Why You’ve Been Giving Up on Diets - and How Lark Helps You Stay Consistent

In this article:

• Many people know what they can do to lose weight or manage health conditions, but it can be hard to stay consistent. After making healthy lifestyle changes, it’s common to go back to old patterns within weeks or months. 
• Motivation can start high, but quickly drop. Lark can help boost motivation, including helping you notice and appreciate non-scale victories like feeling more energetic and thinking more clearly. 
• Another common challenge is that changes feel too hard. Lark supports small changes that become habits so that they fit into your daily routine without much effort. 
• Staying consistent is easier when you feel accountable and supported. Lark is available on your phone anytime, anywhere for encouragement, advice, and a friendly word. 
• It’s easy to quit your lifestyle changes when they’re too dramatic, but Lark’s program is designed to fit into your life. You don’t have to give up your favorite foods or spend hours in a gym to stick to the program and see results. 
• Lark can support you 24/7 as you make healthy choices to lose weight and manage blood sugar, blood pressure, or other conditions with or without GLP-1s. 

Consistency is key when it comes to health and weight loss. Healthy changes that you keep up for the long-term can have a major impact, even if they’re small changes. However, it can be hard to keep up healthy changes for a long time. 

It’s common to set a health goal and dive in head first as motivation is high, but jumping in too fast often means it’s harder to keep up those changes for good. When there is a lull in motivation, or there’s a bump in the road, it’s common to step back from healthy intentions and go back to old habits. Over 1 in 5 people quit structured health and weight programs within a month, and more than half quit in 6 months, according to research published in Nutrition Journal. 

Lack of willpower often takes the blame for falling off track, but it’s not your fault. Instead,blame the program for things like lack of proper support, pushing changes that are too dramatic, or lack of progress. A program like Lark that addresses these and other challenges can make it easier for you to stay consistent - to give yourself the best chance of achieving your goals in losing weight, managing blood sugar, or lowering blood pressure. Here are reasons why many people lose momentum, and how Lark helps you stay consistent. 

1. Motivation Drops

Motivation can be sky-high when you start a program - consider how strongly you might start a new plan in a new year, before an event like a wedding or a vacation, or when you get a lab test result or a diagnosis from your doctor and a recommendation to adapt healthier behaviors. 

But motivation fades sooner or later - and without the right precautions, you’re likely to return to old habits. 

A program that boosts motivation - and makes healthier choices possible on days when you don’t feel motivated - can keep you on track. Lark can remind you why you set your goals so you stay motivated. In addition, Lark offers quick tips - anytime and anywhere - to help you make a choice that’s a good fit and doesn’t feel hard. For example, if you’re not feeling motivated to take a walk, Lark might suggest walking down the driveway and back - just to get in some movement and possibly gain momentum to walk a little further. 

2. Lack of Progress

It’s hard to keep up your efforts if you’re not making progress. Lots of people give up because they’re not losing weight as fast as they expected, or because they’re not hitting goals like having their doctor tell them they can stop taking blood sugar or blood pressure medications. 

Sometimes, all it takes to appreciate your progress is a coach like Lark. Lark helps you find non-scale victories that are just as important - things like having more energy to get through the day, being able to keep up with children or grandchildren, and fitting into clothes that are smaller. When you log with Lark, you can also see trends in weight, food choices, activity levels, and blood pressure or blood sugar measurements. Your Lark coach may be able to point out progress that you hadn’t noticed - which can help you decide to stay consistent.

3. Rules Are Too Restrictive

A common reason for quitting weight loss programs is that their diets are too restrictive - say, cutting all but a few grams of carbohydrates, keeping calories below 1,200 a day, or eliminating entire food groups. 

Extreme diets can lead to quick results, but they can have health risks and be short-lived. You might see rapid weight loss, but you might also feel hungry, tired, or achy. It’s also possible to develop nutrient deficiencies with extreme diets, or have other health concerns. 

Instead of excessive restriction, Lark supports balanced, ongoing healthy eating with strategies like the following. 

• Understanding if you want to fit a treat into your day or week
• Satisfying hunger by serving larger portions of whole, nutritious foods like vegetables and lean proteins
• Feeling more energetic by having plenty of water and staying physically active
• Helping you find “better” options that are realist, instead of insisting on the “best” option that may not be realistic

When you have flexibility in what you can choose, it’s easier to prevent boredom and stay consistent. 

4. Patterns Don’t Allow for Real Life

A week or month of rigid dieting and punishing workouts is one thing, but for consistency, rules that are too strict aren’t sustainable. What if a friend invites you to lunch, your grandchild has a birthday party, or you go on a family vacation? If your program doesn’t help you handle those types of normal life events, you’ll feel a conflict. It can make you feel as though you must choose between following your program, and living a normal life. 

Lark understands that real life happens. You can take Lark anywhere on your phone to ask for advice on which foods to choose at a restaurant or event, to quickly log a workout, or to find out how to balance a treat that you love with healthy foods for the rest of the day.

5. There’s Not Enough Support

Making lifestyle changes can be a big deal, and you need support. Lack of support can lead someone to quit a program. Many programs may provide access to support with a nurse, doctor, or other experts, but they’re often limited to certain hours or appointment times, and there can be a limit on how often you can contact them. 

With Lark, support is unrestricted. Your digital Lark coach is always available, whether you want to talk about an early-morning workout, a mid-day snack attack, or a late-night craving. Lark’s available 24/7 from anywhere - so you can get feedback from your coach about a meal - while you’re at the restaurant, for example. You don’t need to make an appointment. Lark’s always ready to chat!

6. It Takes Too Much Time

Life’s busy enough without adding a time-consuming health program to the mix. If it takes too much time to learn the rules, plan and track meals and workouts, and check in with your coach, it’ll be tough to stay the course. 

Lark makes it easy to follow the program. Meal logging and physical activity tracking are simple, taking only a few minutes to enter meals workouts and - if you want - to talk about them. If you qualify for a Lark scale, blood pressure monitor, or blood glucose meter, you don’t even have to enter your values - just measure, and your measurements will go straight to Lark for better coaching. When you’re ready to talk, you can log in for as little or as much as you want - no need to worry about setting aside a large chunk of time just to chat with your Lark coach. 

Lark Can Help

Lark’s digital coach on your phone can help you start healthy routines or stay consistent with them in ways that work for your lifestyle. Your Lark coach is available 24/7 for encouragement, nutrition and physical activity coaching, and habit tracking. Lark can help you make healthy choices and establish habits that fit into your lifestyle so you can lose weight and keep it off with or without GLP-1 medications. 

Click here to see if you may be eligible to join Lark today!