21 micro habits to make weight loss stick #5: Get a weight loss coach.

We often think we can figure weight loss out BY ourselves. But’s more that we have to figure it out FOR ourselves, than that we have to do it alone.

Food Psychology Coach Laura Lloyd explains how she helps people overcome overeating and lose weight, and why her DIY mentality hasn’t always paid off in life.

Every single one of us has a unique fingerprint of habit patterns, thoughts around food, and a relationship with our body that’s been shaped by our upbringing, our relationships, and the belief thoughts we’ve chosen to repeat to ourselves.

No therapist or coach can do the detective work for you. But they can help you ask yourself better questions.

If you find yourself asking yourself pointless questions you never answer, like …

Why have my thighs been so fat my whole life?
Why can’t I be normal like everyone else around food?
How long is this going to take?
Will this be ‘the thing’ that finally works for me?
How can I do anything for myself when I’m so busy?

… then you need someone to guide you into the detail of what you’re doing.

Just to note, these kind of questions are rubbish because:

a) your brain tries to answer them, and gets tired out since they aren’t answerable, only lamentable,

and b) They make your brain think about how hard it all is, and why you can’t do things – and those are the only answers you’ll get.

Your brain just answers the questions you give it. It’s like Google. It can’t second-guess the instructions you run.

Laura Lloyd

Food psychology coach

You won’t get creative solutions to your problems unless you ask your brain how to get the results you want, and have fun along the way.

You need someone who sees your thoughts as not-true, to help you spot what you’re thinking. And feeling. And to notice the moments when you’re not feeling, and invite you to let those emotions flow through you, rather than eating them into oblivion.

Coaches – good food psychology coaches – do a lot more than just provide accountability.

An app will provide accountability, sure, but a human? You can hear their words, their tone. They connect.

They become a voice in your head, so that you self-coach when you’re between sessions.

They remind you you’re not broken, alone, flawed in some way.

Coaches push you beyond the insights you already have about yourself, and they push you to actually act on the insights.

Many many people right now are psychologically savvy and self-aware, but that’s not the same as being able to change in the present moment.

Knowing your patterns, knowing why you took on certain beliefs in the past, can bring you to a point of compassion with yourself and others.

But someone needs to help you move forwards.

Tackle the present, visualise the future. That’s where the action is.

Weight loss, or stopping overeating or binge eating, are better done along with someone looking out for you.

Someone keeping it important, even when your day to day threatens to make it unimportant. And someone who believes in you, when you don’t.

If you don’t think that day of self-doubt will come, you haven’t ever tried to lose more than a couple of pounds. There will be ups and downs on your journey, believe me. It’s all good.

Just to say, my advice to get a coach will probably bring up a lot of thoughts for you to work on – like, I can’t afford to get help, and she’s just trying to get more clients, and I can figure this out myself, it’s not rocket science.

Take that to your journal and get over your self-limiting thoughts! It’s just your brain trying to protect you, keeping you in your comfort zone!

Whatever your thoughts, don’t go it alone.

A friend or accountability partner’s a good shout. Find a person or people.

Every single client I ever have, feels like the only one on the planet to have this perceived ‘defect’ of not being able to stop eating.

That’s just not true.

And just remember – what you share with someone else is a gift to them. They learn so much from you learning.

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Yes please!

Just a little side note from me:

Self-judgment is never even slightly helpful, people, if you want to lose weight.

It will stop you in your tracks. Self-judgment creates inaction.

I mean, we think it’s failure that’ll stymie success. That’s not true.

As Brooke Castillo says, failure is not the opposite of success. Inaction is the opposite of success.

Essentially, feeling like a human car crash because you have a lot of thoughts that aren’t helping you, and a lot of habitual behaviours bothering you, just makes it painful to look at what you’re doing, and analyse it.

Which is why we put off leaning in and looking at what we’re really doing when we’re messing up.

But when we do look at it with curiosity, it’s SUCH a relief!

It’s your ability to go into ‘data analysis’ and 'I'm learning new skills' mode that takes the drama out of your weight loss journey:

Scale gone up? Just data – which habit or skill do I need to learn next?

Mum make a snide remark about how you’re ‘getting too thin’? Just data – how can you let other people’s opinions wash off you like water off a duck’s back?

Notice that you ‘can’t’ sit down to work without a road snack to get from the kitchen to your desk? Just data – what am I thinking and feeling about my work?

Go all-out on chocolate one day, and body feels sick and jittery afterwards? Just data – what was I thinking and feeling that day? Does this information from my body change how I think about ‘how much I love’ chocolate?

Self-doubt creates overwhelm. Overwhelm stops you starting. And, once again – that inaction is the opposite of success – not failure.

Failure is very informative. Failure means you’re trying things. It increases your probability of hitting on a solution.

Laura Lloyd

Food Psychology Coach, The School of Food Psychology