In over two decades of helping people lose weight and improve their health, fitness and energy………..
I could count on the fingers of one hand the number of people who’ve made constant, linear progress from where they started to where they wanted to be.
So, for example, they’ve had three stone to lose and have lost two pounds a week for 21 weeks straight.
Even the very best success stories I’ve ever seen had faster and slower periods of progression.
But, the overwhelming majority of people that I’ve helped make changes that they’ve struggled with before…………
Actually did it with periods of progression and regression.
Points where they actually gained a bit of weight, but then went back to losing it, for example.
Often because they’d challenged that ‘all or nothing’ mindset that they had before.
Where they were either ‘on it’ or ‘planning on starting again’.
They stopped treating periods of weight gain as justification for further weight gain.
Less beating themselves up, deciding that they’d ‘failed’ or that there was something ‘wrong’ with them.
Recognising that periods where they couldn’t eat and exercise as well as they might like didn’t automatically equate to essentially doing nothing at all.
Damage limitation.
And I’ve just had a little idea for an ‘experiment’ around this.
I’ve number crunched the assessment details for a few long term members that I’ve spoken to recently.
People who’ve had periods of both weight loss and weight gain since being members.
I wanted to see what would have happened to their overall result if, during the periods of weight gain, they had only gained half as much weight.
So still had the all inclusive holidays, birthday parties, festivities and social events that had led to their periods of weight gain………..
But just made a few tactical choices within that to half the impact.
Remembering too that halving the impact isn’t halving our total consumption………….
It’s halving the overconsumption.
Here’s what I found;
Person 1
Total weight loss: 28lbs
Weight loss if periods of gain were halved: 79lbs
Weight loss if gains were still 75% as much: 54lbs
Person 2
Total weight loss: 11lbs
Weight loss if periods of gain were halved: 17lbs
Weight loss if gains were still 75% as much: 14lbs
Person 3
Total weight loss: 3lbs
Weight loss if periods of gain were halved: 10lbs
Weight loss if gains were still 75% as much: 7lbs
Person 4
Total weight loss: 16lbs
Weight loss if periods of gain were halved: 32lbs
Weight loss if gains were still 75% as much: 24lbs
Person 5
Total weight loss: 35lbs
Weight loss if periods of gain were halved: 55lbs
Weight loss if gains were still 75% as much: 45lbs
Notice that I didn’t bother calculating what would have happened if they hadn’t gained weight at any point.
Pointless and naive.
Progression and regression is the path that gets most of us where we want to be over time.
Four steps forward, two steps back is fine.
But it’s interesting to see what will happen if we make that four steps forward, one back.
Periods of weight gain are part of the weight loss journey for the vast majority of people.
But is it worth asking ourselves how much difference it would make to our lives and how much we enjoyed them………..
And, conversely, to the results and benefits we gained………..
If we halved (or even ‘three quartered’) those periods of weight gain.
Much love,
Jon ‘Damage CTR’ Hall
P.S. When you’re ready to invest an extra pound or two a day in considerably better results than you’ve got lone wolfing it, here’s why you can try that our (with a Money Back Guarantee) –> www.myrise.co.uk/apply
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RISE in Macclesfield was established in 2012 and specialise in Group Personal Training weight loss programmes for those that don’t like the gym and find diets boring and restrictive!
