Maria's Last Diet

Mood Changes Everything

by Maria's Last Diet

She came through her front door, tossed her handbag down on the sofa, sat down and nestled in.

Tired. Drained. A bit lost. Low. Empty. Needing something. All in.

Needing something, not consciously knowing exactly what. She put her feet up on the coffee table, hearing voices coming from the family room, saying nothing - not hello! I'm home! Or hi everybody! Just a silent sinking down moment, a complete and utter surrender to this late day mood, which she could feel head to toe.

She stayed there, silent, unmoving, not even re-settling herself, just staying exactly where she first plopped down. Jumbled thoughts came, even a few tears, who knows why: a bad day, a hard month, very tired, defeated.

All this took the place of the old "head right for the fridge" dance that had been her life.

After twenty minutes or so, she was ready, and called out to everyone: Hi! I'm home!

Ways to Lose Weight...Step by Step

by Maria's Last Diet

So you think you can't lose the weight?

Yes, you can.

Break it down.

Losing weight is a humbling process. It's about getting to know yourself inside and out.

Here's a mini-step-by-step guide. See what pieces of the weight-loss puzzle have been missing for you. Then you can fill them in.

1. Figure out what has been the biggest problem for you about losing the weight.
2. See where you've come across this same problem in other areas of you life.
3. Remember how you dealt with it.
4. If you didn't deal with it well, create 3 ways to deal better with this impediment to losing weight.
5. If you did manage to tame this problem in another area of your life, borrow the same strategies you used.
6. Try out these ways of combating the problem a number of times. See what works and see what doesn't.
7. Next, think about any other problem you see as being a stumbling block to losing the weight.
8. Proceed with steps 2 through 6 regarding this next problem just the way you did with the first problem you thought of.
9. Repeat this process related to every problem you think you have that interferes with your ability to reach your weight-loss goal.
10. Each time you confront a problem, realize that you are learning a little bit more about how to lose weight.

Instead of trying to master the whole idea of weight loss, break it down into small steps that you can practice and get comfortable with. Then you can put it all together, and do it right.

Dieting Failures Cause Low Self Esteem

by Maria's Last Diet

It is common knowledge that success and failure can have an effect on self-esteem. People try to restore their self-esteem if it has been harmed. What people want is a positive self-image.

So, if you have a dieting failure, you are likely to experience a feeling of lower self-esteem. It would be good, in this case, if you could repair your sense of yourself as being capable. If not, you may fall into even more eating, to compensate for the injury to your self-esteem. Many women say that their eating gets out of control most, especially when they feel bad about themselves.

Pay particular attention to this idea of injured self-esteem after you fail at dieting. It's not just that you failed to lose weight - or lost it only to gain it back. It's that your psychology is involved, how you feel about yourself, how disappointed you are in yourself, and how you might go about repairing the psychological damage.

It feels good to do well. It feels bad when you don't do well. Interestingly, someone who
turns to more food after a dieting failure may be trying to soothe the bad feelings related to failure. In some cases it may be a somewhat convoluted attempt at restoring self-esteem by trying to feel "deserving" of this food, this comfort.

Whatever the particular issues that arise for you around a dieting failure, your self-esteem is bound to be involved, and is worth thinking about.

Moods and My Overeating

by Maria's Last Diet

Dear Maria...

Anyone who has trouble with food the way I do, knows. She knows that just ordinary moods - good ones and bad - can trigger eating episodes, out-of-control ones.

Why? The answer seems to be - for me, anyway - that the food restores a certain feeling of balance. The mood, a good one or bad one, shakes me up. Food rounds out the edges of the moods, blunts them, so that I stay on an even keel.

It's my drug of choice as they say. The problem is that my 31 lb weight gain puts me out of balance too. I feel terrible, weighted down, awkward, and wobbly.

I must learn a new way to handle my feelings, and experience moods not as scary, but as part of my life, acceptable, manageable, natural.

I'm realizing I probably need professional help to do this. Just the thought of getting that kind of help makes me feel better.

Lots of Mistakes Give Weight Loss Support. Believe it or Not!

by Maria's Last Diet

How’s this for walking right into the lion’s den?

What if during your first week of dieting, you made lots of mistakes? That’s the very last thing you want to do, you say. This depends on your perspective.

Let’s take an unexpected perspective. It comes from error management training. Error management training is a program used in various situations, software learning, business, etc., in which trainees make lots of errors. The errors are not only allowed, they are wanted. Because it’s through making errors that the trainee learns to learn from her errors, learns to deal more effectively with errors, such as keeping her level of frustration and disappointment low.

Now apply “making lots of mistakes” and learning from them to dieting. Can you find a way to have your mistakes help you with weight-loss motivation? Is there a mistake in your list of mistakes that will give you the weight-loss support you need? Will you be able to build confidence by capitalizing on one of your mistakes?

Try to have fun with the concept that weight loss for women is all about making mistakes. If this is a “can do” for you, then see how you can put your dieting mistakes to work for you.

Write and let us know what mistake you made and how you were able to learn from them.

Beware of Dieting with the Acai Berry

by Maria's Last Diet

In case you missed this...

David Schardt, spokesman from the Center for Science in the Public Interest says there's nothing been shown in scientific reserch so far substantiating the claim that the acai berry has any effect on weight loss.

And yet, sales of the acai berry added up to more than $100 million in 2008. Dozens of websites are selling it, claiming weight-loss benefits as well as its ability to get rid of wrinkles, and cleanse the body of toxins.

What's worse than the claims, even, is that people are getting charged hundreds of dollars on their credit cards while they thought they were actually getting a free trial. The saga for them continued with more charges month after month for more pills they hadn't ordered.

Dr. Mehmet Oz, Oprah's medical expert, has promoted the acai as having anti-oxident properties, because of its rich, dark color. Even that is not yet substantiated. It seems that ordinary blueberries, grapes, and cherries may be better for you.

Buyer Beware! Even the so-called "blogs" from women touting the weight they lost using acai are total fakes.

Why do we still fall for buying that magic substance that will make the weight drop off and make us immediately healthy?

Hold on to your money and your self-confidence. If there is any magic to losing weight, it lies within you as a person. If you can come to believe this, the thieves out there waiting to steal your money will be rendered powerless to do so.

(One woman's "free-trial" actually cost $174.26.)

Dieting Mistakes Don't Need to be Repeated

by Maria's Last Diet

OK, you bring out the South Beach diet book and decide you'll give it another try.

So - what's the secret sauce that will make it work for you this time so you don't end up making the same mistakes again?

That's what you need to find...the secret sauce to pour over every day of your diet. If you don't know exactly what it is, here's some help.

    The secret recipe sauce ingredients -

• knowledge - about what went wrong last time; about what went right last time

• a plan - to fix the things you did wrong; to utilize the things you did right

• small steps - to make the road to goal manageable; to keep up weight-loss motivation

• a way to track progress - of weight lost; of behavior change

• helping relationships - to get advice when you need it; to give you strength when you need it

                Mix well, and have on hand for every single dieting day.

Failed Again at Losing Weight? Here's What You Can Do About It.

by Maria's Last Diet

Here's a wonderful exercise to help you.

Imagine that a best friend, or daughter, or sister, comes to you for advice about how to lose the 30 lbs she's put on over the last few years. She tells you she's tried everything she's ever heard of, and nothing works for her. She either can't stick to a weight-loss plan, or she gains it back pretty quickly if she does manage to lose.

Imagine this person, and how deeply you care about her.

So, what would you tell her? What would you suggest? What would be your very best advice about how to do something differently so she could solve this problem she has with weight that is making her unhappy?

When you do come up with your best, caring advice, write it down.

Then, be your own weight-loss guru and follow all of the advice yourself.

The Self-Regulation Part of Losing Weight

by Maria's Last Diet

Losing weight always involves self-regulation. Self-regulation is a private process in which you set goals and then attempt to regulate your thinking, your behavior, and your motivation in accordance with these goals.

Interestingly, self-regulation works best with a certain kind of goal. The goal is called a mastery goal, which means the purpose of the goal is to increase your competence. 

When it comes to losing weight, everyone needs to increase their competence in one or more weight-loss tasks (e.g., starting, overcoming procrastination, managing feelings, adhering to a weight-loss plan, accepting setbacks, planning for tomorrow, and many other weight-loss tasks).

Self-regulation, then, is the result of you becoming more competent at being able to do what you need to do to lose weight. As such, it should be within your reach.

Feeling Deprived, But Why?

by Maria's Last Diet

Dear Maria...

No one talks about how deprived you feel when you try to diet. All around you are rich, glorious foods, every one of them a no-no. That's what I zoom in on the minute I start a diet - everything I can't have.

Now that I write this it seems ridiculous. All the times I'm not dieting, I eat whatever I want. So what's with this "poor me" stance I immediately assume?

Maybe "poor me" doesn't have to do with not being able to eat brownies or pizza at all. Maybe the "poor me" feeling is lurking there all the time, and when I attempt to restrict my eating, it pops out. In fact, maybe my usual crazy eating is a way to feel the opposite of "poor me". It hides that feeling of deprivation by making me over-gratified, over-fed.

Is this the kind of food/feelings mix-up you always talk about?

    - Millie