Seeing Weight Control Issues Differently
It sounds simple enough doesn’t it? You burn more calories than you take in in order to lose weight. To gain weight you burn fewer calories than you take in and to maintain weight you balance calories eaten with calories burned. If only weight management were that easy in real life. But it is not. So how do you find out how to lose weight fast?
Obesity On The News
We have all heard the statistics that one-third of adults, 72 million people, are obese. We have probably also heard that 16% of children are obese, that more and more kids are getting lifestyle diseases like diabetes II, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol at younger and younger ages. It has been said that today’s youth will be the first generation not to outlive their parents in more than a hundred years.
The Struggle
It is no secret that being overweight sets you up for a myriad of health problems. We know in our heads that it would be best if we got fit. Still, many do not even try. Others try and regain the weight. Some people develop eating disorders and laxative addictions. Why does it not seem to matter that we can die at an earlier age? Part of the answer is that food is more than just something we eat to stay alive.
Just Give It Up
Should we all resign ourselves to being fat, live as long as we can and enjoy it or should we keep up the struggle to be thin? The answer is somewhere in the middle. Before we go on one more diet program with expectations that we will be perfectly able to follow the diet 100%, stop. We are already setting ourselves up for failure and we have not even begun yet. Nobody does anything to the level of perfectly for 100% of the time. Would you expect your best friend to do that? No? Then why do you expect it of yourself?
Re-framing Expectations
What if we just accepted the fact that we are human and that humans do not do anything 100% of the time for very long? Let’s look at the weight management issue differently than we have done in the past. Would it be possible for you to eat healthy foods 50% of your meals in a day or a week? Could you do it 60% of the time? How about 80% of the time? Do you think that you could eat healthy foods for 90% of your meals? What percentage of meals could you actually eat healthy foods without stirring up a lot of anxiety in yourself? That is where you need to begin. Gradually work your way up to eating 90% of your meals with only healthy food. This way you have 10% of your meals left for indulging yourself while still losing weight.
To boost weight loss, approach exercise in the same manner. Would it be possible for you to exercise 10 minutes a day three times a week? Start there and work up to 30 minute sessions five days a week.
Take Care Of Yourself
Negative consequences and that critical little voice in our heads have not worked to help us manage our weight. Let’s try something radically different: kindness and understanding towards that part of ourselves that is really afraid of being deprived. Let that part of yourself know that you will take the whole fat loss issue one step at a time and that, while you may not be able to indulge every food whim you have, you will make sure that deprivation does not become part of the plan. Then if you keep that promise, you will have truly recognized how to lose weight fast.
