How to Become the Person Who Creates Lasting Weight Management

It’s hard to change your habits if you never change the underlying beliefs that led to your past behavior.

Lasting, permanent behavior change results from identity change.

Our beliefs about ourselves are so powerful.

They shape our behavior, which includes our habits, and the results we create prove our belief about ourselves true.

Habits provide most of the evidence to support who you are.

Author Charles Duhigg in his book, Smarter, Better, Faster, shares, “As many as 40% - 45% of our daily activities are habits, which means if you don’t get your habits right, you won’t reach your goals.”

So if you keep thinking the same thoughts, holding onto your current mindset about yourself, you are going to continue to take the same actions and get the same results.

I see this repeatedly with my weight management clients.

They are successful with achieving their goal weight, but the weight returns because they still identify as someone who is overweight that has never been successful with keeping their weight off.

This belief causes them to feel doubt, fear, or anxiety, and to avoid feeling the negative emotion, they go back to their habit of dulling negative emotion by overeating.

The overeating causes them to gain weight, and this result proves their belief that they will not be successful with keeping the weight off.

This repeating cycle looks like:

Thought (“I’m unsuccessful with permanently losing weight.”) → Feeling (Doubt, Fear, or Anxiety) → Action (Habit - Overeat) → Result (Gain weight and prove belief true) → Cycle Repeats →

So how do we change our thoughts about ourselves?

How do we create identity change so we will create new habits to support our goals?

In order to create permanent behavior change, it has to become a part of who you are.

Behavior that is not in alignment with who you believe you are will not last.

You may desire a thin body, but if you continue to choose comfort over your food plan, you’ll be drawn to choose ice cream over the mango you had planned for after dinner.

Becoming someone who sticks with her food plan isn’t driven by the goal to lose weight, but instead from an identity shift to someone who values their health.

It is about changing who you are.

Author James Clear states in his book Atomic Habits that, “the most practical way to change who you are is to change what you do.”

For example, for my weight clients:

• Every instance that you eat what you planned, you are trustworthy.
  

• Every time you work out, you are an athlete or someone committed to fitness.
  

• Every time you have a salad and water for lunch instead of a Chick-fil-A fried chicken sandwich and a Coke, you are someone committed to nutrition.

Whatever your current identity is, you have proof to support it.

The more evidence you have for a belief, the more you will believe it.

No single instance will transform your beliefs about you.

However, every time you take action, like walking around the block for exercise, you build evidence towards your new identity.

Creating habits to support who you want to be is the most powerful way to change your identity.

In Atomic Habits, James Clear offers 2 simple steps to form a new identity:

1. Decide the type of person you want to be.

2. Prove it to yourself with small wins.

If you are unsure exactly of who you want to be, start with the result you wish to achieve and work backwards.

For example, if you want the result of someone who is successful with keeping their weight off, ask yourself,

• “Who is the type of person who could maintain their weight?”

• “What would she do?”

Your answer may be, “A person who is successful with maintaining their goal weight is someone who values their health.”

Then build new habits to embody this person.

Acting like someone who values their health creates a healthy person.

Asking yourself throughout your day, “Is this a choice someone who values their health would make?”

As you make more and more choices in favor of your desired identity, your proof will build.

You will move from believing:

• I’m not someone who values their health…to…

• It’s possible I’m someone who values their health…to…

• I’m becoming someone who values their health…finally to…

• I am someone who values their health.

It doesn’t matter if you mess up from time to time.

It’s about progress, and not perfection.

Building habits takes time—anywhere from 2 to 8 months (depending on the behavior, person and circumstances).

Create who you wish to be, and the results will follow.