Maria's Last Diet

Yo-Yo Dieting: Are You On Its String?

by Maria's Last Diet

Are you a yo-yo? Many women are.

So what exactly is yo-yo-ing (going up and down) with your weight all about? It involves changing your ways, losing weight, trying some better eating habits, and then relapsing. When you lose and then gain it back, you can think of it as relapsing.

There is a whole field of study dedicated to relapse prevention. Relapsing is one of the major challenges in kicking any habit, whether it has to do with drugs, alcohol, smoking, overeating, or any other habit that gets in the way of a person living a good life.

But there is a big difference between a lapse and a relapse. A lapse is a momentary return to the old behavior you are trying to extinguish. A relapse refers to a total return to the behavior.

Lapses are to be expected in any behavior change journey. Changing a habit - a portion of behavior - is never a clean process. There are always trials and errors, steps back amid strides forward. The crucial challenge to meet is not to give up all you've accomplished by simply going back to the unwanted behavior altogether.

Another way to think about yo-yo-ing is the concept of "weight cycling". More about that soon. Stay tuned. 

You fail on a diet, but that's good

by Maria's Last Diet

Do you have failure after failure when it comes to dieting and losing the weight?

D you know what Thomas Edison said after trying at least 1,000 ways to make a light bulb?

He said that he didn't fail 1,000 times. Rather, he succeeded in finding 1,000 ways that a light bulb won't work.

The takeaway: Maybe over the years you've tried many ways to lose the weight. Think of it that same way. You have discovered something really significant. You found many ways that a weight-loss plan won't work.

So, don't use those same ways again. Use what you've learned about what not to do, and you're sure to come up with a successful formula.

After all, that's how we got the light bulb.

Weight Loss Diets - What Makes Them Work?

by Maria's Last Diet

A word on our favorite subject...

You sometimes hear an expert cavalierly say, "Diets don't work."

Diets themselves can't work - they can't even be considered without keeping the dieter herself in mind.

Once the dieter is introduced into the equation, everything changes. It is the dieter herself who determines whether a weight-loss diet works or doesn't work.

Many women who want to lose the weight feel supported by their weight-loss diet plan because it's a food plan that gives them guidelines for eating. It helps them feel that they are not trying to navigate the weight-loss process totally on their own.

Many women who work hard on the personal change issues that are universal to weight problems find, that after a time, they no longer need to follow a food plan. But some like to rely on it all the way through.

The successful dieter has learned that it is the personal change work you do along with a weight-loss diet that makes your diet work or not.

It's up to you. Remember, we're here to help you with those personal change issues. That's what Maria's Last Diet does. We're all about the psychological side of dieting. For a first step toward being a dieter who makes your weight-loss diet work, check out your personal change issue(s) by clicking on the "Find Your Issue" link to the right.

Chubby Woman Speaks

by Maria's Last Diet

Dear Maria...

I always feel caught in the middle.

I'm not obese.

I do not have an eating disorder per se.

I do not have anorexia.

I am not bulimic.

I do not throw up or starve myself.

I don't think I'm compulsively overeating.

If I'm a compulsive anything, I'm a compulsive dieter. Every Monday I start, every Saturday I stop.

I'm about 25 lbs more than I'd like to be, and to lose it wouldn't make me painfully thin, or anything like that. I'm 5'4", and I'd like to weigh around 125 lbs, instead of the chubby 151 I am now.

When I blow my diet and fail to lose the weight, I always say, "Oh well, it's not like I'm obese or anything."

But who am I saying this to? It's no one but myself. So, let me say this. OK. I'm not obese or bulimic, but I'm not happy at 151.

Maybe my weight thing isn't so dramatic, and I don't fit into one of the most talked about weight problem categories.

I still need an answer.

    - Tracy

About Willpower

by Maria's Last Diet

Willpower is a funny duck. It quacks like a duck, walks like a duck, but it’s not a duck. Here’s why.

It’s a mistake to think of willpower as a unity. Willpower is actually a combination of “skills”.

Here’s a partial list of those skills:

•    Self-control
•    Self-regulation
•    Delay of gratification
•    Directing attention
•    Distraction
•    Adherence to long-term goals
•    Planning
•    Practice
•    Preparation
•    Rehearsal
•    Impulse control
•    Good-enough emotional outlets

Sound daunting? Well, put this way, it is.

Try looking at the list this way.

A woman goes into the supermarket to shop for the week. She has a family of four: herself, her husband, and two children, one adolescent and one pre-adolescent. She is dieting, of course, trying to lose over 35 lbs. She is in her second week of dieting and has lost 2½ lbs so far. She is feeling somewhat defeated by this little bit of weight loss, but is still game to go on. Being in the supermarket and shopping for the week is a test of her willpower.

Here’s what she did before she went. She had a great, I mean really great morning with her husband. She made a truly detailed list of what she was going to buy, right down to the exact amounts. She knew her weak points and prepared herself by visualizing them beforehand and also visualizing what she would do to deal with them. For two days before shopping, she practiced tempting herself with food and non-food items, and practiced turning down each temptation. On the back of her shopping list, she wrote her weight-loss goals; not just the number of pounds, but the look, the size, the health, and other things she was looking forward to.

She did two other things that didn’t make sense to her family until she explained them. Ever since she last went to the supermarket, which was the week before, she had often put off the very things she used to do quickly and efficiently. Instead, she did something else that seemed terribly peculiar to her children. For example, instead of brushing her teeth first thing, she went in to make the coffee. Instead of taking some sips of coffee while cooking breakfast, she waited to have the coffee with her breakfast. No one, including her husband, understood her.

What she was doing is easy to spot if you have the “skills” list in front of you. She was getting a head start on the skills of delaying gratification, directing attention, and distraction. She would need all of these if she was to stick to her plan at the supermarket.

So, there you have it, willpower in a large nutshell. It’s not a duck, even though it quacks and waddles.

The Memorial Day Diet. Try It.

by Maria's Last Diet

Today is Memorial Day in America
and the eating is easy.
Dieting is forgotten
and temptations are high.

The weather's warmer
and summer's approaching
So eat your hearts out
and forget to cry

In the morning
you are busy cooking
Then you'll put out a spread
that'll catch the eye

After eating all that
you'll feel safe inside
And nothing can harm you
and you'll forget to cry

Keep Confidence Level Up With Checkpoints

by Maria's Last Diet

While you are actively engaged in losing weight - by dieting, let's say - there is one thing you must have. You need to have some way of knowing how well you are doing.

You may immediately think of consistent weigh-ins on the scale to keep track of your progress. That does give you feedback, but at times it can be unreliable. Sometimes the scale just doesn't move down.

For example, if you hit a weight-loss plateau - even a small one - if, for instance, you don't lose the weight for one full week, how do you know whether or not you are improving in terms of handling your weight problem? In the absence of the number on the scale moving down, what can you use to inform you about your progress toward that weight-loss goal of yours?

If you can create a method of tracking your progress as you advance to your goal weight, it will serve as positive feedback, and positive feedback has a motivating effect on your behavior.

Here are some self-tracking points to check, other than getting on the scale, so you can see how well you're doing.

• Take note of your actual eating behavior. Do you eat compulsively less often?
• Keep a log for a week, and note down any instances of eating that you consider emotional eating. Are you doing better with this - that is, are you getting better at handling your emotions without overeating or turning to junk food?
• Have you been able to give yourself acknowledgment and rewards for things you accomplish in your life without using food to do it?
• Have you been able to keep your weight-loss program as a top priority, even with all else that goes on in your life?
• Have you been able to stick with it even though you break your weight-loss diet at times?

These are excellent markers. Use them as checkpoints right along with getting on the scale to see how many pounds you've lost in a given week. The accomplishments listed above will keep your self-confidence up, and allow you to keep on your chosen weight-loss path even when the scale doesn't tell you what you want to hear.

Self Control - the Biggest Challenge of Losing Weight

by Maria's Last Diet

Dr. Walter Mischel, now a Columbia University professor of psychology, studied self-control in young children in the 1960s. The experiments involved putting a child in a room with a tray of marshmallows. The studies were designed to see whether the child could resist eating marshmallows for a certain period of time, thereby delaying gratification by exercising self-control.

Some children could delay more than others, as you might guess. Mischel and his colleagues then tracked these same young children into their teens and then into adulthood. They found that their success in life had a lot to do with self-control.

So, what determines self-control? Based on hundreds of hours of observation, Dr. Mischel concluded that self-control depends on what he calls "strategic allocation of attention". What he means by this is how well a person can avoid thinking about what is tempting them. Once you realize that willpower is just a matter of learning how to control your attention and thoughts, you can really begin to increase it. Mischel noted that using mental tricks is not enough. You need to turn those tricks into long-term habits.

Can you apply this conception of self-control to your own experiences with delay of gratification? If you find that it applies, why not use it to be more in control of what tempts you.

You can read more about all of this in the article, "Don't! The secret of self-control" in the May 18th (2009) issue of The New Yorker magazine.

Losing Weight the Recession Proof Way

by Maria's Last Diet

So, losing weight is a problem for you?

And you're on a budget?

Here's a recession proof answer: yourself.

You are one self, but here are 3 self-issues every woman needs to confront when she wants to lose weight. This doesn't cost you any money...just a little time, and a little courage.

3 Essential SELF Issues that Affect Losing Weight

Self-awareness
In order to make the personal changes necessary to successfully lose weight, you need to carefully consider the problem. How does your eating behavior affect your life? Does it conflict with you personal values? How would you feel about yourself if you changed your eating and lose the weight? Do you lie to yourself about how deep the problem goes? Do you rationalize too much? Do you keep going against what you really want for yourself?

Self-confidence
If you are low in self-confidence, losing weight can be especially tough. But you can build self-confidence as you move along your weight-loss path. A good way is to set mini-goals for yourself, things you can achieve and feel good about as you aim for that ultimate weight-loss goal. For example, can you practice alternatives to eating when you feel anxious? Can you set aside some time each day to renew your commitment? Can you begin to put losing weight at the top of your daily agenda? Each time you achieve a smaller goal, you add to your self-confidence.

Self-control
Self-control is made up of all the self-awareness, self-confidence, planning, energy, and thoughtfulness you bring to any difficult eating situation. It is not a magic ability that you are simply born with. It is all the work you do psychologically, emotionally, and practically to help you stick to your weight-loss resolve.

There you have it, three self-strategies that fit in with any budget

Emotional Eating and Coping

by Maria's Last Diet

Emotional eating is a problem for many women.

How do you combat it?

You need to have a repertoire of coping skills. Coping ability, like the emotions that trigger the eating, is an internal factor.

You can acquire new skills to cope with emotions like frustration, anger, loneliness, hopelessness, hurt, despair. These intense negative emotional states tend to lead you to food. The feelings need to be dealt with and eating is what you have learned to do to deal. Perhaps, rather than express your anger, or your hurt, or your desperation, you turn to food instead.

In this case, feeling negative emotions puts you at high risk for eating in a way that is probably not good for you. So, how do you cope? Why not identify the emotion or emotions you are having. That seems sensible, doesn't it?

It requires something simple - a time out.

Ask yourself: what am I feeling?

Then: why am I feeling this way now?

This is a wonderful start to coping.

Next, you can begin to think about what you might do to help with the feeling or feelings - what you can do that would be much more effective for dealing with your emotions than eating is.

For example, if the emotions come up in relation to an interpersonal situation, might you express the feelings more directly? Can you call on a friend if you're feeling lonely? Can you ask for help if you're feeling overwhelmed? If someone has hurt you, can you talk to him/her about it?

Maybe these seem like very elementary things to you, and they are - but they are also effective coping mechanisms. If you learn how to do them - get skilled at it - then you will be able to tame your emotional eating, no doubt about it.