Okay, you want to lose weight. How badly? What's your motivation?
It's all very well deciding that you want to lose weight but all too often, it doesn't go much further than that. To lose weight you HAVE TO make changes to your diet, you cannot continue to eat in the same manner as you have been up to now and expect to lose weight. Obvious I know. And yet, we fail to do it. The 'diet' begins, we make changes but we don't keep them up. So what's going wrong?
If you were losing weight for an event or a holiday, it is much more likely that you will stick with the diet. You have a clear motivation and a deadline. If you just want to lose weight, you are almost doomed to failure. You have to find more motivation than that if you want to sustain it.
What motivation could you have then...? if you have been overweight for a while then you may already be experiencing health issues. Perhaps you suffer with foot pain? Ankle or knee pain? Maybe walking around in warm weather is quickly exhausting for you? Your back hurts. Let me assure you that most of these issues will go away or be hugely relieved by losing your extra body fat. And if you're not suffering from ill effects from being overweight yet, be assured that sooner or later, they will catch up with you. What better motivation could you have then? You have a holiday to aim for! The holiday of being pain and discomfort free, one where you can enjoy life to the full! Forget the 'looking slim' motivation, it isn't strong enough but you CAN do it for your health, to lead a fun and active life and then, if you want to keep living that lifestyle, that will be all the motivation you need to stick with it for life!
You can do it! :)
Thursday 26 July 2012
Friday 20 July 2012
...and don't forget,
while you're here, just pop your details in the box at the top right of the page, and I will send you some gifts to help you on your weight loss and well being journey right away! :)
Deprivation... good or bad?
When trying to lose weight or stick with some other healthy eating plan, one thing tends to be consistent across the board... you have to deprive yourself of certain foods.
In my view there are two ways that this tends to be implemented. The first, highly successful game plan is to educate yourself to dislike the food using techniques such as hypnosis or studying all the bad effects of eating the food. If this works for you, and it does for some but not others, then you will find yourself easily ignoring the eliminated food. Having no interest in it at all. If this works for you, congratulations! You should be able to get and stay in shape easily. :)
Then there is the other, more commonly used method. Willpower. Let's say for example, that you have eliminated chocolate. You make a decision to stop eating it and you manage. Well done! After a time, maybe a week or two, you have done so well and decide that you can take it or leave it now and you are in control of your chocolate consumption. Sooo, you have a chocolate bar, safe in the knowledge that you are in control and will only have the one. However, you discover that it tastes rather good and, well, as you've had one, you'd like another and you might as well get it over with in one go rather than have some again later, so you have more chocolate, after all, you know you won't eat any again later. At this point, you may have something else that you shouldn't be eating or you may get a handle on it again and stop... until later...
What has now happened is that you have started a binge cycle. By depriving your self so gallantly, when your willpower breaks, it breaks in style! Then, you get it back again, wear your halo for another few days, then hit the 'naughty' foods again, undoing every scrap of good you have done.
So how about this... pick a small item, something sweet, chocolatey, indulgent... whatever works for you, but keep it small. Allow yourself this item every day. It is not compulsory to eat it, but you have to know that you can, that that is your treat. You are not depriving yourself, you can have it. What you ARE doing is controlling the amount of 'damage' you are might do. Surely allowing yourself a fun sized chocolate bar, a GU mini chocolate pot, that kind of thing, will relieve you from the feelings of deprivation which are behind the binge/saint cycle that ultimately stops you from getting to your goal. It's all very well substituting and eating fruit instead of chocolate, but, in my experience, if you want chocolate, you want chocolate, not an apple, and ultimately, you will have the chocolate too, after consuming 200 calories worth of fruit as an avoidance tactic!
Try it for a couple of weeks, see how you get on. Hopefully, this will break the cycle for you. I am starting this today as I am guilty of this cycle too! I will let you know how I get on soon :)
In my view there are two ways that this tends to be implemented. The first, highly successful game plan is to educate yourself to dislike the food using techniques such as hypnosis or studying all the bad effects of eating the food. If this works for you, and it does for some but not others, then you will find yourself easily ignoring the eliminated food. Having no interest in it at all. If this works for you, congratulations! You should be able to get and stay in shape easily. :)
Then there is the other, more commonly used method. Willpower. Let's say for example, that you have eliminated chocolate. You make a decision to stop eating it and you manage. Well done! After a time, maybe a week or two, you have done so well and decide that you can take it or leave it now and you are in control of your chocolate consumption. Sooo, you have a chocolate bar, safe in the knowledge that you are in control and will only have the one. However, you discover that it tastes rather good and, well, as you've had one, you'd like another and you might as well get it over with in one go rather than have some again later, so you have more chocolate, after all, you know you won't eat any again later. At this point, you may have something else that you shouldn't be eating or you may get a handle on it again and stop... until later...
What has now happened is that you have started a binge cycle. By depriving your self so gallantly, when your willpower breaks, it breaks in style! Then, you get it back again, wear your halo for another few days, then hit the 'naughty' foods again, undoing every scrap of good you have done.
So how about this... pick a small item, something sweet, chocolatey, indulgent... whatever works for you, but keep it small. Allow yourself this item every day. It is not compulsory to eat it, but you have to know that you can, that that is your treat. You are not depriving yourself, you can have it. What you ARE doing is controlling the amount of 'damage' you are might do. Surely allowing yourself a fun sized chocolate bar, a GU mini chocolate pot, that kind of thing, will relieve you from the feelings of deprivation which are behind the binge/saint cycle that ultimately stops you from getting to your goal. It's all very well substituting and eating fruit instead of chocolate, but, in my experience, if you want chocolate, you want chocolate, not an apple, and ultimately, you will have the chocolate too, after consuming 200 calories worth of fruit as an avoidance tactic!
Try it for a couple of weeks, see how you get on. Hopefully, this will break the cycle for you. I am starting this today as I am guilty of this cycle too! I will let you know how I get on soon :)
Friday 6 July 2012
Learning to Listen
A recent 'buzzword/phrase' seems to be 'Portion Distortion'. Most of us are eating far more than we should be. There are several reasons behind this, but a lot of it is that we tend to assume that the portions we are provided with by restaurants, supermarkets, friends and family etc, are the right size for our needs but how can they be? Let's say that you buy a microwave meal (not that I am suggesting you do! It's just an easy example) and the packaging tells you that the meal contained within is one serving. Who is it a serving for? Would it be a serving for a 4'10", 90lb female and also a serving for a 6'4", 190lb male? Absolutely not! Their respective body sizes obviously dictate that they both require different amounts of food. And yet both of these individuals are likely to read the label on the packaging and accept that a 'serving' is a serving appropriate to them.
When you order a meal in a restaurant you just accept that the portion size provided to you is correct, but the staff don't check out all the customers and serve up food in accordance with their body types. Hamburgers and hot dogs are a very typical 'one size fits all' meal.
What you need to do is start listening to your body. Eat only when you are genuinely, physically hungry. Stop eating before you become full up. Your body takes time to register satiety, up to twenty minutes usually. Slow down your eating and pay attention to your body. As long as you are eating natural, wholesome foods, your body will tell you everything you need to know about portion control. If however you eats 'fake foods' such as sweets, popcorn, chocolate etc your body will work against you on this. Your body is asking you for nourishment and goodness, so when you eat rubbish, it still keeps asking for more... because you have not provided it with the nutrients it requires, and hey Presto! You're overeating!
Eat good natural foods and slow down. Your body will thank you for it!
When you order a meal in a restaurant you just accept that the portion size provided to you is correct, but the staff don't check out all the customers and serve up food in accordance with their body types. Hamburgers and hot dogs are a very typical 'one size fits all' meal.
What you need to do is start listening to your body. Eat only when you are genuinely, physically hungry. Stop eating before you become full up. Your body takes time to register satiety, up to twenty minutes usually. Slow down your eating and pay attention to your body. As long as you are eating natural, wholesome foods, your body will tell you everything you need to know about portion control. If however you eats 'fake foods' such as sweets, popcorn, chocolate etc your body will work against you on this. Your body is asking you for nourishment and goodness, so when you eat rubbish, it still keeps asking for more... because you have not provided it with the nutrients it requires, and hey Presto! You're overeating!
Eat good natural foods and slow down. Your body will thank you for it!
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