How to restart your weight loss journey after a failed attempt? Here's a practical three-step method to help you succeed.

If you've failed at weight loss before, you can't simply repeat the methods described in the previous chapters when starting a new weight loss journey. I have a very practical "three-step method" for you. However, before that, I hope you can make peace with yourself and stop seeing weight loss failures as your own fault.

Like Xiaoman, after regaining weight this time, she seriously came to the hospital to see me, seeking professional guidance, and I told her the same thing. After that, she changed her profile picture.

Step One: Finding the Cause

When Xiaoman came to see me, we carefully reviewed her weight loss history and lifestyle together.

In college, Xiaoman was known as the campus beauty. At 1.65 meters tall, her weight was only 62 kilograms. But seven years ago, Xiaoman unfortunately suffered from depression, and since then her weight has skyrocketed to 73 kilograms. She had always wanted to lose weight and had tried twice, even hiring a fitness coach once, but the results were not good.

As a successful executive in a foreign company, Xiaoman works overtime at least three times a week. And Xiaoman is impatient; her dinner during overtime is basically fast food, often eaten while attending meetings. Because she's busy with work, she hardly gets any exercise except for taking her children out to play.

While reviewing, I took notes and then drew a coordinate graph of Xiaoman's weight loss journey. The horizontal axis represents time, and the vertical axis represents her weight. Can you imagine the fluctuating curve in the graph?

At each point where her weight changed dramatically, I marked the major events that happened to her at that time, such as diet, exercise, emotions, sleep, work stress, medications taken, illnesses, etc., as detailed as possible. It was through this graph that Xiaoman understood her weight history for the first time and understood each of her failures.

This is the review I did with Xiaoman. Below is the weight coordinate graph I drew for Xiaoman; you can follow this method and add your own coordinate graph in the "Secret Guide."

With this graph, you can find the reasons for your weight loss failures. Don't overthink it; you only need to choose one from the three aspects: diet, exercise, and psychological factors. For example, with Xiaoman, we quickly identified a specific event in the chart – depression. The onset of depression was the biggest factor contributing to Xiaoman's weight fluctuations, and the failure to manage psychological factors was precisely why all her subsequent weight loss attempts were unsustainable. Therefore, in this lifestyle intervention, managing psychological factors was given top priority.

Step Two: Setting Goals

My small goal for Xiaoman was to lose 10% of her body weight in six months, which is approximately 7 kilograms. Achieving this goal would be considered a successful weight loss. Don't think this is too slow; this 10% is a conclusion reached by numerous medical professionals through various experiments.

If your BMI is less than or equal to 35, it's best to set a goal of reducing your current weight by 5% to 10% in six months; if your BMI is over 35, you can set a goal of reducing your weight by 10% to 15% in six months. After six months, set the next round of goals based on the actual situation.

This approach has three advantages: First, the difficulty is moderate, and it's achievable with effort; second, it's healthy – even if you haven't reached your "ideal weight" after six months, reducing your weight by about 10% will significantly reduce the risks of diabetes, cardiovascular disease, infertility, etc.; third, it's less likely to rebound. The reason many people regain weight is due to setting unrealistic short-term goals. "Haste makes waste," a steady and gradual approach is the key to successful weight loss.

For all those who have failed at weight loss before, my advice is to weigh yourself once a week, and aim for an average weight loss of no more than 0.5 kilograms per week.

Step Three: Considering New Tools

After identifying the reasons for weight loss failure, we can utilize many new tools when managing diet, exercise, and psychological factors.

For example, after a detailed psychological assessment of Xiaoman, I found that she did indeed have moderate to severe anxiety. Therefore, I prescribed some anti-anxiety medication and had a therapist provide her with 12 regular psychotherapy sessions, including relaxation techniques and mindful eating. After six months, Xiaoman steadily lost 8.5 kilograms, achieving her goal.

Here, psychological assessment and psychotherapy are the new tools we used to address the psychological factors. I've prepared two self-assessment questionnaires for psychological issues on the GetApp platform, which you can use to rate yourself. In terms of diet, we can utilize food diaries, portion control plates, and incredibly useful meal replacements and intermittent fasting. For exercise, we have HIIT, strength training, and more.

If you've tried all of these and still haven't succeeded, you can seek help from weight-loss medications and weight-loss surgery under the guidance of a doctor.

In summary, if you've failed at weight loss before, please reconcile with yourself first, then identify the reasons for your previous failures, set small goals, choose the right tools, and you can start again.

This time, as long as you maintain a positive mindset and stick to the principle of "lifestyle intervention," your success will only be a matter of time.