7 Things My Most Successful Fat Loss Clients Do Differently

1.) They plan and prepare in advance.

They plan and prepare their food in advance at home, and they come up with a plan for how they will handle social gatherings involving food.

Going through your day without being prepared is more likely to result in decisions that are based on your current feelings and what’s easiest to do in the moment rather than what’s best for you and the goals you’re trying to accomplish.

Having a plan reduces decision-making because you’ve already planned in advance. You know what you’ll be eating and how much, and it becomes routine. Little thought or effort is required. 

When you’re not prepared and have lots of decisions to make, there’s this mental tug of war between what you want and what’s best for you, and that can be uncomfortable and feel restrictive. More decisions that require more effort leaves more room for error. Automate as much as you can.

2.) They eat very similar meals each day.

Eating very similar meals each day makes planning and preparation much easier.

You already know what you’re going to eat and in what amounts. Preparing those foods becomes part of your routine.

More routine and less decision-making often makes it easier to do the things that support your goals.

As you eat similar meals, you also experience what’s called habituation. The more exposure you get to something, the less appealing it becomes. This can help control your appetite, and therefore your calorie intake.

3.) They weigh and track their food.

If they’re not weighing and tracking, they follow a meal plan they enjoy and only weigh/measure their food.

They have some way of standardizing their portion sizes and calorie intake. This keeps their calories consistent, and consistency is key. It also makes it easier to make adjustments as needed. If every day of eating is so different and nothing is consistent and being measured, it’s very difficult to make the appropriate changes.

Weighing your food also keeps you much more aware and honest with portion sizes. No matter how ‘healthy’ you eat, calories matter most for fat loss.

4.) Their diet on the weekends is similar to weekdays.

It’s very possible to be in a calorie deficit Monday through Thursday, but then consume enough calories from food and alcohol Friday through Sunday to wipe out that deficit you created, and end up at maintenance or a calorie surplus.

Only being consistent Monday – Thursday means you are only consistent 57% of the week.

It’s REALLY difficult to get great results when you’re consistent only a bit over half the time.

5.) They don’t have an all-or-nothing mentality.

Just because you went out to eat for lunch doesn’t mean the day is ruined. You don’t have to turn it into a “cheat day” and start over tomorrow. You can get right back to your regular meals right after the meal eaten out.

I’ve also seen people refuse to eat just 1 cookie, but then eat 12 cookies in a single sitting a few days later because it’s a “cheat day.”

What do you think is going to rack up more calories for the week?

Zoom out and look at the big picture. Look at your diet over the course of the day, week, and month rather than a single meal.

6.) They take full responsibility for their actions.

When you take full responsibility, you stay in control.

When you have the mindset that you’re in control, you can change. Change is needed to get different results.

When you place blame elsewhere, you give up control and make it much more difficult to improve.

How can you improve if nothing is ever on you and always someone or something else’s fault?

7.) They don’t beat themselves up when they deviate from the plan.

Shaming your way to changing rarely works. It often does the opposite – makes it harder to change.

Nobody likes to feel like they’ve failed. If you’re working with a coach, you don’t want to feel like you’ve disappointed or let someone down. I get it.

But nobody does everything perfectly 100% of the time.

Whenever clients come to me frustrated with how things went, I ask them 2 things.

1.) “You didn’t really expect to never mess up ever again, did you?” The answer is always “no.”

2.) “What can we do differently next time to improve our chances of having things go the way you want?”

Getting a “no” for the first question followed by a solution for the second question allows us to move on and do better next time.