6 Important Life-Hacks I Learned On My Weight Loss Journey

Four years ago I embarked, for the hundreds time, on what I thought was yet another diet and short-lived weight loss journey. But this time felt different from the get go. It actually felt “feasible”. I managed to lose the ~60 lb of weight I wanted to lose within a little over a year. But most importantly I have been able to keep it off ever since. As an outcome I became fitter and healthier. And I learned some great life-hacks in the process, that I would love to share with you today.

These life-hacks have been great for my personal life, but they have also become really important for my professional satisfaction and success.

Before I share those life-hacks I learned, I would like to provide you with the link to my second blog. This second blog is all about my weight-loss hacks, recipes and more. Check it out here . Let’s dive in, shall we?

Make Peace With Who, How Or Where You Are In Your Personal & Professional Life

My life is actually full of examples for this “rule”. Only when I looked back at my weight loss journey, did I realize that this was the single most important condition for sustainable change. And now a couple of years later, I can clearly see all the other examples in my life proving this to be true. It’s the greatest of the life-hacks I learned for sure.

Before I started my last attempt of losing the weight, I was running around in leggings and other wide clothes. All my “nicer” clothes were too tight. Of course I would never accept that and buy clothes for my current size. But one day we detected this clothing store that had clothes for literally all sizes and shapes. Beautiful, feminine and flattering clothes. The bigger sizes were still available in petite for those short-legged gals like myself. I felt great and had nothing to lose. I gave it a shot. And started taking care of my appearance by dressing nicely again. I made peace with where I was and spent the money to look great and feel great.

And not even half a year later I signed-up for the Weight Watchers program. Because I knew I would need help to get healthier and figure this out. But I did not do it for the smaller clothing size. I was able to find nice clothes in my size and I liked them, too. I did not feel the pressure anymore to “fit back in my old clothes” to look nice.

Sustainable change-management takes up quite some “mental space”. When we are desperate or under pressure, we will likely not have the open mind. And since sustainable change often happens in baby steps, the pressure and us feeling desperate will lead to quick fixes rather than the sustainable, carefully managed, change.

Years ago my husband and I were really desperate to find a way to move to the US and live and work here. But no matter what we looked into, getting a visa, that would allow us to do so, was impossible. There was just no way. We were sad, but ultimately accepted it.

And because I did not feel that pressure of having to find a way anymore, I felt brave enough to jump on an unlikely opportunity, when American Express had acquired the company I was working for. They were going to launch a program similar to the one I was working for, in the US. I felt I had nothing to lose and just put myself out as an opportunity to the VP supporting the launch. I expected nothing, as him and I really did not know each other well. And believe it or not it worked out. We have been living in the US for almost 7 years now.

So being happy and content where you are at, is one critical condition of being able to get anywhere. For me, that has been the most important of life-hacks to learn.

I have many more examples, but let’s talk about one of the next life-hacks instead.

Know Your Why

In order for us to accomplish anything we set our mind to, we need motivation, fuel if you will. That fuel needs to be high in quality and sustainable so our engine makes it all the way to our goal.

Beyond simply knowing what we want to achieve, we must think about our “why”. This why will provide the motivation to get started, but most importantly it will keep us going, when things get difficult. And they will. They always do.

Only when I found a strong enough “why” for my weight loss journey, was I able to go through with it. All the way and then some. My previous “why” had always been either too weak (want to lose weight) or too detailed (lose 50 lb) to really motivate me. Neither of these provided the fuel I needed. The weak “why” I achieved to easily. I lost a few lb and I was there. I had succeeded. And the detailed why was too long term. You do not lose 50 lb quickly, but you do lose your motivation immediately, when you do not see success.

Once I found a “better” why, things fell into place it and became much easier. My new why was “to become healthier and fitter” so I could keep up with my husband and the pooch. And enjoy life more. And with that it clicked. I was able to see success with every pound I lost and I still kept going. You always want to keep your health and fitness and so I still am going strong to this day. More about the power of “why” in this blog post.

Little did I know that this would be one of the life-hacks, that I would also apply to my professional life. And basically everything I am doing. I am having a really hard time to do anything, when I do not understand the “why”.

In the professional world it’s called purpose nowadays. And it becomes more and more important. Let’s face it, many have to work for the money and not everyone is lucky to have a job that they actually like. However I am absolutely convinced that every job, even the ones we do not love, becomes easier achievable if we have a purpose. If we have a strong “why” to do them.

The good thing is, the why does not have to be in the job itself. It can be anything that is strong enough to fuel us for the journey. It might take some time to figure this one out, but if we do, we will be so much stronger and a powerful force to reckon with.

Maybe one of the life-hacks you need in your life? What’s your why?

It Is OK To Say NO

This is one of those life-hacks that did not come naturally to me. It’s been a journey. Learning to say “no” came together with asking for what I actually wanted.

In order to find my way of nutrition and my new, sustainable, lifestyle, I had to learn to say “no”. No to food offered in the lobby of our apartment house. And no to food offered on company events. Even on events, that were actually organized for me. IF I did not want that food bad enough to also want to balance it out with what I ate for the rest of the day. The math is simple. You need to eat less calories than you are burning actively and passively. It’s all a matter of balance. Nothing is off limits, the bill comes at the end of the day.

Saying no to “food pusher” taught me, that I can say “no” and stand my ground without making a fuzz or causing irritation. It only required me to politely but firmly say “no” as long as it took for them to understand. The next level was, to ask for what I wanted instead.

For example the sauce on the side, salmon simply grilled, no sauce and only veggie as a side. It took some willpower but I got there. And it felt good. It felt like I finally honored myself and my wishes, no compromises if I did not want to.

How liberating that was. So liberating so, that I started incorporating it at work more and more as well. Challenging whether an inconvenient meeting could be an email or if someone else was better suited to attend. Saying “no” to meeting invites blocking my lunch breaks. Not doing the million’s favor, without anything in return. And that made me so much more efficient.

Most importantly, I stopped catering to energy vampires. If people feel like being negative only, be my guest. But without sucking out my positivity and energy, please. No. No I am not interested in this. Thanks but no thanks.

You can’t always say no at work. But I challenge everyone that we could actually say no to things more often, than we actually do. It’s one of those life-hacks you got to repeat over and over to feel comfortable with it.

Invest In Yourself

Taking care of my health and fitness is time consuming, especially combined with a busy work life. It’s not really cheap either. It’s easy to let life get the best of me and give up. But whenever I am tempted to do that, I am reminding myself how far I have come thanks to having invested in my health (and my husbands).

I realized quickly, if this weight loss journey should be sustainable, I will have to invest time into planning and preparing. And research of food and recipes that would still allow us to enjoy what we were eating. And we had to accept that the food we were consuming would likely be more expensive than some of the stuff you do not have to prepare freshly.

I created a breakfast recipe, that both my husband and I love and are having every morning. This recipe requires us to get up earlier and spend time in the kitchen together to prepare it. When I started this journey, it was unthinkable that I would leave my bed earlier to spend the time to prepare a breakfast. But I learned it is so worth the investment in myself.

I started cooking bigger batches of food on Friday, Saturday and Sunday and started baking like a professional. Just to make sure we had delicious but healthy choices available and would not get tempted to default to our usual instead. And slowly but steadily I built up some healthy habits and routines.

I finally realized, that this did actually not only help with the weight loss journey. It’s one of the life-hacks that also reduced the pressure in my work life. It made me so much more flexible at work. I have a healthy meal and snack ready to go at all times. So whatever life or work throws at me, I am ready for it. No stressing about things I was able to control upfront by planning and preparing.

Before we go on vacation or visit restaurants, I am spending time researching places that will have a great mix of indulgences as well as healthy choices. It’s a time investment that pays off two fold. Firstly it gives you peace of mind that there is choices available and secondly it helps prevent fights and frustration over the question “where should we eat?”.

I am also planning ahead at work and am taking time to i.e. prepare for a successful Monday on a Friday afternoon now. Keeps my mind off work on the weekend and helps with a successful start into the week. I am planning lunches as a meeting so I can take care of nutrition and myself. And I learned to reduce meetings to 45 minutes to give everyone some space for a quick walk or to get something to drink etc. .

I also am investing in myself via coaching. It has helped me accomplish what I want to accomplish. Yes, I could do that without coaching as well. But coaching has been good for me and it helped with my personal and professional sanity, goals, accomplishments and happiness. So yes, an investment that’s worth it.

Through this process of planning and preparing I learned a lot about the one superpower of routines – they make us more flexible. You can check out my post about routines here to read more.

These life-hacks of preparation and routines truly make us more flexible. Who knew?

Celebrating The Small Wins Is Super Powerful

No matter how strong our “why” may be, it will not be enough to keep up the motivation if we do not see success. Did you know that it usually takes 15-20 lbs lost until anyone notices? Longer, if the person that should notice your weight loss, is actually living with you and seeing you every day. Let that sink in. Can you imagine you are losing all this weight – 15lb really is a lot – you can barely see it yourself and no one else notices it, yet?

Yes you will feel lighter and fitter. So your why will of course help keep you going. But to keep up the hard work, validation of success will help, too. Ideally this validation comes from yourself. It’s of course great to get compliments but it’s super risky to solely rely on the validation from others. I have recently shared my “attention addiction journey” on this blog. You can find my story here.

In our busy everyday life we can easily lose sight of our “why” for a moment. Celebrating our small wins and, in doing so, reminding ourselves how far we have come will help get us back on track. I have celebrated every pound lost and I planned some “bigger rewards” for milestones I had set for myself. And I went ahead and did that for myself and all by myself. When I reached my goal weight, I bought myself a beautiful ring.

And now, every time I am looking at that ring, it reminds me of what I am capable of. Compliments will stop once people only know you at your current weight. No one will acknowledge the even harder work of keeping that weight off. The ring is my reminder that I can do that.

My reward system did not include food for obvious reasons. See previous life-hacks. But it did include day trips, restaurant visits with the hubby to spend time together, shopping trips to simply window shop, manicure or pedicure or both. New wardrobe to remind myself I am not going back to that size I just passed etc.

Today I am pretty good at feeling successful at work, when I accomplished something. Reaching a goal I set for myself or accomplishing something tricky or difficult to reach gives me satisfaction and I will always take a pause to reward myself. Sometimes by simply spending the time to acknowledge the accomplishment for myself, other times by taking a break for a quick playtime with the hubby and the pooch in the pool. Whatever it is, I am making an effort to “celebrate” my small wins. Without food, but with something that gives me pleasure and feels like a reward.

And this is what keeps me going, when things get difficult. When leaders find something to criticize in everything I do or are just not providing the support I would expect. I am OK with that. I can celebrate my own wins and keep going towards my goal.

Because, and that leads us to the last one of my life-hacks, this ain’t over. Ever.

This Is For Life

My weight loss journey only worked out, when I did not consider it a diet anymore. A short term thing I had to do to lose weight and then go back to “normal”. Only when I accepted this to be a lifestyle change that will have to work for the rest of my life, was I finally able to lose the weight and keep it off, too.

Diets, much like other quick and “dirty” solutions, are usually quick but not sustainable. And after we stop, things tend to get worse. Understanding that everything in life takes the time it takes, helps us keep going.

And that applies to anything and everything we are aspiring to achieve in our professional life as well. I learned that with all the previous life-hacks, I am in a pretty good place already. But my career is not over yet. I am not living to work but I am also not purely working to be able to live. I want to enjoy what I am doing. Putting deadlines on things won’t help but just add pressure to an already busy and stressful work day / week / month or year.

Don’t get me wrong, deadlines are deadlines and need to be kept if possible. But there is no need to add to this by setting our own deadlines for when certain career steps, moves, changes, salary ranges, titles etc. need to be accomplished.

Whenever I did that, the time passed without me being successful and now what? I felt like a failure. Or made poor decisions because of the pressure I was giving myself. And we talked about pressure earlier and being happy where we are.

If you have reached a certain age, you will know that some things happen later for a reason. And you might have made your peace with it. If not, you should. You are in this for life. Or at least until you retire. Don’t rush. Take your time.

And instead of putting deadlines on career moves, start working on what you think you will get out of this move, today. The move will follow with patience and time.

This truly is a life-hack.

Nannette