The reason why we find diets difficult is because of the psychological toll that it takes on our minds. To improve our odds, learn to know all of the emotional triggers which activates the most practical solutions, this to overcoming and reaching our weight loss goals.
Losing weight becomes easier once you prepare for it in your brain first. This sounds elementary, but most abandon their weight loss plans not because they’re hungry, but because it’s too difficult emotionally. They also become bored while suffering momentary lapses.
When attempting to explain their failure, again, most will blame the diet program itself, their domestic situation, or that they’re genetically unable to lose weight.
This process then repeats itself over and over and as a result, most dieters will spend their entire lives unsuccessfully attempting to lose weight, trying one plan after another.
What’s not realized are the true causes. That there are a few common emotional issues which everyone encounters when attempting to lose weight, along with how to overcome them.
Not Realizing How Weight Loss Can Help
Whether you’re wanting to lose 20 or a 100 pounds, our eating habits along with our lifestyle habits need to change. Making these changes will be difficult on the first day, week, month, this once the initial enthusiasm wears off.
But usually within a few weeks, the newly adopted eating pattern begins to interfere with your lifestyle, and unless you’re not prepared, the motivation to continue begins to fade.
Instead of seeing that new diet as a method of losing weight, it becomes a burden and an obstacle. It becomes something we “must” do rather than something we “want” to do. This is the initial emotional barrier we encounter.
To overcome this, we need to remind ourselves why we’re trying to lose weight. Have a clear definition on the benefits. Then we’re able to resist the temptation of going back to our old habits.
The benefits of being thinner or lighter aren’t good enough. We need to be more selfish and more specific. The moment that we begin to feel that we have to do something, it then becomes the enemy. In order to lose weight, we need to want to do it.
Always Attempting To Be Perfect
There’s no such thing as a perfect dieter. On the contrary, to be successful, you need to make mistakes. Expect bad days, bad weeks, even an occasional bad month when you go off the rails.
But nothing should stop you from succeeding in the end. This by learning from your mistakes, as most of our lessons come from the mistakes that we make, and not from our successes.
But what most dieters insists on is being perfect. As a result, once they fail which is enviable, they find it impossible to accept their failure, then become overwhelmed by guilt.
Even though the lapse might be trivial such as a weekend binge, they fall apart. It’s the guilt which does the damage, and not the mistake itself.
So never try to be perfect. It only leads towards guaranteed failure. Instead, accept that you’re going to make mistakes, and don’t allow them to distract you. Treat them as learning experiences.
Don’t Treat Your Diet As A Competition
Another issue is how quick you want to lose weight. Most dieters expect to get thinner quicker, sooner, and are psychologically unprepared once their body refuses to do so.
If a week goes by without any weight loss, then they begin to lose interest. Realize that the human body is designed for survival and not to look good. It has no interest in shedding body fat, which becomes an important source of energy when in times of famine.
As a result, it’s known that the maximum amount of healthy fat that we can lose in a week is around 3 pounds. For those who are 30 pounds or less overweight, this is around 1 pound of healthy fat loss a week.
Anything more is most likely a combination of water and muscle weight that’s being lost, and not fat.
To overcome this, stop thinking of your diet as a competition. Instead, treat it as a journey. This reduces anxiety while allowing you to settle into your new eating habits.
A New You
Treat it as a lifestyle change. So avoid jumping on the bathroom scale every day, and limit it to once a week while sticking to your diet plan. Checking your weight daily only forces you to take a shorter term view of things, which isn’t helpful.
Steady weight loss doesn’t sound terribly attractive, but it’s found the slower that the weight loss is, the longer and more permanent it stays off. If you happen to lose more than 3 pounds in a week, keep in mind that it’s not fat your losing.
Realize that losing water is only temporary and as a result pointless. What losing muscle instead of fat does is it slows down your metabolism, while increasing the risk of gaining more weight in the future.
A Diet Is A Journey
So when you begin your next diet, remember that there’s no rush. Set yourself a realistic goal and then allow nature to take its course. For instance, if you happen to weigh 200 pounds, and are wanting to reduce down to 150 pounds, allow yourself at least 6 months to do so. If it happens to take a bit longer, then so be it.
Realize that attempting to lose weight is more psychological than the diet plan itself. So mastering the steps will significantly increase your chances of permanent weight loss.
So before you allow yourself to embark on the enthusiasm which is another promising “new” diet, set aside the time to think through these issues properly, then watch the pounds dissolve for good.