Building a Strong Foundation for Permanent Weight Loss: Don’t Sacrifice What Makes You Powerful!

Can I tell you a secret?

Success demands sacrifice, and when working toward a target, it’s often essential to give up certain comforts. 

While some sacrifices make us stronger, if we are not careful, others can chip away at our foundation, leading to collapse.

This can look like:

• Overworking yourself until your sick
• Focusing really hard on serving others and burning out because you don’t take care of yourself
• Not giving yourself time to plan for good nutrition and exercise
• Working so hard on your business that relationships suffer

Without even realizing it, you can slowly give up your power, agency, and personal authority, until one day you realize you are completely empty with nothing left to offer. 

However, with awareness you can catch harmful sacrifices before they become patterns, and reclaim control of your life. Let’s take a look at three of the most common.

1. Don’t sacrifice your opinion

Wherever you work, there are standard operating policies and procedures. Protocols build the backbone of company culture, and provide an essential stabilizing force. However, left unexamined, this can create an expectation of “follow orders, keep your head down and get the job done.” Your voice is one of the most important gifts you offer your company and the world. When you silence your opinions and ideas, you build the belief that your contributions are insignificant, which ultimately leads to cynicism and apathy. 

2. Don’t sacrifice your self care

“I’ll treat myself once I finish this project.” “I can’t afford a spa day right now.” “Vacation? Who has time for a vacation?”

Pushing yourself to exhaustion and putting your needs on the back burner will result in nothing but trouble.  You need to rest, recharge, and replenish your energy. Make it a daily, weekly, AND monthly requirement, and you will avoid toxic stress buildup and destructive coping strategies. 

Think of it this way: when your grumpy, exhausted, and tired, are you fun to be around? Taking care of yourself isn’t about you. It’s about allowing the best version of you to show up for others.

3. Don’t sacrifice your values

The desire to “fit in and get along” is natural. However, when keeping the peace involves compromising your values, you pave the way for shame, depression, and loads of self-doubt. Stand strong in your values, and you will create strength and resiliency in all areas of your life…which is obviously good for everyone. You will also attract people who have similar values and you’ll repel those who believe very differently than you. It’s kind of like a relationship filter.

Success demands sacrifice, but you don’t have to give up the parts that make you powerful – the parts that make you you.  Keep your foundation strong by holding tight to the things that matter most – your opinions, your well-being, and your values.

With a strong foundation, the sacrifices are much more manageable.

How is your foundation holding up?

-Jenna Lee, RD