Everyone pretty much now understands the formula on how to Lose Weight. It’s quite simple, burn off more calories than you intake every day, and the pounds should melt off, right? Just eat a little less, move around a little bit more. Nothing could be easier than that. So why then is the entire nation in an absolute obesity epidemic. If we’re all aware and know what we should be doing to lose weight, why is the majority of the population becoming overweight.
One problem and reason is that most of us have difficulty doing what we know and should be doing. Diet as well as exercising is usually the base of any weight loss program, but however, there’s other factors involved which isn’t all about calorie intake and calorie burned.
It’s a knowledge behavior gap which most of us experience which contributes to our attempts and failures of repeated weight loss efforts. So listed are a few tips on how to break out of the… “I know that I should be doing this, but won’t bother to do it,” routine.
Don’t Just Be Thinking Calories Out
Cardiovascular exercising is still the key to burning off calories, but you’re able to get just as much “burn-off” benefits from practicing yoga. Yoga has long been known as a healthy weight loss method and not because of the potential calorie burn.
It’s because those who practice Yoga are also a lot more aware of what foods they eat and are better at knowing when to stop eating when they’re full. These are the direct characteristics which attributes towards mindfulness.
When practicing yoga, there’s an automatic development of a much deeper as well as more subtle awareness of one’s body. Calming down the brain waves as well as the nervous system allows you to focus on noticing “the moment” of choice.
You’ll have the opportunity to ask yourself, should I be really wanting to eat more right now? The majority of us will never get to that point where we can encounter and experience that moment.
Listening To What Your Body Says
Once you’ve learned how to “hear” what your body’s signals are telling you, it’s time to really interpret what that message is. We’re all born with the natural reaction and knowledge that we need to eat as well as possible. We know what’s satisfying to us, what we need as well as how we feel when we do eat.
What we need to do is tune in to that inner voice as much as possible. The first step is to just forget about dieting since the majority of diets just fail over 90% percent of the time.
So you need to give yourself permission to be able to eat the foods which you like, but eat them when you’re moderately hungry, but not starving, and enjoy them as slowly as possible in a nice calm environment.
Take the time to analyze your hunger signals, and stop eating when or if the food isn’t tasting quite as good. When you eat through a bag of potato chips, the very first one always tastes better than the last one.
Put what you eat in a food journal as doing so has been proven to work. Actually writing down exactly what you ate as well as when, and how you felt when you ate it. Then go back and write how you felt around an hour later.
For instance, one entry might be, “I just ate a blueberry scone with a mocha latte. It was good and I initially felt great, but then became a little nervous as well as jumpy. A few hours later, I just felt blank and a bit sluggish.”
If you do decide to write things down, these thoughts will click inside your head. You should be reviewing your food journal frequently, just so you could chart your progress while looking for any unhealthy patterns while updating your goals.
Eating As Traditionally As Possible
Your parents and your grandmother most likely told you to eat three square meals a day, and you shouldn’t be snacking in between. This is historically how we’ve all eaten in the past. But now the trend seems to be eating smaller meals more frequently. We’re now told that we should be eating up to six times a day, so who’s right?
Some will argue that eating as frequently doesn’t give the body enough time to be able to dip into its fat storage. Eating before you’re going to use the energy which you get from the food. This means having a wholesome breakfast to jump-start your metabolism, then a large lunch which fuels your day’s activities. This should conclude with a small to medium dinner which helps your body to naturally wind itself down at the end of a hectic day.
Treating Yourself Well
Beating yourself up over the food that you eat is another knowledge-behavior gap which most will fall into. When you call yourself “greedy” or a “glutton” or “weak,” just makes you feel worse about yourself, which can lead towards eating more in attempts to giving yourself a boost.
It’s vitally important that you stop the negative self-talk. You would never be wanting to berate or shame yourself and your appetite, which can only lead to more dysfunctional eating patterns.
But instead, you should be treating yourself with respect, understanding, and affection. Uncover all of the hidden causes of your weight gain. If you’re not able to lose weight while doing all the right things, then there may be other underlying health issues.