DISCLAIMER: I will be discussing my relationship with food and weight. Please take care while reading. I am not a medical professional. I am sharing this for informational purposes only.
My New Year’s resolution for 2026 was to stay consistent with the weight loss journey I started in September of 2025. Notice how I said journey, not diet.
If you’ve already given up on a similar goal, don’t worry. Change. Is. EXCRUCIATING. You aren’t alone. Sharing a list of forty “rules” for someone to adapt overnight is not helpful. It is just overwhelming. Creating small habits has been my key to success. I cried happy tears when my app showed me I lost 30 pounds! I was stuck for so long that I never saw this as a possibility.
I’ll be sharing an actionable and realistic step you can try each week for free. Join my email list to be notified as we go!
The Only Rule? Be Kind To Yourself.
“Shut the hell up.” Believe it or not, you can say this to your inner bully. If my inner bully were a real person, I would have a restraining order in place immediately. This journey is truly about mindset shifts. Standing up to that voice in my head actually made me believe that I could do this. After a few months, I’ve barely heard from her. Giving yourself grace and kindness on this journey is a non-negotiable.
I think a lot of people in my shoes have felt that sense of failure if you ate a carb while trying (and failing multiple times) the keto diet, and feeling stupid for not understanding every facet of Atkins. Caving into a craving for mozzarella sticks when I thought being vegan would solve all of my problems. The patterns I recognized in all of this? I don’t do well with restrictive eating. I ended up heavier after attempting each of these diets. The guilt after the give-in would have me eating an entire package of my initial craving, plus anything else I could get my hands on.
I started keeping a log in my Notes app every time I got a craving outside of what I planned to eat each day. I’m a data gal, what can I say? I wrote down the craving and what happened immediately before the craving hit. Peek into my brain below.
This list goes on and on in my phone. I noticed that I gave in to these cravings more when I was bored or stressed. Shocking, I know…
Seeing the facts and trends of my habits helped me plan for myself. I knew the stress was coming eventually, so I started bringing ONE serving size of cookies to work with me. I can’t control what may pop up during the day, but I know something will. Having a reasonable serving of what I normally crave at the ready, oddly, helped my brain relax a bit more when the inevitable stress came. I enjoyed them instead of inhaling them.
Next Steps
If you are trapped in the same vicious diet cycle and truly want to start a journey to better health, try starting here:
- Tell your inner bully to “Shut the hell up” if they get mouthy. Forgive yourself if you know you could have made a better choice. You can always make better choices for yourself at your next meal. You will have to make that choice.
- Track your cravings and their triggers in your phone, a notebook, or a spreadsheet for a week. This helped me slow down and consider if I was actually hungry.
- Set a reminder on your phone to review your patterns at the end of the week. Make a note of what sticks out to you the most.
- Were you stressed?
- Did you forget to buy something for dinner?
- Were you bored?
- Is the trigger something that WILL happen regularly?
- Make a plan.
- Know you reach for a bag of chips in your office drawer? Try portioning out a serving size to bring with you.
- If you forgot to buy something to make at home, double-check your shopping list for the following week.
Remember, you are the only one who operates in this world in your body. Give yourself grace and kindness. Change is hard. Don’t ever beat yourself up when you’re trying to improve yourself.