It’s very easy to fall into myths and biases about food and how it affects us. Sometimes we feel stuck in our weight loss journey and end up giving up on our journey, blaming things like genetics, our bodies, and even ourselves.

In my 20+ years of training and coaching clients, I’ve realized this pattern is very common. However, what people don’t see is that it’s easier to break than you imagine. 

There are physical ways to achieve your personal weight goal, but most importantly, there are psychological tricks you need to incorporate as well for them to work.

For the physical changes you need to implement, I always suggest my clients these:

Eat every 3-4 hours because it helps eliminate snacking. We need to avoid overeating, so it’s good that we only feel satisfied and not stuffed. But this can be dangerous if we don’t keep discipline because you might end up snacking in between, which will definitely affect your weight loss. You need to make sure you respect your eating schedule and eat healthy foods accordingly.

Practice portion control. My clients and I don’t usually focus on calorie counting. It’s not that it’s not effective, on the contrary, it might be difficult to quantify calories since they might not be the same for specific meals. What I recommend is portion control while eating mindfully. What I mean by this is making mealtime sacred. This is so you can avoid distractions and fully concentrate on how much food you are consuming and at what point you end up feeling satisfied. I usually recommend you have 3-4 ounces of protein, ½ ounce of starchy carbs, at least 1 cup of veggies, and a small portion of healthy fat (for example avocado). By incorporating this healthy habit, you’ll eventually become aware of your portion sizes and see if they’re the right ones for you.

Drink at least one gallon of water every day. Water, plain and simple, maybe herbal tea, and the water that comes from certain fruits and veggies will help you improve your energy levels. This will help you feel full. It's critical to realize that sometimes feeling hungry doesn't mean we need food, it can be thirst, so we need to know what our bodies need and satisfy them. 

Exercise for at least an hour on most days. It might be challenging sometimes to squeeze a workout into our busy lives. But even an hour can make a big difference. The difficult part is to get up and hit the gym, but once you’re there, put your headphones with your favorite playlists in there and just go for it. You’ll thank me after.

Sleep 7-8 hours per night. As we grow older, sleeping 7-8 hours can seem so unreal. But the truth is that once you start shifting your habits, you’ll start feeling so much better. It'll be easier for you to sleep deeper and longer, I promise!

Now that we’ve talked about some of the habits I teach my clients on the physical side, I’ll teach you the psychological ones. These are as critical as the physical ones. We need to take care of this part as well because if we don’t, we’ll have a higher chance of gaining back the weight we lost. When you change your habits and your relationship with food, it’s easier to lose weight and keep it that way. 

If you want things to change, you need to start working on yourself. Some mindset changes are:

Set your intentions every morning. For any outcome you’re looking for, you must have a clear vision of your goals. You must also commit to the small steps you need to take to get closer to what you want to achieve. Therefore, make sure you start doing this every single day. It doesn’t only reinforce your behavior, it also improves your confidence levels.

Envision your success. Visualizing yourself being successful at your goals can help you set your priorities straight and the stepping stones you need to move there. Become the successful person you’re aiming for by embodying these traits and behaviors. If you need to make changes to get from A to B, what do you need to start doing today? Set a plan and start working until you get there. 

And finally, reframe your negative thoughts with positive ones. We’re usually more inclined to the negative, and it’s usually a never-ending cycle. An example of this is how you can’t lose weight because you don’t have the right mindset, therefore, you don’t switch it in the first place. The only way to break the cycle is by changing all harmful ideas into positive ones. I know it can be challenging, but the only thing in your way is yourself. Therefore, once you start seeing the positive in your thoughts and actions, you’ll see how you move forward way easier than when you were on the negative side.  

I use these tips with my clients, and I have seen hundreds of them break cycles and improve their relationship with food by using them. Start making these changes to your daily habits and you’ll see that your end goal will be way easier to achieve.