Self Efficacy is the key to long term success

As I attempt to grow this community I have started posting a bit of my journey on social media. I have been resistant to “putting myself out there” but as I am feeling called to help others like me. In one of my TikToks yesterday I received a comment from @glenwallis810 letting me know that, like me he has never been able to keep the weight off he has lost. This one comment really got me to thinking. If I could give him just one tip, what would it be? Sure I have learned so much about nutrition and metabolism. I have gained a great understanding of energy balance and how calories in vs calories is key to weight management. But, too be honest, I don’t think those two things made the biggest impact on this journey.

One of my primary fields of research during my masters program was on motivation and one of my favorite experts in this field was Albert Bandura, specifically his research around self-efficacy:

Self-efficacy refers to an individual's belief in their capacity to execute behaviors necessary to produce specific performance attainments. It reflects confidence in the ability to exert control over one's own motivation, behavior, and social environment. When it comes to my weight management and fitness has been the biggest game changer.

When I looked at my history of “dieting” and my huge swings in weight I could vividly remember how I fell off the wagon… I stopped weighing in. If I had a cheat day or weekend… or week, I didn’t want to see the damage. I would tell myself “I will get back on track and then weigh in next week”, which I wouldn’t do and quickly I would gain the weight back. When I looked at the responses to the Finish Stronger Survey, I saw that most of the respondents had a similar story.

So how did I apply this concept to my weight management? This time around I weigh every day, even after a refeed day. From week 3 of this journey I would give myself one day to eat whatever I want as long as I forced myself back on the scale the next day. I learned that I could gain as much as 8lbs in a single “cheat day” but forcing myself back on plan I would notice that usually half of that was gone two days later and most of the time, I was still at east a pound down by the end of the week (I will go into the wonders of water weight in another post). By doing this week after week I built the confidence that I could continue to lose weight and have success, even after a failure. I literally “practiced” failing until I had the belief that I was still in control and could continue to succeed.

So what is my one tip for @glenwallis810? Practice failing and get good and at it. In the words of Rocky Balboa: You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain't about how hard you hit. It's about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward…

You’re an angel on my shoulder Rock!

Have a great day all and finish stronger!

EB