I remember the moment I realized I had changed. It was a Friday afternoon, and I was sitting on the edge of my bed, tired from a long week at work. I had just finished working a 60-hour week in my online training business, and I had just recommitted to my health. 

Since starting my business, I noticed how little I was moving. My back was tighter than it had ever been, I was holding a little extra weight due to a lack of steps, and my joints were starting to ache. The doubts and negativity started flooding my mind. It would have been easy for me to throw in the towel right there. 

Your workout won't be "worth it" if you don't go for at least an hour. 

You can just start next week. 

Just don't eat as much (even if you're hungry), and you can workout for 2 hours tomorrow. 

I knew that I could listen to those voices or make a different choice. Instead of giving in to the pattern of thinking I had been stuck in, I decided that doing something today would feel better than doing nothing. I could start tomorrow or Monday, but I could also perfectly well start right now. I knew that even a ten-minute walk would feel better on my body and my mind than not getting in any steps or sunlight. So I laced up my sneakers, put the dogs on their leashes, and went for a walk around my neighborhood. 

I chose to walk that day because I didn't commit to a week of workouts to "shred body fat" or whatever other gimmick some online coaches are selling. I chose to walk because of the mindset shifts that I made to become a healthier human. These mindset changes are the difference between my clients who lose weight for now and those who keep weight off for life.

Check out the top 5 mindset shifts to make for a happier and healthier life:

1. Taking responsibility for your choices. Instead of blaming other people or external circumstances for your lack of growth and progress, you accept that your current state is a reflection of your own beliefs and behaviors. Your success and your failure ultimately come down to your actions each day. 
2. Less fixation on your scale weight. Being obsessed with the number on the scale is probably the number one thing that negatively impacts progress. Is your goal really to weigh 125 pounds as you did in college? Or is your goal to love the way you look, feel great in your skin, have the energy to maximize your life, and enjoy your free time? Not getting upset over daily fluctuations in your weight comes from understanding why they happen and being objective about them. You will come to believe that non-scale victories are more rewarding and a better indicator of your overall progress than the scale reading alone. 
3. Less negative self-talk and more gratitude. You realize that you're a human and not a damn robot. Mistakes, fluctuations, needing less or more depending on the day— all of these things don't make you less of a person; they make you HUMAN. Instead of beating yourself up for these incredibly human attributes, you can forgive yourself and commit to trying again with a different approach. Gratitude for your body, food, career, and family will also help show you how many blessings you currently have in life, and stop taking these things for granted because they are comfortable and familiar. 
4. Less all or nothing thinking. This applies to your workouts, your nutrition, and your tracking. If you can't track perfectly at a restaurant, you give it your best guess and move on. If you can't make it to the gym for your usual 75-minute workout, you opt for a walk instead. You overeat at one meal, but you make your next food choice positive instead of throwing in the towel to start the next day or week. This means that you acknowledge your progression and celebrate it instead of expecting yourself to be perfect. 
5. Not falling into the comparison trap. You know that even if everyone ate the same and did the same workouts, each person's body would still be vastly different. You can acknowledge someone's progress without it meaning anything about you and where you currently are in your health journey. You can use someone's progress as a means of inspiration for yourself rather than making it mean that you're behind. Everyone's body, health, and nutrition should be different because we are all unique and on a distinct journey that isn't meant for anyone but us. 

It's no secret. All of these mindset shifts for a happier and healthier life come down to stressing less about making it perfect so that you can simply practice getting it right. When you implement these mindset shifts, you won't focus on rushing the process in an effort to drop weight fast. You'll be able to celebrate the small wins along the way and start to learn to trust yourself and your body. 

The goal is that my clients all walk away, having learned what foods, exercises, habits, and mindfulness practices will help them to be the best version of themselves. They are not just the thinnest but the happiest and most well-rounded humans they can be. That can mean losing weight for some, and for others, it means getting more muscular, less negative self-talk, or, maybe, it might mean all three. 

If you need more help implementing these mindset shifts into your nutrition and fitness programming, schedule a 1:1 video call with Ty to see if joining the Well-Nourished Nutrition Fat Loss Program will help you reach your sustainable, stress-free fat loss goals for life, CLICK HERE to schedule.