How to ACE Your Goals

I am pleased to share that I am entering my seventh year of living with my new body, lifestyle, and new perspective on life and health. In 2002, I was considered obese with a BMI of over 30. Since then, I have learned the "secret" to weight loss. I successfully lost a significant amount of weight and kept it off for nearly seven years. Through taking my personal weight loss journey, I am now here to share my experiences with you in hopes of helping you find your own path toward successful weight loss.

The big weight loss "secret" is not easy, and it is not a simple solution. I am not here to tell you to simply pop a pill or to stop eating a certain food item. Unfortunately, I cannot offer such a quick fix to your weight issues. However, I can offer you something that is so much better and healthier in the long run. I can offer you a new, more fulfilling, empowered life. It will take work, some may struggle a bit, but overall it is a much longer lasting, well-rounded solution guaranteed to work for everyone who really wants to change and is willing to make a few new lifestyle choices.

From my experience, I believe that in order to lose weight and keep it off, one must ACE the following few basic steps: Accept, Connect, and Educate. I will explain each step in more detail in a minute, but the idea is that the overall transformation of your outer appearance comes from the inside. Each step takes time, energy, support, effort, and a wholehearted desire to change. As previously mentioned, this is not a quick fix. Everyone’s journey is unique and takes varying amounts of time to accomplish. I am not able to say, "Oh, it’s easy. It will take one month of this, and two weeks of that, and voila!" It can take anywhere from weeks to years depending on where you are on your own individual path. One thing that ACE can offer that a fad or diet can’t is that following this program will eventually result in you feeling great about yourself. Your life will change from the inside out. You will grow more confident and comfortable in your body and in your life.

Now, let’s explore what I mean by ACE. ACE stands for the three steps that I consider the "secret" to weight loss. These steps may be initiated one at a time, or they often interconnect and can be worked through simultaneously. We will cover each step one at a time.

The first, and probably most important, step is to accept yourself as you are now, and love yourself enough to make some difficult choices and decisions. I have seen how important this step is for most, if not all, people to successfully lose weight. This is often the step that is overlooked in the dieting dilemma. Yo-yo dieting is often about depriving and limiting yourself, which is basically being cruel to oneself. In my opinion, the most important part of keeping weight off is self-acceptance and self-love.

Just to clarify, self-acceptance does not mean condoning your current lifestyle. Rather, it simply means acknowledging that you are human and have made some mistakes, but (*drum roll please*) you are worthy of change. This acceptance means you care enough about your health and your life to make some changes now. You must also acknowledge that you will continue to make mistakes in the future and that is okay. Learning to make mistakes without beating yourself up over all of them and constantly feeling guilty is also a key step in the process. In addition, open up to the idea that weight loss is a process and a journey, not necessarily a destination. Learn to enjoy the journey and understand that setbacks and plateaus are completely normal and expected. Once you can accept the process, and yourself through the process, you will be well on your way to successful weight loss.