Comfort Mood

When it comes to Health and Fitness, one of the most common questions is “How do I lose weight?”

The concept of losing weight is very simple: if you burn more calories than you consume, you will lose weight. That’s all there is to it. There is no catch and applies to each and every one of us.

But if weight loss is that simple, why are so many people still asking for advice?

First of all, it’s easier said than done. Burning more calories than we consume can be very difficult in today’s food market of ready, steady meals. Secondly, diet industry is so saturated that we get too bogged down in what is the right one to go for. However, regardless of what we’re being fed by advertisements, I think we all know instinctively how to lose weight but we’re pretending not to know so we have an excuse not to do it. We avoid losing weight not from lack of knowledge but from lack of desire. You see, a lot of us are unhappy with our body composition (this is not fat shaming, I‘m including myself when I say this). However, we’re too comfortable to change. If you’re comfortable with your body, then be happy but most of us are not aligned with this attitude.

So if we are going to transform our body composition, it is going to take a huge amount of effort and most of us aren’t prepared to do it. The concept of weight loss may be simple to understand but very difficult to do. It takes patience, determination, but most importantly, desire. Desire is the overall riding factor in our success for change. As there will be temptations, obstacles, and moments of self-doubt along the way, our desire for change will pull us through.

A few years ago, I signed up for an intensive 6-week fitness boot camp and I remember getting up at 6am thinking to myself why on earth am I doing this? However, I pushed through this doubt, I pushed through the very difficult first few sessions. In the end, my desire to improve my fitness saw me complete all 6 weeks. I was so proud of myself, it was one of the best things I’ve done. If we want to do the same, we have to go to what may feel like extremes, however, it’s just something out of our comfort zones.

So, the question around weight loss should not be “How do I lose weight?”. Instead, we should be asking ourselves truthfully: “Do I really want to lose weight?”