Getting Through the First Week of Weight Loss

As with many life endeavours, the first week of something will usually determine how the rest is going to pan out. This could not be truer than with weight loss. If you have a decent first week, chances are you will carry on and maintain your efforts further. Fall at the first hurdle, however, and you’ll be wondering why you even started.

When losing weight, I found that the first week was by far the hardest one in terms of staying motivated and on track. Nothing, and I mean NOTHING, happens in that first week. We have all eaten healthy for a couple of days and felt disappointed when we check in the mirror to find no difference at all. That’s usually the point where most people give up. Thinking ‘nothing’s happening so why bother’ after two days is probably the number one reason why any sort of diet has ever failed.
 

So, I thought I would offer a few small tips to anyone that is constantly facing this problem. Hopefully they will help you get through that first week and onto better things.

Firstly, prepare. If you’re thinking of going on any sort of diet or fitness programme, give yourself a couple of days to plan for it. Make a meal plan, do a healthy food shop, join your local gym, get your exercise clothes ready, make a running playlist, create some sort of chart to track your progress – do everything you possibly can to be ready to begin the diet, but do it before you actually begin. If you don’t prepare, you’ll immediately start at a disadvantage. Starting a diet on a Monday, but realising that you can’t be inducted into your local gym until Thursday will more than likely throw the whole week off and put you at square one again. Make sure you’re ready to go straight into the weight loss rather than getting caught up with these unnecessary problems at the beginning.

A lot of people might not agree with this, or feel comfortable with it, but I always say you should tell EVERYONE what you’re doing. Put it up on Facebook, tweet it, Instagram that before photo, call your parents, just let people know that you are planning on losing weight in the coming months. It might seem personal, but telling everybody what you are doing will make you more likely to go through with it. Giving up halfway through the first week will give all of these people a reason to doubt you and will probably make you feel rather embarrassed, so it acts as a perfect motivator for keeping it up.

Water and gum will be your best friend in your first week of weight loss, particularly if you are a food lover like myself. As you start to cut down on portion sizes, your stomach will undoubtedly not be happy and you will be feeling the hungriest during this first week as it starts to get used to your new routine of eating. For me, gum was really helpful in counteracting this. I think that just having the flavour in your mouth can sometimes curb a craving and keep you satisfied until your next meal. Water is also essential in terms of feeling full. More often than not, thirst can become disguised by hunger, and you will find that drinking water throughout the day will generally make you feel a lot less hungry as your stomach gets used to the changes. As well as this, water is generally great anyway at keeping your metabolism going strong and giving you the vital nutrients and hydration that you need to lose weight more effectively.

This tip might sound a bit strange, but I would say that you should not weigh yourself after your first week. Usually in the first week your weight will drop dramatically as your body begins to get used to your new lifestyle. This can be a great motivator for carrying on past the first week, but poses problems in terms of week two. We have all heard of the second week wall – your weight loss usually stops in this week as your body recovers from the dramatic loss of the week before. More often than not, this can be demotivating in itself and will often lead you straight back to square one as you wonder what the point of it all was. I would suggest weighing yourself monthly. This way, any weekly anomalies will usually not matter and, as long as you are keeping with your weight loss plan, you should generally see a more consistent downwards trend.

If you are going to the gym for the first time, the first week of weight loss can usually be quite daunting. There is a lot of machinery in a gym, a lot of commotion and a lot of people who have quite obviously never left the gym in their lives and look like walking billboard adverts. But don’t worry about it, you are all there for the same reason – to improve yourself. It might seem that everyone in the gym is staring at you as you attempt your first run on the treadmill, but this is not the case. Rule number one of the gym is that, unless you’re the loud groaning guy lifting weights far too big for him, NOBODY CARES what you are doing. Don’t feel put off by the crowds. If you still feel daunted, take a friend with you so you can go through it together, or find a large, busy gym with lots of people so you don’t feel like you stand out quite as much. After the first week you’ll soon realise that the gym is actually a really friendly and supportive place and 99% of people in there will have the same sort of worries as yourself.

Personally, I recommend chain gyms, such as FitSpace. In your first week of weight loss you might find that the gym life is not for you and you would rather exercise at home. FitSpace offers a no contract membership, so you don’t have to get tied down into long and costly contracts from the very beginning. They also have gyms across the country and your membership card gives you access to all of these, perfect if you’re a student travelling between cities.

Hopefully this post can offer some assistance to anyone going through that first week of weight loss. I don’t claim to be an expert in health and fitness by any stretch, that’s for the personal trainers to work out, but having gone through it I am happy to answer any questions about what it is really like in terms of staying motivated and on track – just give me a shout on twitter, my link is in my bio!

Good luck!