Rules for Weight Loss

Do you know why you can't stick to a single diet? Of course, you don't. If you did, you would stick to it, but you don't.

More precisely, you always idealize it, you always find reasons why not now, what came up, why things turned out the way they did, or who caused it to fail.

However, the reason for failure is much simpler than that, and often there's no one to blame.

You simply don't know how.

We tend to think that dieting is about food, you eat it, there's exercise, you go and do it, and you're done. Many people think this when they start, but when it comes to actually doing it, they crash and burn, realizing it wasn't what they expected, or feeling hungry. This is where willpower would come in, but it's not a matter of willpower; it's about approaching it incorrectly, not doing it gradually, not having a system built up, or not wanting to build one up at all.

So, I've outlined a few points explaining why 97% of people fail at a diet due to a lack of understanding.

Lack of boundaries.

You're overweight, you want to lose weight. You jump into it like an idiot without any boundaries, rules, or deadlines. You don't say, "Okay, I'm going to push through for 30 days no matter what," but you start and want to do it until you lose weight. There are no milestones, no dates, nothing.

Imagine if we told a runner, "Start running and keep going as long as you can." They would ask, "Okay, but how far? What should I prepare for? How should I pace myself mentally? How much more do I have to endure?" Oh, well, the distance and direction aren't specified, just go.

With this wonderfully illustrative example, I've shown that starting a diet without deadlines is so demoralizing from the outset that you're doomed to fail.

Boundaries are very important.

The quality of time

The most important factor is the elapsed time since the start of the diet and its quality. By quality of time, I mean your well-being, which is fundamentally determined by what you eat during the diet.

I could immediately turn to the diet itself; if it's poorly put together, if your body doesn't receive the essential nutrients it needs, or worse, receives nothing at all or the wrong things, your mood will be terrible, your spirits even lower, and we haven't even talked about hunger, which is the main reason you give up.

More precisely, you think you're giving up because of hunger, but that's not the case. Your body doesn't need sugar, bread, or insane, useless foods; it needs vitamins, minerals, protein, good fats, and properly absorbed carbohydrates, in the right quantities.

If this is missing or consumed in the wrong proportions, the quality of time spent on the diet will be tragic, and very few people can endure tragically experienced, hungry days for days on end; the vast majority will struggle even with hours.

That's why you start in the morning, and by 5 PM, a cheesecake or whatever you think will make you feel better is hanging out of your mouth. But of course, it won't be better. It might be better only while you're eating it, but afterward, it'll be the same crap that made you start in the first place.

Adherence to portions.

You have a diet where portions are precisely specified. At least, good diets start with precisely specified portions.

When to eat what, how much to drink, how much to rest.

It's written down. 250g cod fillet, 50g Quinoa, 100g vegetables.

You prepare it, start eating, and find that you absolutely cannot eat it all. Then comes the "Oh my god, it's too much, I can't eat this much, it's enormous, how can I lose weight with this?" etc. We know these.

What we don't know, or more precisely, what I can't understand, is why people think of dieting as some separate world where the laws of the universe don't apply.

Whatever you start, be it a job, a new sport, literally anything you haven't tried before, you'll be bad at it in the beginning until you learn. In a new workplace, during the first 1-2 weeks while you're learning the trade, the given position, it's completely impossible to perform as well as those who have already learned, who have settled in, who have climbed the ladder and overcome the initial difficulties.

It's the same with dieting; in the beginning, when you start, while you're getting used to the new system, while you're getting used to the food, while you're getting into the rhythm, it takes a little time. It takes a little time until it works more or less. But only more or less.

In the beginning, you won't be able to eat as much food as specified, but that's not important. Don't feel like you're doing it wrong if you don't strictly follow what's written in the diet.

The same applies to fluid intake.

It's stated that you should drink 3-4 liters of fluid per day. And then usually everyone loses their mind, saying, "What?! Oh my god, that's impossible! I struggle with even 1 liter," and all that crap. I hear these all the time.

You don't have to drink 3 liters at the beginning. I totally believe that an average woman can't manage 3-4 liters a day at first, but you believe me that if you gradually accustom yourself to drinking more and more fluids, it will become easy after a while.

And that's where the essence would be. This would be the absolute message of this post.

In the beginning, you don't have to eat, drink, or exercise with the intensity described in a given lifestyle change program. You don't have to, because you won't be able to stick to it; you're simply not mentally prepared for it. You don't have to. But with each passing day, you must strive to get closer to the described portions, to the first clean day. If that takes 10 days, then do it in that time.

I remember back when I used to lead workouts. Women would come to start a 6-week program, and after twenty minutes of the first workout, they'd ask what would happen after the program. I'd say, "Sweetheart, maybe first try to do a proper female push-up, maybe first drink only 2 liters of fluid daily, and let's say achieve your first perfect diet day, meaning you eat the quantity prescribed. Don't look at what will happen next summer, but whether you'll still be here next week and not give up by then."

It's always about what will happen when I reach that point, what will happen after.

Perhaps we should reach that point first, but unfortunately, a very large percentage of people aren't even able to reach that point. But people are like that. They start something, they're still barely good at what they're doing, but they're already thinking about what will happen next.

For example, I started playing tennis. I went to 3 training sessions, I didn't even know how to hold the racket, and after the third session, I believed I was Fucsovics and played a tennis match with a kid who started 3 months before me and beat me 6-0, 6-0, while I think he was playing Angry Birds on his phone.

I didn't put in the work, I was nowhere, I believed in myself because I managed to hit one straight shot, and I failed miserably.

You are the same with dieting. You just want to lose weight, you don't know how, and then when the results don't come without adhering to the minimal basics, you lose heart and give up with a cry of "where's my pizza?!"

You don't have to strictly adhere to what's written in the diet because you won't be able to eat it, you won't be able to drink the fluid intake at the beginning, and the same applies to every single element of a given lifestyle change program.

Eventually, you'll be able to eat it, drink it, and do the workout.

Clean days

By a clean day, I mean a day when everything was completely adhered to.

You need to aim for the first clean day, and if you succeed, you've already done a lot. Then, once that's achieved, you need to aim for at least 3 clean days within a week.

A clean diet day, clean fluid intake per day, clean workout performance, and God forbid, managing 8 hours of peaceful sleep, but that's completely out of the question in a family, so let's not even force that part.

You need to build yourself up gradually, not jump in like a maniac and then not understand why it's not working. It's like wanting to run 15 km with zero training. Well, it's not going to happen.

In the first workout, you might manage 800 meters or at most 2 km, and then you'd be looking for your lungs, asking if anyone has seen them. But that's how it is, and if you understand that not everything will work out the first time, or even after 2 weeks, then there's a chance you won't fail in the first 3 days.

Small steps toward the goal.

– Always focus on the current day

– Don't look further than 10 days, but if it is 10 days, make it 10 days.

– Every day, try to get a little closer to the diet portions

– Drink a little more every day.

– On every training day, just somehow complete that day's quota. You don't have to enjoy it; you won't be able to enjoy it at first, just do it. Don't think about how many more grueling training days are ahead of you. Forget about those, just be there, just that day, just finish the current exercise.

– Don't check the calendar to see how much is left. A lot.

– Don't weigh yourself every 25 minutes, and preferably not even daily. Once a week.

I know you're thinking now that this isn't for you, that you're not the kind of person who can resist weighing themselves, and that you need sweets. But I say that you are the person you make yourself out to be. If you become a weak mess through your decisions, then surely it's not a problem if other people also view you as a weak mess. I know your behavior in a diet doesn't define you, but if your attitude is like this in one area of your life, why would you behave differently in others?

There are rules that must be followed to achieve your goals. These rules cannot be loosened or stretched, because if they could, then those would be the rules that also could not be loosened.

The existence and acceptance of the rules necessary for weight loss is the first step.  

Adhering to the rules necessary for weight loss and striving for them is the second.

Living cleanly with the rules necessary for weight loss is the third.

Now you understand a little bit about it.