Fit for paradise: achieve weight loss without sacrificing pleasure

I recently took a vacation out in Maui. Coincedently, one of my clients happened to also book a trip there on the same week. Before he left for his trip, he told me “don’t worry, I won’t eat too much while I’m there”. His reassurance caught me off guard.

He had been working hard towards his goal of weight loss for about two months at this point and saw amazing results right away. With all the excitement of newfound progress in his life, he was reluctant to let this vacation get in the way of his results. But that didn’t sit well with me.

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My personal goal that I set for my clients has always been the same – to instill sustainable lifestyle skills that will benefit my clients for months and years after the program is completed.

I always preach the same thing. Learn to maintain a planned routine or program for 85% of the time, and then use that last 15% left to fill with pleasure. Because let’s be honest, how many people are going to stick to a program that they don’t enjoy? This single biggest reason why most diets fail to last.

How I responded

[Client] you have me so much amazing progress over these last two months. Now let’s take a little step back here, and remember why we started on this journey in the first place.

We started on this weight loss journey to help you develop the behaviors and the skill set for you to help you enjoy yourself to the fullest, without having to worry about going on another diet or limiting yourself from foods you love. It would be counterproductive for us to try and limit you from those experiences, in order to achieve the final goal of not having those limitations.

My next question got him thinking “When do you think will be the next time that you have this opportunity in front of you again?” After thinking about it for a minute, he came to the conclusion that this was probably going to be a once in a lifetime opportunity for him. The sad part was just how close he came to not making the most of that experience.

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I ended up telling him, “if you see any food, drinks, or whatever is that catches your eye, I would be upset at you if you didn’t take that chance”. I would never recommend that anyone sacrifices quality of life to reach a weight loss goal – with the exception of medical conditions.

He ended up having an amazing experience on that vacation of his. It was all smiles and stories when he got back, and the best part was, his weight barely even changed – thanks to the new habits and behaviors that he adopted over the past few months.

We managed to get straight back to work the weekend that he got back, and continued to make the same amazing progress that we had maintained before he had left on his trip.