Who hasn’t participated in a yo-yo diet at some point in their lives? Yo-yo dieting is a popular way to loose weight in a very short time period. By depriving yourself of calories, the weight starts to drop off immediately. With in a few weeks, you are well on your way to meeting your desired weight. However, after a couple more weeks of starvation, your body’s need to eat outweighs your personal need to loose weight. Before you know it, not only have you gained back your old weight, but eight out of ten times, you have actually gained additional weight.
We should diet and exercise for health reasons. Such as to keep diabetes and other illnesses brought about by obesity at arms length, along with the need to maintain a healthy heart and strong muscles, so that we remain fit through out our life. But that’s not why we diet. We diet because we want to look like the models in magazines. We want to wear fashionable styles, which normally only fit well on thin, toned bodies. We diet, because society tells us to be worthy, we need to be a size 6.
Dieting is emotional. If you are overweight or obese, you know just how tough society can be on someone who doesn’t fit the “perfect woman mold”. To loose weight and feel good about ourselves, we have to readjust our emotions where food and dieting is concerned. For dieting to work, it has to be about our desire to become fit and healthy, not thin and beautiful. To keep the weight off, means changing how we perceive ourselves in the mirror, along with how we view the foods we eat.
Women are especially critical of themselves. We find faults even when no faults exist. Food becomes our friend when we are depressed or disappointed. Nothing cheers us up faster or easier then chocolate. Chocolate cake, chocolate pudding, chocolate donuts or chocolate candy bars. For women, chocolate is a wonder drug. It may not cure the problems that ail us, but it certainly comforts us and lifts our spirits. Add to that chocolate delight, a freshly brewed cup of coffee, a throw blanket, a comfy chair and we are in heaven. For most women, this is how we nurture ourselves. With food, warmth and self pity.
Don’t get me wrong, there are days we all need a good cry. We need to cuddle under the covers and allow ourselves to feel bad. But when you eat an entire chocolate cake, verses a single slice, then there is a bigger problem at hand then simply feeling blue. For most of us, we associate being thin with being happy and attractive. So when we continually fail to loose our weight, we become depressed and see ourselves as unattractive failures. Emotionally, we feel badly about ourselves, which leads to unhealthy eating and a couch potato existence. Breaking bad habits is the first step to changing our lives physically and emotionally for the better.
The first step is to aim for a realistic weight loss. Start out with 10 lbs or 20 lbs. You want to feel good about yourself, so you need to set attainable goals. Once you reach your 20 lb weight loss, you can set a new goal to loose an additional 10 lbs. Each time you reach a goal, emotionally you will feel stronger and more capable of reaching all the goals you set for yourself.
The second step is to exercise daily. Don’t feel you have to jog 10 miles the first day out. Instead, walk a half mile at a reasonable pace. As you build strength, increase the distance you are walking. Before you know it, you will be briskly walking 2-3 miles a day. Being outside, breathing in fresh air, feeling the warmth of the sun, physically and emotionally you will feel empowered.
The third step is to examine the foods you eat. Do eat three times a day, but only eat half of what you normally would. If you crave a treat, by all means indulge. Soon as you tell yourself you can’t have something, you will only want the forbidden fruit more. So have a few bites and put the rest away for later.
The fourth step is to stop the negative voices in your head. You need to be kind to yourself. You have to focus on positive reinforcements that inspire you to stay the course. Stop punishing yourself for your perceived failures and instead reward yourself for your efforts to improve your life. Make a list of your best qualities. Are you kind, smart, funny, a good friend and co-worker? If so, remind yourself how much you value those same qualities in others. The fact you also embody those qualities, serves as a testament to what a truly amazing and wonderful person you are.
Why Can’t I Loose Weight?
Here is the no.1 answer as to why that is.
Recent studies have shown that despite what we think we eat in actual fact we eat a lot more. A group of dieters were given a 10 day course to follow. The first 5 days they had to video report what they ate the second 5 they had to write down exactly what they had eaten in a diary after every meal.
What they actually recorded was far from the real truth in more than two thirds of cases! Even in the written diaries after every meal, although being more accurate, the reported difference in calories was well in excess of 40% fewer than actually eaten.
Scientists discovered this by giving the group a special type of water was double labelled. Once drunk and passed through the body, a urine sample was taken at the end of each day and by analyzing this in the laboratory, the exact number of calories can be worked out. It showed that when people recorded what they ate at the end of the day the stated amount of calories was around 1500.
Systematically writing down in the diary after every meal the calorie count was 2000 per day. Studies of the urine samples in the laboratory proved the real amount of calories consumed was much nearer to 3000
