people will not share the same enthusiasm as you. You may literally need to be your own cheerleader. Matt Furey, author of the Theatre of the Mind, encourages his readers to recite the following affirmations with enthusiasm as they go about their work:

69. • I want to [enthusiastically insert your fitness goal]!
    • I will [enthusiastically insert your fitness goal]!
    • I’m going to [enthusiastically insert your fitness goal]!
    • I can [enthusiastically insert your fitness goal]!

Try these out and watch your motivation and resolve towards your goals steadily rise

83. Make a list of all the times you have been victorious. Review and continue adding to this list of accomplishments (big and small) whenever you experience self-doubt, guilt, or criticism. So much shame has been related to body image and eating that it can really derail us when we feel these strong emotions. Keep this list available to review any time you need a pick-me-up or a reminder of your true power and that “you’ve got this!” Reviewing and experiencing the positive emotions of your past wins will help you develop a healthy, capable self-image backed by the convictions that you can crush your fitness goals.

84. If you ever binge or miss a workout, read your list of past wins. The guilt and shame that comes after we drop the ball can send us back further than where we started. In fact, I have lost and regained 50lbs or more on many occasions. If you miss a step, plan ahead and be ready so you can instantly reaffirm your inner and mental strength by reading your list of past wins and obliterating those feelings of guilt and shame with a flood of positive emotions.

85. Assess what is working and discard what is not. You are a unique being with your own mental, emotional, and physical needs. As such it is important to track your own progress. Treat this goal like you are a scientist on a mission to create your dream body.

86. Write a script for your perfect day with your fitness goals achieved 3 years from now. For example, “I wake up, check my phone and see it’s 9:30 am on a sunny Saturday morning. I almost forgot that I’m on vacation. I get up to go to the washroom and can’t help but check myself out. I smile knowing that I reached my goal of (insert detailed descriptions). I step on the scale and see my weight is… I measure around my navel and see it is x inches…As I shower, I think about how far I have come and how much I am enjoying my life…”

87. Record your script for you perfect day with your fitness goals achieved 3 years from now. This can be low tech. I simply used my the ‘Voice Memo’ app on my iPhone. I put on some binaural beats on my laptop and had my script opened on a Google Doc. Then, I simply pressed ‘record’ and read my script.

88. Listen to your visualization when you need to relax and unwind. After a long day of work, the last thing many of us want to do is to hit the gym or stay disciplined. Visualizing your goals can serve as an incredibly powerful recharge and mental reset. I have found visualizing to be essential in maintaining the focus, energy, and commitment needed to stay consistent with my workout and nutrition goals. 

 

You may just find that visualizing your goals helps you reframe your workout and nutrtion goals into energizing rituals as opposed to tedious tasks.

89. Listen to your visualization each day. As for many of my habits, I find putting Charles Duhigg’s  cues into practice to make this habit stick. To illustrate, I visualize five days a week at the same time (between 5:30 – 6pm when I get home from work), in the same place (on my couch in my living room), while usually experiencing a specific emotion (exhaustion),  and immediately following a proceeding habit (getting home from work).

90. Listen to your visualization when you feel lazy or lack motivation. I find this especially helpful when I need motivation or feel like giving in to temptations. Again, use this along with tip #4 and you will find it dang near effortless to get yourself to stick to your plans.

91. Use mental rehearsal to reinforce your new identity. Have you ever found yourself doing great for a while and then snapping back to your old ways? Dr. Maxwell Maltz explains that in order to achieve our goals, we need to see ourselves as the type of person who is able to make it happen. If we don’t, change how we perceive ourselves, willpower can only take us so far before we snap back to our old habits. To do this, simply visualize yourself successfully carrying out your new process goals and habits. 

 

Below is a video where Dr. Maxwell Maltz explains self-image psychology and how this can be used to achieve our goals.