Stop comparing yourself to cover models on the front of fitness magazines. They are genetically gifted individuals, who I can assure you don’t look like that year round. To accomplish this level of leanness and muscularity, the amount of rigidity, discipline and social withdrawal required is not worth the price. If your goal is to achieve a significant amount of fat loss, do it for your health and well-being. Looking good should be a by-product of taking care of yourself. As soon as aesthetics become the primary goal of a fat loss program, our psychology changes. Achieving our goals becomes a mandate, with extreme pressure accompanied by significant amounts of anxiety. Speak to any fitness model and they will share with you first-hand how mentally and emotionally draining it is to get ready for a shoot. When you are taking positive action and doing it out of love and support for yourself, it becomes a mindset and the extreme behaviour that accompanies these goals is no longer necessary. Here are 5 important thinking processes you need to adopt to achieve long term fat loss.

Look at fat loss as a marathon and not a sprint. We have enough pressure in our lives with our jobs and our families. Do you really need the added pressure of dropping 15 lbs of fat in 6 weeks? I certainly don’t. That type of thinking promotes unnecessary anxiety and eventual eating disorders. While it is extremely important to have clear cut goals, it is equally important that they be realistic and achievable. I want you to pick a number whether it be 15 lbs, 30 lbs or even 50 lbs and then give yourself between 4 and 8 months to achieve that goal, which adds up to 1 to 2 lbs a week. Any more than that and you are no longer losing fat—you are either dehydrated, breaking down muscle or both. Think fat loss, not weight loss.

Seek out social support. This is something you need not do alone. Study after study has shown how crucial social support is in achieving fat loss. Go out and find a mentor. Whether that means hiring a personal trainer or a nutritionist, what is important is that you find someone who has done it before and can guide you in the right direction. Tell all of your friends what you are doing too. Accountability is huge. Once you put it out there, it becomes that much harder to stop.

Perfection does not exist. Expect and plan for failure. No matter how hard you to try to eat properly and get all your workouts in, sooner or later you are going to eat a slice of pizza or miss a workout. If you have the right psychology, you know that you are in this for the long haul and that one small setback is just that. It becomes that much easier to jump back on the horse and move forward.

Avoid extremes. Severe calorie restriction and excessive exercise are not going to help you reach your goals any faster. Your body knows when it is being deprived of food and will automatically slow down your metabolism to hold on to what it has. Instead, make small incremental changes from week to week. Add in a little more activity, replace a glass of orange juice with a glass of water, or a piece of cake with a handful of grapes. If you try doing too much too soon, you will end up falling flat on your face, literally.

Enjoy the process. If it seems too much like work, the chances are that you will eventually give up. So find modes of exercise that you enjoy. I love weight training and performing sprints. It almost never feels like work to me. But ask me to train for a marathon or try some hot yoga, the chances are that I won’t make it through the first week. The same goes for what you are eating. Eating healthy should be enjoyable. I don’t eat anything that I don’t like. There is so much variety to choose from; nobody should be stuck eating boiled chicken breasts and steamed broccoli day in and day out. Try different cuts of meat and buy seasonal fruits and vegetables, so you don’t get bored eating the same foods over and over. Try cooking with an assortment of herbs and spices to give your foods different flavours.