by Michelle Wilkinson

Created on: September 07, 2010

You have to be resilient when trying to lose weight, as everyone experiences ups and downs during their lifetime and since it will take time for you to reach your weight-loss goal you are likely to have some low points. When you’re feeling down you may be inclined to reach for food, as it has always been a comfort to you in the past, but this is the last thing you should be doing when trying to lose weight, as you have to control your calorie intake. Your weight loss may stall or you may gain weight and it can be tempting to quit, which is why you really need to be resilient.

If you don’t have any resilience the chances are you will quit trying to lose weight before you get anywhere near to your goal. Clearly, if you’ve decided to lose weight it means that you’re not happy being the size you are and so abandoning your healthy eating plan and your intention to exercise regularly won’t help you feel any better about things. Weight loss doesn’t always happen in a straight line – there may be weeks when you lose more weight than expected; there may be weeks when you lose less than expected; there may be weeks when you lose nothing at all and weeks when you actually gain weight.

What you have to do is focus on how far you’ve come and remember the times you’ve stepped on the scales and seen the numbers fall. You’re not going to reach your weight-loss goal overnight and so you have to be prepared for the long haul, rather than giving up as soon as your weight-loss plans seem to have gone awry. You can get back on track, but you have to be in the right mind set and so it doesn’t help to be negative.

Sometimes, you can’t help yourself, though, especially if life in general seems to be going wrong. You might hate your job, which makes you stressed, or you may be experiencing financial difficulties or marital problems. There are a whole host of reasons why you might not be in the right frame of mind to keep losing weight, but if you’re unhappy with your weight you need to stick to healthier eating and exercise habits, as you may not be able to control events and other things that happen in your life, but you should be able to control your weight.

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