Getting started on weight loss can be daunting. Here are a number a reasons why we don’t start, many of which I’ve used myself. Do any of these sound familiar?
- I’m too busy.
- The work involved to lose weight isn’t worth the effort.
- I don’t have time to exercise.
- There are more pressing things to do right now and I’ll do it later.
- I tried losing weight before, but couldn’t do it.
- I don’t want to diet.
- Food just tastes so awesome.
- I lost some weight before, but then it all came back.
I said all of these things when I was 250 pounds and class II obese. And I believed them all. Looking back, however, these reasons were lies I told myself. Digging deeper into why I didn’t start, the reason why I didn’t start was fear.
It may sound silly. Fear? Really? Most people would rather believe they aren’t losing weight because of one of the reasons listed above. But forget about weight loss for a second. Think about public speaking, or going skydiving, or learning how to swim. Why don’t we do these things, if we wanted to do them? Fear. Weight loss is no different.
We fear that we might fail, we fear that starting something new will force us out of our comfort zone, which is a place we like to hang out, and we fear that our efforts will be a waste of time.
If we address these fears, then we can get started. And getting started then gives us a chance to succeed. I’ll share my reflections on this, below.
Lessons From My App Launch
You Don’t Fail, You Succeed Or You Learn
I launched Luuze on November 15, 2020. The video above details my app launch experience. While I was experiencing all of the emotions from the launch, it dawned on me. Launching this app is surprisingly similar to the journey of losing weight, or anything worth doing.
When you first start off, you can go through a despair of sorts, feeling like you have no idea what you’re doing (because it’s probably true), questioning if what you’re doing is even worth it, and having no idea whether or not you’re going to succeed. Although there were a ton of positives about my launch, there were certainly a number of times where things didn’t go as planned. I had a number of bugs and had to update the app twice during launch week. The first few videos I made totally sucked and I was given feedback that I was too robotic, the audio sucked, and that I was looking at my notes too much.
However, I fixed the bugs, and the app is better. I absorbed the critical feedback about my videos and made the next ones better. One thing that really helped me through the process was that I received a lot of positive feedback as well: I’ll get back to the importance of this point later in this post.
When we reframe getting started not as a choice between success or failure, but of slow self-improvement, then failure does not happen. Either you succeed or you learn.
Discomfort Often Means Growth
I’m a natural introvert, but my success with weight loss has compelled me to try to share my story as much as possible in order to help others improve their health like I did mine. One of the best methods to do this is with video, so I built up the courage to create a video that shared my story.
The video took forever to make. I took a million takes. It was uncomfortable as hell. However, the video really made an impact and I got a ton of positive feedback on it. Some people even cried! I’ve since done more videos, and am actually starting to enjoy it (you can subscribe to my YouTube channel here).
We fear being uncomfortable, but if we can realize that discomfort actually helps us become better, we can push past that fear.
Persistence Is Actually the Path to Success
I received so many messages of support that it would be difficult to share them all, but there was one message that was really notable:
The conversation that I had with my friend was brief, but the fact that I was an example of someone able to lose weight without exercise or major restrictions on my lifestyle helped him realize that weight loss was possible for him as well. Especially if you’re too busy or used one of the excuses above, it may be worth trying Luuze instead.
He was able to elegantly explain back the core of my entire philosophy behind weight loss. Find a way to track your progress, but keep focused on the trend. Use that as feedback. Keep going. Succeed.
I mentioned above that you don’t fail, you succeed or you learn. And if you keep learning and keep trying, you will slowly progress and progress, until one day you’ve actually accomplished something amazing. You don’t have to fear that you’re wasting time if you constantly think about the lessons you’ll learn along the way as valuable time spent.
I do think that having a positive yet honest source of feedback is important. If the feedback is constantly negative, it’s easy to give up.
Luuze Works to Fix the Fear
Succeeding with anything, whether it be weight loss or building an app, has the same blueprint. Find a way to get started. Act, get honest yet positive feedback, then address that feedback with your next action. Act again, and build up the right actions until you’ve achieved your goal.
Having this process in mind can be the difference between success and failure in one’s weight loss journey. I designed Luuze with the repair-your-feedback-loop philosophy in mind, such that it will be even easier for you to lose weight than it was for me.
Luuze works hard to make it easy to start your weight loss journey, and integrates all of these things into its weight loss process:
- The app is free, removing any financial barriers to getting started
- It starts simple: asking you to simply weigh yourself every day and does not force you into a restrictive diet or exercise routine
- The app provides honest feedback by breaking the lies of the scale, calculating your trend weight instead of your scale weight which may consist of huge water weight fluctuations
- It provides positive feedback by noting and celebrating your achievements, so you stay motivated
- Its virtual coach provides questions for reflection so you can do more of the good stuff and less of the bad stuff over time
- As you weigh yourself regularly, your Weight Management Feedback Loop starts repairing itself, supporting permanent weight loss.
The truth is that we’re not too busy to lose weight, because weight loss doesn’t actually need to take much time. We can reduce the work involved if we focus on the right methods. It can be done without restrictive diets. But we do need to start in order to lose weight. And if we can remove all of the barriers to getting started and we have the right tools to support us as we keep on going, we can succeed with weight loss.