I always preach that success in weight loss is 99% in your head. You simply cannot have successful long term lasting results until you change your relationship with and attitudes about food. You must modify your lifestyle and learn to value that new lifestyle above your old bad habits. You absolutely have to get your mind in shape before you can do the same for your body.
Still, even after you get your brain working right, there are undeniable physical responses that your body will go through and that can undermine your success if you let them. You can take steps to make the physical process of weight loss easier on yourself and the following tips will help you do that.
1) Eat frequently
By maintaining consistent blood sugar levels and never allowing yourself to get too hungry, you will be less likely to make bad food choices. Eat something every four hours and carry healthy snacks with you when you can.
2) Eat smaller amounts
Eating too much at any one time will actually make you hungrier sooner. Again, you want to try and maintain a consistent blood sugar level and avoid highs and lows. Eating frequent small meals and snacks throughout the day are the best way to do this.
3) Eat nutrient dense foods
Vegetables will fill you up and the fiber they contain will make you feel full longer. They also contain fewer calories. Stay away from foods with empty calories that provide no nutritional value. For example, two pieces of white bread contain about 140 calories. By comparison, you would have to eat more than 3 cups of cooked broccoli to get 140 calories.
4) Stay away from sugar
All forms of sugar are diet killers for the reasons described above. They will make you hungry, will add empty calories and cause you to crave more sugar. I know you see the commercials that say you can eat desserts and ice cream and everything else you want, and technically you can if you can restrict yourself to very small amounts on rare occasions, Chances are you won't be able to do this because the sugar will make you crave more sugar and your diet will be derailed.
5) Take mental notes
Different foods will cause different physical reactions. Learn to pay attention and react to these accordingly. If something seems to make you crave more and experience intense hunger, stop eating it. You will find that carbohydrate based foods most often cause this sort of reaction in overweight people, so be careful of grains and starches for this reason.
6) Stay busy
Inevitably, you will feel like eating at times when you should not be hungry. This is not hunger. It is your old habits trying to assert themselves. In order to re-program your brain over time, it is necessary to break the patterns that these habits have created.
Your mind is conditioned to turn to food in response to conditions other than hunger. These might be boredom, stress, or a number of other things. It doesn't really matter what triggers the urge to eat it only matters that you break the pattern by consistently providing a different response. Get up and do something when this happens. Take a walk, exercise, do some house work or work on a project. Don't watch television or read, because you need to engage both your mind and your body in whichever activity you choose.
Doing this consistently over time retrains your brain to only associate food with hunger. Eat when you are hungry or when it is time to eat. You will be amazed how quickly the fake hunger goes away once you start getting busy with other activities.
All of the tips provided above require that you make deliberate decisions throughout the day and take positive action on those decisions. Ultimately, these lead to permanent life long changes, losing the weight and keeping it off forever.
Still, even after you get your brain working right, there are undeniable physical responses that your body will go through and that can undermine your success if you let them. You can take steps to make the physical process of weight loss easier on yourself and the following tips will help you do that.
1) Eat frequently
By maintaining consistent blood sugar levels and never allowing yourself to get too hungry, you will be less likely to make bad food choices. Eat something every four hours and carry healthy snacks with you when you can.
2) Eat smaller amounts
Eating too much at any one time will actually make you hungrier sooner. Again, you want to try and maintain a consistent blood sugar level and avoid highs and lows. Eating frequent small meals and snacks throughout the day are the best way to do this.
3) Eat nutrient dense foods
Vegetables will fill you up and the fiber they contain will make you feel full longer. They also contain fewer calories. Stay away from foods with empty calories that provide no nutritional value. For example, two pieces of white bread contain about 140 calories. By comparison, you would have to eat more than 3 cups of cooked broccoli to get 140 calories.
4) Stay away from sugar
All forms of sugar are diet killers for the reasons described above. They will make you hungry, will add empty calories and cause you to crave more sugar. I know you see the commercials that say you can eat desserts and ice cream and everything else you want, and technically you can if you can restrict yourself to very small amounts on rare occasions, Chances are you won't be able to do this because the sugar will make you crave more sugar and your diet will be derailed.
5) Take mental notes
Different foods will cause different physical reactions. Learn to pay attention and react to these accordingly. If something seems to make you crave more and experience intense hunger, stop eating it. You will find that carbohydrate based foods most often cause this sort of reaction in overweight people, so be careful of grains and starches for this reason.
6) Stay busy
Inevitably, you will feel like eating at times when you should not be hungry. This is not hunger. It is your old habits trying to assert themselves. In order to re-program your brain over time, it is necessary to break the patterns that these habits have created.
Your mind is conditioned to turn to food in response to conditions other than hunger. These might be boredom, stress, or a number of other things. It doesn't really matter what triggers the urge to eat it only matters that you break the pattern by consistently providing a different response. Get up and do something when this happens. Take a walk, exercise, do some house work or work on a project. Don't watch television or read, because you need to engage both your mind and your body in whichever activity you choose.
Doing this consistently over time retrains your brain to only associate food with hunger. Eat when you are hungry or when it is time to eat. You will be amazed how quickly the fake hunger goes away once you start getting busy with other activities.
All of the tips provided above require that you make deliberate decisions throughout the day and take positive action on those decisions. Ultimately, these lead to permanent life long changes, losing the weight and keeping it off forever.