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The Weight Loss Trap: How To Lose Weight The Right Way
With so much information out there about weight management and so many diets to choose from, you’d think that losing weight would be an easy thing to do right? Well not according to the stats. You read so many articles on the success of diets that promise successful weight loss but there is little talk about the failure rate of these diets. I’m not saying that the majority of diets out there don’t work because many of them do. What I’m saying is that many will only work short-term which means the weight piles back on again. How much ‘YoYo’ dieting have you done throughout your life? And how many times have you lost some weight only to have put it back on? In Christina Earle’s Article “The Fat Trap” in The Sun on the 12th February 2017: she reports that “65 per cent of diets fail”. So, why is that? And what is the solution?
Let me explain the psychology behind successful weight loss and long-lasting weight maintenance. Firstly, you cannot successfully lose weight and maintain it long term without first understanding and addressing the psychology of why you ended up overweight in the first place. If you recall the beginning of every new episode of the T.V program ‘The Biggest Loser’ you would have noticed the contestants talking about their battle with their weight and their struggle with their mental state. Unfortunately, some of these contestants have put the weight back on after finishing the program. If the contestants had also undergone an intensive therapy program to address ‘underlining’ psychological issues that might have contributed to their weight gain whilst they were going through the weight loss program, they may have had a higher chance of keeping the weight off. Why? Because the stronger your mental state, the stronger your willpower. Weight loss is only ever focused on a physical level and not focused enough on a psychological level and yet the two go hand in hand. You need to understand your relationship with food and the strong role your mental state has in weight management. Why do I crave carbs? Why can’t I stick to my diet longer than a week? Why can’t I fight the urge to not eat junk food? Why can’t I stop obsessing about food?
The Reward-Punishment Theory
I don’t know about you but whenever I think of the word ‘diet’ the words ‘deprivation’ ‘starving’ and ‘punishment’ come to mind. I really, really dislike that word.
Our childhood plays a significant role in the relationship we have with food now. Remember when mum or dad punished you by sending you to your room without desert? Or when they rewarded you with ice cream when you were ‘good’? Well unfortunately these messages can stick with us throughout adulthood. What do you think you are going to learn from messages like this? – That the role of unhealthy foods is to make you happy of course, and that when you deprive yourself from eating these unhealthy foods you’re being punished. This is why trying to lose weight is not as easy as everyone makes it out to be. It’s not as simple as eating healthy foods, avoiding unhealthy foods and exercising and voila! We’re designed to avoid punishment and to seek pleasure. So, if you view certain foods as pleasurable and others not so pleasurable then you are going to find it really difficult to stick to something when you feel you are being punished. The urge to seek that pleasure will be too strong to resist and this will sabotage your ‘diet’.
So how do we get around this problem you ask? By firstly ditching the word ‘diet’ and replacing it with the words ‘healthy eating’. There is too much emphasis on losing weight and not enough on being healthy and yet the two are connected. When we eat healthy we automatically lose weight. To break down this barrier to successful weight loss you need to slowly introduce change and this change must not only be with food but lifestyle as well. The human body will adapt when necessary but only when change is gradual. We can climatise to most things if they are slowly and painlessly introduced to us – and within a realistic timeframe. Many diets promise to help us lose weight fast, but how realistic are they? How realistic is it to lose the desired weight in 3, 7 or 14 days when there are so many factors that play a role such as, age, metabolism, hormones, and even our personality? Our desperation to ‘look good’ and to be ‘happy and confident’, together with the messages we are given that can lead us to believe that weight loss is ‘quick and easy’ will only set us up to fail and to eventually believe that losing weight is practically ‘impossible’.
Long-term positive change usually happens over a certain period of time depending on what it is. If you want to achieve your goal, you will need to first choose a weight loss plan that is focused more on health than weight loss, and then introduce this new way of eating gradually. How can you suddenly enjoy eating carrots when only last week you were enjoying eating donuts? Remember the punish-reward theory? You’re never going to achieve you’re goal by going ‘cold turkey’ because while you are going to be munching on those carrots the whole time you are going to be wishing they were donuts instead. You might get through Day 1 and maybe Day 2, but are you really going to be able to sustain this new regime indefinitely? Probably not. So, start off applying my 80/20 rule. Only introducing 20% of the new foods not 100%. You might perhaps start off by only replacing one meal of the day as your ‘healthy’ option instead of three meals as this will be a lot easier to adapt to. Overtime, once you have adjusted to that one meal, then add the second, and then the third until you have achieved the goal of at least eating 80 percent healthy. If you don’t feel deprived or punished then you should find introducing some healthier food options a lot easier then taking the ‘all or nothing’ approach that most diets suggest. I’m not saying that taking this approach is impossible for some, but just like for some people they can suddenly quit smoking suddenly, and other not, the same goes with weight loss, some people might find taking a gradual approach a lot easier.
The other mistake that ‘slimmers’’ make is cutting portions too harshly. We all know what we need to do to lose weight, eat healthier food choices, exercise, and control our calorie intake in proportion to the calories we burn off. This is explained in so much literature. Most dieters know what they have to do, they just find it too difficult to do. The same concept of slowly introducing healthier eating habits into your diet needs to be applied to portion control. Again, I cannot stress enough the importance of slowly introducing this change if you want long-lasting results. When you cut your portions by half or more then again you are setting yourself up to fail. By doing this you are likely to feel hungry because your body is use to a certain amount of food. I’m sure you will agree with me that trying to lose weight and feeling starved at the same time is not an easy thing to do. Have you noticed that the more you deprive yourself from eating, that the more you think about food? That’s because if we miss something so much, we’re going to want it so much more. But are we really going to miss a little less food? Probably not.
By slowly introducing food you are asking your body to only have to adjust to small changes that it will be able to cope with, and that you will be better able to manage. Not only does our body have to adjust to these changes but so does our mind. If we think eating half of what we normally eat is ‘starving’ and ‘depriving’ us then we are less likely to accept it if we think we are ‘punishing’ ourselves. Try instead to reduce your food portions by a third, and gradually reduce it overtime and only once you have already adjusted to the previous amount and keep doing this until you reach your goal.
This should also be applied to exercise. When I first started exercising I didn’t join a ’12 Week Challenge Program’ because I knew that this was too unrealistic for me to not only achieve but also maintain after the program ended. I introduced one gym class per week, then once I got use to it, I introduced more classes. I have seen so many disheartened people who have lost a huge amount of weight eating a very strict diet and exercising twice a day, seven days a week only to find that the weight returned because they were not able to maintain that strict regime, and because they no longer had a fitness instructor continuing to motivate them. So again, introduce exercise gradually, get your body use to it, get your mind around it, and you should find achieving your goal a lot easier.
The Mood-Food Connection
The connection between food and mood is not something that has been researched about enough and yet so important when it comes to eating healthier and for weight management. We’ve all heard a lot about ‘emotional eating’ or ‘comfort eating’ as it is also referred to. Our emotions control our eating habits. When we refer to emotional eating or comfort eating, we’re talking about how we rely on food to pick up our mood – any negative mood. Whether we are down, stressed, tired or even anxious, if we believe certain foods will improve our mood, then we will find it extremely hard to resist the urge to eat that food. For some that can be healthy food, but unfortunately for many it can be unhealthy food. This can be another barrier to weight loss and healthy eating. As I mentioned earlier, if food was something that we were given to comfort us in childhood, then we are likely to continue to use food in the same way in adulthood. “I had such a stressful day, I deserve that chocolate brownie”, “I can’t wait to get home and relax with a glass of wine”, “I’m so tired, I need a sugar fix”, who hasn’t heard these comments? The role we believe food plays in our life has a significant influence on our eating habits and our success with weight loss. If we view food as fuel then we are more likely to become healthier eaters but if we view food as a hobby or coping mechanism then we are more likely to struggle with weight loss. When food has been a hobby for you for most of your life it can be very difficult to suddenly let go of something that has given you a lot of pleasure all these years even if it wasn’t healthy for you. This is why slowly eliminating and introducing foods is vital as you are not dramatically ‘taking away your hobby or your crutch’ before you have been given a chance to introduce healthier hobbies and coping mechanisms, and the necessary lifestyle changes you will need to maintain the weight you have lost. Going back to my point earlier about the candidates of the T.V. program, The Biggest Loser, these candidates would’ve had a much higher success rate of keeping the weight off after the program had they been given the chance to participate in an intensive therapy program while they participate in the shows’ diet/exercise program. Long-lasting weight loss stems from the changes we make in our life and our thinking.
So, you can see that successful dieting is not as easy as a lot of people say it is. Sure, eating healthy, exercising and controlling your calorie intake will work at helping you lose weight, but the process will be a whole lot easier and effective when you don’t have these psychological barriers in the way. So, all this time that you were blaming the diet you were on, or your lack of willpower, it wasn’t you or the diet that was the problem but the approach you might have been taking or your mental state at the time.
If trying to lose weight has been an ongoing struggle for you then my advice to you would be to look at the approach you are taking when you are trying to lose weight, are you approaching it too harshly, is the diet too strict, are you someone who copes better with gradual change, are you someone who suffers from stress or depression? If you have answered yes to some or all of these questions, then you will need to take a much kinder and more suitable approach when trying to lose weight and take a look at your mental state as a possible barrier. Of course, I’m not saying that if you suffer from mental illness or from an emotional problem that you might as well give up trying to diet. Not everyone will be affected by these psychological barriers but it is something that everyone struggling to lose weight should take into consideration.
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