Research shows that most people who set out to lose weight are successful...initially. The problem is that about 80% of those people regain the weight they lost after 5 years. But why is that?
While it depends on the individual, it generally comes down to two fundamental issues:
The truth is that you need both to see long-term success. After all, progress is only valuable if you can sustain it. And sustainability is only valuable if it generates results or at least maintains a status quo that we can be happy with.
Go too hard, and you risk burning out. Go too light, and you never get off the ground.
For years, I wasn't seeing the results I wanted in my personal fitness journey, and I finally realized that my primary issues were a lack of basic education on exercise science and nutrition, as well as my inability to strike a balance between progress and sustainability. The outcome was a lot of work, burnout, and frustration with little results to show for it.
After tons of research on the subjects of fat loss, muscle growth habit science and behavior change, followed by some brutally honest reflection on my ignorance and short-sightedness, I was finally able to find my personal "Sweet Spot of Progress and Sustainability".
The results speak for themselves.
For the sake of brevity, I will limit this section to just a few of what I believe are the primary factors that contribute to the failure of living a sustainable fitness-forward lifestyle.
Arguably the best and most obvious way to combat the physical ramifications that come from yo-yo dieting is to find and establish a sustainable lifestyle of dieting and exercise now.
Let's say you set out to lose 25 lbs, and you did it! Great job!
But what will your diet look like now? How about exercise? What are your plans going forward to keep the results you've achieved?
While many diet programs are incredibly effective in helping people achieve short-term goals like losing weight and adding muscle, they are also sustainable only for...you guessed it...the short-term. Like a drug that provides a quick, potent high, many diets don't last, resulting in weight regain and a cycle of dependency on those same quick-hitting diets just to get us back to our original starting point.
Very few programs (unlike ours, of course) have a contingency plan for you to maintain and even build on your initial success. Without that contingency plan, this leaves most people feeling lost and/or burnt out. After all, the program they followed was designed for rapid progress, not long-term progress or sustainability.
The mindset and actions required going into achieving rapid success will naturally be more restrictive and less enjoyable than a program designed for slow and steady results. This, by itself, is not the problem. It's not knowing what to do afterwards, and it's not having the right post-diet mindset.
For a more in-depth reflection on this topic, check out an article I wrote called "5 Thoughts for Building a Fitness-Oriented Mindset".
The basic premise is that it's imperative for us to mentally prepare for what is happening now and what is to come later in our fitness and wellness journeys. It's encouraging to know that most people who set out to lose a modest amount weight (about 10%) are successful in doing so, but we also know that roughly 4 out of 5 of those people will regain it back within 5 years.
I've noticed two main themes things from the population of people who go through this weight change journey:
The bottom line is that you can't go into a diet thinking that you're going to make changes temporarily, see some progress, then eventually get to revert back to the way you used to live without repercussions.
Nothing important in life works that way. Not our careers, our relationships, our finances, etc. So why would this be different?
Let's play this out in numerical terms:
This is the more common example of how weight gain and regain happens. It's not intentional, it's accidental. It's usually not fast, it's gradual. And unfortunately, it's not difficult. In fact, it's all too easy.
Two of the best ways to combat this outcome is to embrace the mentality that your diet and exercise will always be something you think about in your daily actions. Additionally, understanding how how energy balance works in relation to your physical makeup is crucial if you hope to make informed decisions regarding the management of your weight for years to come.
Now, let's get to the meat and potatoes of this article.
The Yerkes–Dodson law is an empirical relationship between pressure and performance, originally developed by psychologists Robert M. Yerkes and John Dillingham Dodson in 1908. The law dictates that performance increases with physiological or mental arousal, but only up to a point. When levels of arousal become too high, performance decreases.
Much like how the Yerkes-Dodson Law shows the bell curve of our performance peaking between levels of stress that are just high enough to motivate us to move but not too high that our performance is impaired or halted, finding "The Sweet Spot of Sustainable Progress" posits the idea of two principles that simultaneously hold one another in check and fuel continuous growth without end - Progress and Burnout.
This is my visual representation of what I believe to be the most fulfilling and healthy way to pursue your fitness goals (as well as goals outside of fitness). The #1 objective here is to find a lifestyle of behaviors that fit in "The Sweet Spot" - which is a zone of daily activity where you're doing enough to progress towards your goals, but you never do so much that you burn out, quit or regress.
By staying in this "Sweet Spot", you can virtually guarantee consistent progress, albeit at varying paces at different times in your life. Whether fast or slow, any pace of consistent progress is infinitely better than not progressing or worst of all, regressing due to burnout.
A Note About Flexibility:
Depending on the person, any of the examples above might be too fast or too slow of a pace for them.
I'm speaking from the vantage point of what I've experienced for myself and observed from my clients. Most of us like balance and flexibility, but some thrive on ultra-restrictive and structured programs for long periods of time.
You can progress while being anywhere on this spectrum as long as you know who you are, what you like, and you have a plan that aligns with it. You can always make adjustments on the way, but I'd advise that you're honest with yourself from the outset.
The goal is not speed. It's to succeed by whichever means will enable you to do so.
If this article has convinced you that striking a balance between progress and sustainability is crucial to both getting immediate and long-term results, then the natural next question arises:
"How do we do that?
If any goal is truly worthwhile, you should have a plan that reflects how seriously you take it. The "RBLD" Fitness Methodology is a 4-step model I've designed to help you rebuild a strategy that is as unique as you and as strong as your will to live your best life.
Here are the steps.
Reflect on what you truly want in your fitness journey: 1) Your outcome, 2) Your due date, and 3) The lifestyle you're willing to live throughout, and when the time comes, 4) What you'll want to do after that goal is achieved.
Be honest with yourself - "Do I really want a six pack, or do I just want a flatter stomach?" "Do I really need to look like a fitness model, or would I be happy with losing 20 lbs and keeping it off?"
Your feelings might change in the future, but it's important to define a target today. And it's OK to dream big, but not at the cost of authenticity.
Choose goals that are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (S.M.A.R.T.) - this is arguably the most universally accepted guide for goal-setting.
For this reason, I like to ask my clients to describe their ideal future state. Once they do, I then ask them to describe for me the bare minimum of results they would accept. This is essentially their "zone of personal success." Once we define that very clearly, we can work towards it with intention, patience, and confidence.
Again, you must set goals that are (S.M.A.R.T.), but also, make them true to you - for today and for your future self.
Build intentions and plans that aligns with your lifestyle and goals.
Implementation intention is a term coined by author and speaker James Clear. It's essentially the intention that "At a specific time and specific place, I will complete a specific action."
Example: "On Weekdays during my lunch hour, I will complete a workout from the program I'm following."
He was inspired by researchers in the UK who showed what really gets people to commit to their goals.
They had three groups of participants:
The participants reported their activity after two weeks, and the results were as follows:
This shows that people who combine education/motivation with implementation intentions are over 2x more likely to complete their workouts than others regardless of whether or not other people consume motivational/educational content.
This tells me that planning is as equally important as motivation, if not more so. For this reason, I created the "What, When, and Where" strategy to establish an iron-clad fitness routine - a strategy that has worked for me for over 5 years - through changes in career, finances, relationships, residence, vacations, illnesses, and more.
Here's how it goes:
What exercise program will I follow?
What equipment will I use?
Full gym?
Resistance Bands?
Dumbbells?
Bodyweight Only?
Which days of the week work best for me?
Which venue will I exercise at?
Gym?
Home?
Forcing yourself into following a program or diet that you hate might work for a month, but it's useless if you quit early and have no backup plan (The RBLD Fitness app provides you with workouts and plans for literally any combination above).
Answer the questions above, and research proves that you'll have 2x better chance of sticking with your workout plans.
And the same principles apply to diet. Have a physical or even mental preparation for what you're going to eat, as well as when and where you're to eat it will dramatically improve your chances for diet success.
If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail.
Simply following a program or diet without understanding why it works is a huge mistake that many of us make. Learning the fundamentals of fat loss, muscle growth, nutrition, and behavior change (check out our educational articles) will carry you for months and years to come if you take a small amount of time each week to absorb it.
We retain information much more easily and permanently as we're regularly completing the activities (i.e. exercising, dieting, and changing our thinking) related to the information we're taking in.
We design our information and education here at RBLD to be simple, digestible, and usable so you can carry it with you (and perhaps even build on it).
The premise? Give a man a fish, and he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish, and he eats for a lifetime.
What is left but to execute?
If you follow the three steps above, you'll have optimized your chances of short and long-term fitness success.
To stack the deck, however, we've compiled a large and evolving repository of evidence-based strategies to help you understand and master your immediate and long-term behavior for the better - as it related to your personal fitness and beyond (check out some of our articles on behavior change to get a head start).
Additionally, we help you navigate the natural ups and downs of any fitness journey, be it physical, mental, or emotional. Again, the goal is to help you find and stay in your personal Sweet Spot of Progress and Sustainability to prevent quitting and to promote long-term growth.
It's my great hope that this article has been a net positive to your life.
If you feel you could benefit from a 1:1 coaching experience, please feel free to either email me at teddy@teddywoolsey.com or book a 30-minute discovery call to discuss if my team could help you get to where you want to be.
In the meantime, be well.
Teddy Woolsey
I am the owner of the RBLD Fitness Unlimited Coaching Program and RBLD Fitness App
I also write about the intersection of fitness and sustainable behavior change
Let's connect on Instagram: @tedwoolsey
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