There are many, many complexities when it comes to successfully losing weight that is for sure!

We have found though, that among the most overlooked aspect of any endeavor, is the idea of consistency.  While this applies to doing anything, it applies to weight loss so much more than other things.  This is because we are always choosing to be active or not, and we are constantly choosing what and how often we eat so many times a day.  This means we can lose ground on our goals quickly, if we make the wrong decision.

Should I skip breakfast today?  Should I eat pop-tarts?  Should I make an egg white omlet…toast…with butter?  These are all small decisions we make throughout the day, yet each decision has a cumulative effect on what the scale may say at the end of the week.  Additionally, we have to understand our ability to consume calories compared to our ability to burn calories…

To burn 500 Calories, you may have to run on the treadmill for 40 minutes or more, at 6 miles per hour.  Yet, we can consume 500 calories in just a few minutes!
The average Combo Meal at any Fast Food Restaurant is over 800 calories or more!  So that means if you have two Fast Food meals that could equal more than 3 very intense workouts for your week.  And if you are only walking on the treadmill at a slow pace (even every day), that means a whole lot of walking!

Ok, back to consistency.  So there is a common mode of thinking we’ve seen, where the “good choices” we make are magnified in our minds, and we seem to think we’ve been good for a whole week, if we’ve gone to the gym 3 or 4 days in a week, or we’ve had 2 or 3 really good days of eating.  These days we are really proud of, so we rationalize that they outweigh the bad days.

There are two ways to look at this. 

1) Because we have been pretty good – better than normal…and we’ve exercised several times in a week, and ate really good on some days, we should feel good about what we’ve accomplished.  Of course, we are headed in the right direction!  And many often say it’s about “progress not perfection”

2) Because we have not been entirely consistent, we do not really see the big picture.  Let’s say we’ve had 3 or 4 great workouts, and we’ve burned 500 calories or 2000 more calories than normal for the week.  This unfortunately will not really show up on the scale as a pound of weight loss, even though it’s a lot of calories we have burned for the week.  Then we’ve eaten really great for 3 or 4 days during the week, and eaten really bad for 3 or 4 days.  Eating really good may mean eating anywhere from 1200 to 1800 calories in a day, and the other days we may consume our normal 3000-4000 calories. 

The problem with this mode of behavior is our expectations.  We expect that because we have been “pretty good” this week, that it should equate to a drop in weight.  Yet since overall our bad days normally outweigh the good days in terms of calories burned, we don’t end up seeing much as a result.  The net effect is frustration, and often a belief that it’s not worth the effort it took to exercise at all, or to eat the right things.  There was no reward for our efforts.

Does this mean we have to eat good, and exercise every day?  It depends.  It depends on if we have a goal in mind, so we don’t feel like we’re on an endless path to anywhere specific…

The truth is, the more consistent we are, each day, each moment, the more results we will see, and the more it will appear worth the effort.  Try it for a couple of weeks and see if it makes a difference!