I’ve been working on overcoming weight loss obstacles during special events such as attending a three day conference with my work colleagues out of town. I knew I would face challenges to my weight loss journey over the weekend due to being away from home, not being able to plan my meals in advance and being surrounded by a lot of food and alcohol that I currently choose not to eat and drink at this time in my life.

I decided to set some intentions and goals to help guide me through the weekend so I could take actions that fit in with my Low Carb, Healthy Fat (LCHF) lifestyle.

One of my goals was to only eat 3 meals a day with no snacking. Another goal was to focus on eating LCHF meals and to make the best choices possible for my meals from the food available to me.

I came away from the weekend feeling really proud of myself. I kept to my goal of eating only 3 meals a day and I chose to eat LCHF food for a majority of the meals.

One of the gems I learnt over the weekend from guest speaker Mike Allsop, was that an important part of achieving your goals and dreams is to be able to visual your obstacles.

This is taking the process I used to the next level.

The idea is to make the visualisation as real as possible. Think about what can you see, hear, smell, touch or taste. Ask yourself, what thoughts will likely come up and how do these make me feel.

Really take the time to put yourself in the obstacle situation and feel as though you’re really there. Then you can choose the thoughts you want to have and put a plan in place seeing yourself taking the actions you want to take.

As always, I like to take what I learn and relate it back to how this can help my clients and I continue on our weight loss journeys.

During the weekend I knew there was going to be situations (obstacles) that were going to tempt me. I wanted to be prepared for how I would act in these situations.

I knew there would be a break for morning and afternoon tea in-between speakers and that food would be available. So, I made the decision before going that I would leave the room. I planned to head outside to get some fresh air and go for a short walk to stretch my legs.

I also knew there would be buffets of food to choose from. So I planned to plate up a LCHF meal the best I could from what was available eg. half a plate of low starchy vegetables, a portion of protein and a serve of healthy fats.

Situations like this are the perfect opportunity to practice visualising the actions you will take in advance. You could also brainstorm a few different ideas so you have more than one action to choose from in the actual moment.

Take some time to sit and think about how you want to act in a certain situation and visualise doing the action to achieve your desired outcome.

Imagine yourself plating up your chosen meal the best you can. It may not end up being exactly the same but that’s ok. Visual yourself eating the meal and how great you feel afterwards from making the decision to eat your chosen meal.

Visualise yourself being confident and saying no thank you when food is offered to you during a break. Imagine leaving the room and going for a short walk around the block.

The reason visualisation works is because the brain doesn’t actually know the difference between real life and imagination.

Take a moment to think about eating your favourite meal. Think about how amazing it smells and happy you are that your about to eat this meal. See yourself taking the first bite and imagine chewing and really savouring the flavour

Is your mouth watering yet?

That’s an example of how the body and digestive system responds to eating and it was all brought on by your imagination. Amazing ah

So, next time you have an event coming up, I encourage you to try visualising the situations or obstacles you might experience in the week leading up to the event

Come up with a few different examples you could choose from to act on in the moment. Then when they do occur, the action will likely happen more naturally from your subconscious. Why? Because in your brains mind, you have already done that action in the past and it felt good.

You can use visualisation for everyday obstacles too.

If there are certain times of the day, certain events or certain foods that often trip you up in sticking to your plan or lead you to make decisions in the moment you would rather not make, use this tool to be prepared for them in advance.

Now I want to hear from you. Have you tried overcoming your own weight loss obstacles using visualisation or by setting an intention of how you plan to act in advance? What other ideas have you used for overcoming weight loss obstacles? Can you relate to what I’ve shared?

If so, please leave a comment below. Share with me how you felt going through this and how you overcame it. The more we talk about our struggles and wins with each other, the more support we feel. This also helps us all to achieve our health goals.

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