By Angela Kerrisk from Activate Fitness

How many times do you ask yourself why it's so hard to lose weight?

Anyone with a weight loss goal working hard on establishing healthy habits and trying to decrease the frequency of making unhealthy choices knows that losing weight takes time!

By now, you’ve likely heard our nutrition coaching staff say that progress is rarely a straight line and that your weight loss journey is going to take a long term approach to dial things in. This takes much dedication and patience on your part. Paying attention to nutrition and taking the time to learn healthy habits to keep the weight off and be healthy across your lifespan is challenging but rewarding work.

Our nutrition coaches work with clients at various points in their journey. Everyone has their reasons for wanting to improve their nutrition. While losing weight is not a goal for everyone, losing weight and lowering body fat is the most common goal we hear. Many people acknowledge that they need an accountability partner to help lose weight because they encounter all too common roadblocks during their weight loss journey.

Let’s take a look at three of the most common roadblocks to lose weight:

Looking for quick fixes or following fad diets

It is often really tempting to follow a diet that you have heard has worked for someone else, which has led to rapid weight loss. What you don’t know about this is that these quick fixes or fad diets are often super restrictive and are tough to sustain, leading to the regaining of weight. There is no one size fits all approach to weight loss. The benefit of meeting with a nutrition coach is that we work with you to develop an individualised plan that fits your lifestyle. We also teach you to layer healthy habits over time and communicate with you regularly regarding strategies to stay on track with your goals.

Not paying attention to what is going into our beverages

So many times we look at incorporating lots of healthy foods in our diet when we are trying to lose weight, but we forget to pay attention to what we are drinking. Things like sugary coffee beverages, regular soda, and fruit juices are packed with sugar and extra calories that can stand in the way of our weight loss goals.
Our nutrition coaching staff help educate you about these commonly overlooked roadblocks, teach you the importance of logging, and help you learn to read food and beverage labels. These tactics will help you make a more informed decision about these items and see how drinking these beverages affects your goal attainment.

Going all in and making too many changes at once

Weight loss is a marathon and not a sprint. There is a tendency to want to make too many changes all at once in order to meet our goals sooner. What we see is that this is way too overwhelming, and people aren’t investing the time it takes to make healthy habits part of their foundation. You may hear your nutrition coach say that a three-month minimum time commitment is required when entering a nutrition programme. This is not to be mean, but rather help you achieve your goals by genuinely taking the time to learn healthy habits and avoid the temptation to make too many changes all at once.

If you are looking to get some help with overcoming your own roadblocks on your weight loss journey, the nutrition coaching staff are here to help you achieve these goals. Schedule a free consultation www.activate.ie/free-intro and get started on achieving your weight loss goals.