There are many physical possibilities why you’re not losing weight.

A simple Google search will yield large lists of physical reasons why. There certainly is no shortage of information out there, but then why do you struggle to reach your goals? If there are countless ways to lose weight through different diet and exercise programs, why are you struggling so much to do so?

From my observation over the past decade as a trainer, you aren’t struggling to lose weight or achieve your goal because you don’t know how, rather you struggle to stay consistent with your plan to ever lose the weight in the first place. How many times have you said you want to lose weight yet fall off the band wagon after a week or so?

Have you really figured out what is causing you to fail? is it a physical issue? an emotional issue? Or are you not certain about what you really want and why you want it?

Consistent sabotage and excuses are the leading reason why you’re not losing weight.

Why do you and so many say they want something yet never follow through?

Let’s explore why you sabotage yourself and your results.

“Where your mind goes, the body will follow”

What if I were to tell you the reason why you’re not following through and consistently sabotaging and making excuses is because you’re subconsciously trying to fill your emotional needs? Not your physical needs like food or shelter, but the emotional needs that drive everything you do.


The 6 Emotional Needs

There is a reason why you do everything you do. You may not consciously know why, but there is a reason. You cheated on your diet? There is a reason. You worked out? There is a reason. You didn’t work out? There is a reason. The good news is that there are only 6 reasons why you do what you do.

Tony Robins has met tens of millions of people from all over the world and figured out there are 6 emotional needs that combined are the reason you do everything, both good and bad. There are many stories, blueprints, beliefs, or rules that people hold that may hold you back or push you, but those revolve around the 6 emotional needs.

The 6 emotional needs are:

  1. Certainty
  2. Variety
  3. To feel significance, special, important, needed.
  4. Connection and love
  5. Growth
  6. Contribution

Everyone has the same six needs, but we don’t value them equally. The goal is to figure out which two needs are your top two needs. These top two needs determine the direction of your life which ultimately will determine where you will end up.

For more information on the 6 emotional needs Click Here.

What do the 6 emotional needs have to do with you not being able to lose weight?

As I already stated, the 6 emotional needs explain why you do what you do, but the first need, the need for certainty, is a survival need and is why you’re not losing weight.


Certainty

“Only with the certainty of concrete, will dust form the foundation to build your dreams.”

Certainty is a survival need. You need to feel certain that you can avoid pain and discomfort and ideally find some joy and comfort. Why? Because continuously feeling pain and discomfort leads to continuous damage. With continuous damage comes death and we are wired to survive. Hence why certainty is a survival need.

For anyone to be 100% motivated to achieve their goals, 3 certainties must happen.

  1. You must be certain the plan/strategy you’re doing will achieve weight-loss
  2. You must be certain you can follow through with the plan/strategy
  3. You must be certain Why you want to lose weight in the first place.

The billionaire H.L. Hunt put it like this:

“There are only three requirements for success. First, decide exactly what it is you want in life. Second, determine the price that you are going to have to pay to get the things you want. And third, and this is most important, resolve to pay that price.”

How exactly do the 3 certainties affect your weight loss efforts and what can you do about it?


1. You’re not certain the plan/strategy you’re doing will achieve weight-loss

If you’re consistently not following through with your plan or plans you’ve tried, how do you know that the plan is for you? If you aren’t certain the plan you are following is the best plan, you will always find an excuse to waiver from the plan and sabotage your results.

There are countless ways to lose weight, from the numerous types of diets to the plethora of workout programs. With this information overload it’s easy to get lost in a sea of information. If you don’t ask and explore why a certain plan is the best to achieve your desired weight loss, you’ll simply be following blindly. When anything undesirable comes up along the way (which it will because it’s called life) the chance you stick with it when you don’t know why the plan is the best in the first place, is unlikely.

Also, the mere fact there are many other options promising an easier newer quicker way to lose weight, BOOM zero consistency and any results that were shown get reset as you jump from diet to diet and from workout plan to workout plan. I also tend to see people taking bits of pieces of different programs and trying to piece them together. This practice isn’t a good idea because there is no certainty that will work and often will actually work against you.

The Solution: First start by asking questions why you believe the current plan will be the best fit for you. If you can answer why, and it makes sense, begin.

Then as time goes on, stay vigilant to figure out what patterns/aspects of the plan work and which ones don’t. If you’re always screwing up on a goal the exact same way for the same reasons, you simply acknowledge it and remove that pattern/aspect and replace it with a new one or new plan until you find the plan that works for you, your life and your surroundings the best.


2. You’re not certain you can follow through with the plan/strategy

If there is any doubt in your mind that you won’t be able to follow through with the plan/strategy, the likelihood that you will follow through is slim to none.

Why would you do something that you believe won’t fit into your life easily or will cause an extreme inconvenience to do so? You wouldn’t! Especially if you’re trying to achieve your goal in the most effective and efficient way possible.

The Solution: There are many plans and strategies out there to lose weight, the key is finding the one you believe you can consistently follow the easiest and with the most fun. You want it to be easy and fun because what is easy and fun is sustainable.

Keep a list of aspects you like about a plan and aspects you don’t like about a plan. As time goes on and you start to try different plans and strategies, you will begin to figure out what you like and what you dislike.

Through the course of trial and error, you’ll end up finding a plan/strategy or a mixture of them that works for you and your goals.


3. You’re not certain WHY you want to lose weight in the first place.

“The bigger the ‘why’ the easier the ‘how’.”— Jim Rohn

You need to truly desire to lose weight and have compelling reasons why you want to lose the weight. The entrepreneur and motivational speaker Jim Rohn stated, “Reasons come first, answers come second.” Your WHY is the reason you want to lose weight in the first place.

The more reasons you can come up with to lose weight, the likelier it will be for you to do so. When reasons become powerful, they can be interpreted as needs.

Unfortunately, this extremely crucial step gets overlooked all too often and is a main contributing factor why you’re not losing weight.

I’ve seen and heard too many people set out with a goal of losing weight, but the reasons why they want to lose the weight aren’t compelling or worse yet have nothing to do with losing weight. For example, let’s look at these common scenarios of reasons why that don’t have anything to do with weight loss.


Scenario 1

Annie is married, yet her husband doesn’t give her the attention she desires. She believes her weight is the reason why her husband isn’t giving her the love she wants. Annie decides to hire a personal trainer to help with her diet and exercise program. Things are going great for the first two weeks and she loses 10 pounds of the 30 she set out to do. Unfortunately, her husband doesn’t even acknowledge her efforts, let alone the results. She then works out and diets a little harder and loses 5 more pounds, yet no change with her husband.

So, what does she do? She sabotages her diet in a depressed state and ends up gaining 10 pounds back. Then either two things happen, she completely gives up and gains everything back and admits defeat, or she dives back in and goes even harder only to find herself sabotaging her efforts with a pint of ice cream and a sleeve of Oreos and then continues on this cycle over and over.

Why is she sabotaging herself?

Sure, it could be the plan was faulty, but I’m willing to bet and am certain that she is sabotaging herself because she isn’t receiving the result of gaining her husband’s attention, the reason she truly desired.

Why does she keep doing the same thing repeatedly, despite her not getting results? Isn’t that the definition of insanity?


One reason, CERTAINTY.

This cycle of effort and sabotage, resulting in little to no change repeatedly, fulfills the emotional need of certainty.

  • She is certain that losing the weight will result in the attention she wants from her husband. (false belief/faulty blueprint but comforting because she has a reason behind his lack of attention)
  • She is certain that the plan/strategy of hiring a personal trainer and following their recommendations will result in the desired weight loss and ultimately gain her the love she wants.
  • She also is certain that she isn’t achieving her weight loss because she is sabotaging. (comforting).

This Cycle of certainty provides comfort because she still believes she’s doing the right thing to get her husband to pay more attention and as Tony Robbins stated:

“Remember, as long as you believe something, your brain operates on automatic pilot, filtering any input from the environment and searching for references to validate your belief, regardless of what it is.”

She continues to work out and diet and sabotage, never seeing results.

The reason she can’t lose weight is a faulty reason why.


Scenario 2

Jake is depressed and unhappy with his life. He sees all these social media influencers that are fit and believes that if he loses weight and gets a six pack, he will be happy and fulfilled. He has convinced himself that all of these people are happy and have relationships because they aren’t fat.

So, Jake starts dieting and exercising rigorously and he loses 5% body fat. His goal of getting a six pack is in sight. Despite getting to this point, he just got blown off again by a so-called friend and worse yet hasn’t gotten a match on Tinder for a month. The feelings of depression and unhappiness rush over him and he sabotages himself and eats 2 pizzas and a plate of brownies.

Jake wakes up feeling worse than ever. He vows not to do it again and goes after the six pack again only to get where he got before and sabotages again because someone said something nasty to him.

Jake then continues this repetitive cycle or simply gives up. But why would he continue trying if it doesn’t work?

YUP, CERTAINTY.


He’s certain if he gets a six-pack, people will like him and he’ll be happy. Every time he gets close though, he finds himself just as unhappy as before, so he purposely sabotages himself to stay comforted that he is certain he’s doing the right thing, but he’s certain he’s not getting it because he sabotages himself.

Does any of this sound familiar? The problem with both scenarios is that the reason why they wanted to lose the weight had nothing to do with losing weight, rather to obtain a feeling.

Feelings can come and go and aren’t dictated by the situations we are in. We have the power to respond to every event any way we choose.

In scenario 1, Annie was trying to fix a problem with her husband by losing weight, totally unrelated to one another.

In scenario 2, Jake wanted to lose weight to be happy, but happiness is a decision, not a result. Fred could have just chosen to be happy despite any physical challenges. There are plenty of Jolly Fat people, just look at Santa Claus.

The solution:

No matter where you are on your weight loss journey, write down compelling reasons why you want to achieve the goal and make sure they are relevant to one another.


Conclusion

So why do you do the things that contradict your goal of losing weight? Because you live your life by meeting your needs in the moment, but not the long term. You end up feeling good in the short term like a sugar high, but then you drop and cause more harm in the long run.

Those that can successfully lose the weight, but not consistently keep it off get a short term high, but later crash. Following a plan for a short period of time is one thing, but its a whole different ball game when you’re figuring out what the best plan for you is in the long run. To do this, you must focus on your environmental factors, mindset, life and aspects of your life rather than what you can do for a short time. Most personal trainers only focus on their plan/strategy, not so much the one that’s best for you. This is where you need to be certain the plan/strategy is the best for you and the best plan for you is a plan that is easy, fun and gets you results.

Avoid the contradiction of short-term desire vs long-term success by becoming certain that your plan/strategy will work, certain you can carry out the plan/strategy and certain why you want to lose the weight in the first place.

If you need help figuring out your WHY or figuring out what the best plan/strategy is for you, Contact Why To Fitness today!