2 Mindset Changes You Need To Make To Maintain Weight Loss

Want to lose weight and actually keep it off? Here's two ways your mindset can help you to maintain a healthy weight loss.

By Mark Travers, Ph.D. | September 13, 2024

With the ever-rising obesity crisis, more and more people are desperate to lose weight. If you search "weight loss" online, you will get a hard look at both sides of the coin. On one side are clinically overweight people, struggling to lose a single pound. On the other are a barrage of fitness influencers insistent that weight loss is all about calories in and calories out.

Regardless of where you fall—whether you believe that being overweight is just a lack of willpower or you realize that weight loss can be a multifaceted issue with many contributing factors—no one can deny that sticking to a diet long-term is difficult.

Most people stick to the latest diet or new workout routine for a week, maybe two, but maintaining it always turns out to be an insurmountable challenge. There are, however, a few exceptional cases that seem to have cracked the code—they manage to reach their desired weight and maintain their progress effortlessly, at least on the face of it. How do they do it?

Turns out, it isn't some massive burst of motivation or magical willpower. People who stick to a long-term dietary plan have a few things in common. Here are two mindset changes you could make to join their ranks in a healthy and sustainable way.

1. Change Your "Self-Identity"

Being motivated to crash diet and lose weight for your cousin's wedding might get you short-term results, but it will not help you beat the diet cycle. Motivation can be short-lived, which is why you must become a different version of yourself and reinvent your values.

Self-identity, or how individuals view themselves and their behaviors, can heavily influence whether they stick to an eating plan. One prominent person to say this in recent years is Charles Duhigg, in his 2012 bestselling book The Power of a Habit. Duhigg claims that it is far easier to change your habits if you change how you self-identify.

Think about it like this—if you are a vegan, then you probably have strong beliefs about animal cruelty. You probably identify as someone who does not eat meat, and it would take a miracle to get you to dig into a steak. The same goes if you identify as someone who eats healthy or lives a healthy lifestyle. Thinking this way means you are more likely to do things that prove this to yourself and others. So, as simple as it may sound, long-term weight loss starts with how you see yourself.

2. Find Your "Why"

Let's face it, getting up every day to exercise can feel like dragging a dead body. To top that off, healthy food is hardly ever our first choice. However, sometimes you have to do things you do not like to get things you want. In those times, you need to know why you are doing it. Your "why" can fuel your healthy lifestyle long after the motivation is gone.

A 2018 Health Psychology Open study showed that the "why" behind wanting to lose weight can significantly affect your progress. In the study, women who initially cited superficial reasons, like appearance, for wanting to lose weight ended up gaining weight. However, women who wanted to lose weight for health and wellness reasons lost 5% overall.

This does not mean you should not want to lose weight to look good. It just means that if your "why" doesn't hold profound meaning for you personally, the change will be short-lived.

As one Reddit user who lost 20 kg puts it, "I realized I was overweight almost all my life, but it didn't bother me concerning my physical appearance, although it did bother me when I'd decided to run along with my friends or cousins and ended up as the last one to get to the finish line. I was actually unfit. And that bothered me more than anything else since I have always been a sports fan."

Losing weight can be one of the hardest things you will ever do. While fitness gurus may tell you it's as easy as "eat less, move more," they ignore the key psychological aspects of identity and value-building.

Do your emotions steer you toward unhealthy foods in crisis? Take the Emotional Eater Questionnaire to see how you compare with others.

A similar version of this article can also be found on Forbes.com, here.