- Friends going out for drinks and dinner at a restaurant that has NOTHING on the menu you can eat.
- Family members who refuse to eat those “gross” foods you eat because you are on a another diet.
- Kids who never finish those delicious fries, nuggets, cookies, or mac and cheese.
- Vacations
- Holidays
- A boss or project that requires you to be in endless meetings that last half the night.
- TOM…need I say more.
Basically, if you look hard enough you can find tons and tons of stumbling blocks in your life. What do you think is the difference between someone who actually loses their fat and someone who does not? The way they see stumbling blocks.
Successful people typically view life as if they are destined to succeed at anything they want to do. My husband is one of those people. He glides through life with an expectation that he can do and learn anything his heart desires. The man is accomplished in work, happy, smart, married to a fit, sports loving, poker playing diva, and never says I can’t do that. He tries so many things and is constantly trying to learn something new. Does he always succeed? Of course not. When he doesn’t succeed he just sees it as a learning experience for the next thing down the road; therefore, it was a success to him.
People who never fulfill their potential are right the opposite. They are the people you know who always blame someone or something for not meeting their goals. Things are always happening to them that hold them back from doing what it is they want to do. They see life as difficult and they see losing weight as something they have to work at harder than other people. They rarely try new things because they are afraid of failing or letting someone down. So, they go through life hoping one day things will magically change for them.
One person knows what a stumbling block is and the other doesn’t. How do you view stumbling blocks? Let’s define them. Stumbling blocks are a TEMPORARY obstacle you must find a way to work around, crawl under, go over, or run straight through. A stumbling block IS NOT a reason to quit. A stumbling block is simply there to test your desire to succeed. It’s a learning experience for the next time.
Dieting stumbling blocks are your practice sessions for when you hit goal. Do you honestly believe that those of us who have made goal suddenly don’t have issues of meal planning, squeezing in workouts, making good food choices, and knowing when to say no? If you do, you have a unrealistic idea of what maintenance will be like.
Maintenance is just an extension of your fat loss journey. You still eat the same, you exercise almost the same, and you feel the same. It’s freaking work. But think about this, if it weren’t for the practice rounds of stumbling blocks during your fat loss phase you wouldn’t be able to keep the weight off. Remember this, stumbling blocks happen for a reason…they slow you up, force you to make plans, teach you to adapt to changing circumstances, but they are not what cause you to throw in the towel. You do that…not the stumbling block.