Maria's Last Diet

A Formerly Chubby Woman

by Maria's Last Diet

I'm on the run now.

I lost 33 lbs, feel great, lookin good.

But they're after me.

They're trying to catch me, jump back onto my bod.

Every lb. is chasing me, mocking, saying you don't have long to be free.

This is not something new. So far, I've managed to keep ahead of these lbs. so they don't get me and knock me down.

I don't want them to defeat me.

I'm getting tired, though. I can't keep running forever.

I'm sure there's a way for me to slow down and use my head to outwit the re-- gaining weight syndrome, instead of just using all my energy to keep one step ahead.

This time if I let the weight reattach itself and make me fat again, I'll be mortified.

I don't want to be afraid like this. I want to revel in my new shape, enjoy it.

I will figure this out, I must.

Weight Loss for Women: Is This You?

by Maria's Last Diet

    When the body is heavy, cumbersome, awkward, and slow going, the mind and heart have to spend precious energy taking care of it. In order to keep its size and shape, you need to constantly perfect your devotion to food, you need to practice it, reinforce it, get better and better at it, until one day you become an expert.
    Those secret little subterfuges that send you back to food, they all have to be maintained so as to keep blocking your way to freedom. Each trip to food gets slipped into life more easily. The buildup of tiny acts over time creates a habit with so much character you just end up thinking this is you.

Losing Weight is More Than Just What's in Your Plate

by Maria's Last Diet

Food, yes. It matters. What kind, how much, yes. Take it into consideration, by all means. Then investigate your thoughts, beliefs, feelings, ideas, history, ambitions, fears, worries, relationships. They are just as important! If you ignore these non-food matters, you can't possibly solve your weight problem in the best way.

Think about it.

The Weight Won't Change If You Don't

by Maria's Last Diet

Everyone wants to make personal changes at one time or another. When it comes to losing weight, on any given day, 45% of women are attempting to make changes to themselves through dieting. What does it take to make an important change to yourself like losing weight?

First, you need to identify two kinds of behaviors: problem behaviors and adaptive behaviors. You want to keep adaptive behaviors in the forefront, keep them working well and try, if you can, to make them work even better for you than they have been. You want to have these adaptive behaviors right on hand when you need them. As for the problem behaviors, you want to get rid of them, of course; or at least reduce them to the point of having no more than a minimal effect on you and your life.

But there’s a twist to making the personal changes that are needed for losing weight. For the best chance at success, you don’t just try to change your problem eating behavior; you must do all you can to change your problematic relationship with food. Changing your problematic relationship with food is what makes losing weight possible and permanent.

For a closer look at your own unique relationship with food, try to figure out  “why is it” and “when is it” that you head for food.

If you want some more help with the process, look up how to identify and work out your problem behavior in Find Your Issues. If you still need more help, go to Diet Tuffy, plug in your problem, and get the help you need to work it out.

 Hey! It's Diet Tuffy to the rescue.

Losing Weight with Zero Tolerance is a Losing Proposition

by Maria's Last Diet

Relapse prevention refers to helping a person develop strategies for maintaining new behaviors and preventing a "relapse" into old, unwanted behaviors. You can relate the concept of preventing a relapse to kicking a drug habit, giving up alcohol or smoking, or giving up a relationship to food that leads to overeating and gaining weight.

One idea about what contributes to relapse - going back to the unwanted behavior - is something called "zero tolerance beliefs". It goes like this: you start dieting with the idea in mind that absolutely NO cheating is acceptable.

There's a paradox here. Initially, this belief can aid your efforts to regulate your relationship with food. It does, after all, provide a strict rule by which you can govern your behavior: NO CHEATING ALLOWED.

But here's what usually ends up happening. Over time, this belief undermines your effort to lose weight, because of one simple fact: lapses back into old behavior are inevitable. If you have that zero tolerance motto stuck in your head, when the lapse does occur, you have no way to handle it. You simply ruled it out, didn't allow for it at all. So, having no way to deal with your cheat, the most likely outcome is to revert back to more and more cheating. You once again find yourself engaging in the very behavior you are trying to change.

What can you do? First of all, you can recognize that cheats will indeed occur, and it does NOT mean that you've failed. It only means that you are not perfect (who is). Accepting this, you can move on to develop coping strategies for just those times when you have a cheat (a lapse back to your old relationship with food). What can you do after a cheat? How can you regain control of your newer behavior, your newly forming relationship with food and eating? Do you know how to accept your dieting transgression and move on? Can you learn from this mistake?

When you are really trying to change your behavior, why not give up that "zero tolerance belief". Accept that you will have some lapses, and prepare yourself for them. A good way to prevent a total relapse is to have effective ways of handling a cheat when it occurs.

Weight Control is not a Simple Matter

by Maria's Last Diet

The plight of the weight-loss celebrity is that she makes her struggle public.

So many: Oprah, Whoopi, Kirstie, Carnie, have told their stories openly, lost weight (by various methods), only to gain it back.

On some, the jury is still out - Valerie and Marie. It remains to be seen if these ladies have truly conquered their weight problems. Valerie has said it's emotional. Oprah is embarrassed, they say, by her failure to keep the weight off. Her triumph many years ago, when she marched across the stage of her TV show in size 10 Calvin Klein jeans, has been eclipsed by years of gaining weight and losing weight since.

Losing weight and keeping the weight off is no ordinary problem, and there is no ordinary, easy answer.

That's because emotions, psychology, personality, habits - are all involved. If it were as easy as simply signing on to Jenny Craig or Nutri-System, then we'd all be thin.

Not that such weight-loss programs can't help. They can.

But lasting weight loss comes from the inside out, and there's no getting around that. Absolutely no way.

Overweight Women, Shape Up

by Maria's Last Diet

         BEFORE

There's an infomercial for a body shaper that says you can look 20 lbs thinner. And you can look 20 lbs thinner INSTANTLY - that's what it says.

Have you seen it?

If the claims are true, it might be a nice product. Women put it on and folds of fat and belly rolls and bra-bulges and hip and butt dimples all get smoothed out, and cinched in.

So: if this result is what you're after, some kind of body shaper could be a nice thing for you. They also have them in department stores, where you can try on.
           AFTER
OK, here's the caveat. This has nothing to do with a woman who has been overeating, staying overweight, and longs for a solution.

There's a great difference between wanting to look better (who doesn't) and wanting to stop certain eating behavior that may be making you unhappy.

If the way you eat diminishes your opinion of yourself, a body shaper won't help, will it?

If the way you eat takes the place of effectively dealing with some of your problem in life, then a body shaper won't help, will it?

If the way you eat helps you to NOT express your feelings and your ideas, then a body shaper won't help, will it?

If the way you eat is the main reward you allow yourself, then a body shaper won't help, will it?

If the way you eat is not the way you want to eat, yet it seems out of your control, then a body shaper won't help, will it?

If the way you eat comes in handy when you are feeling hurt or disappointed and you know no other way to cope with these negative emotions, then a body shaper won't help, will it?

If you eat not because you're hungry, but because you feel empty deep inside of yourself, then a body shaper won't help, will it?

A body shaper can help the outside of you, but it won't help you on the inside.

That's where you need to do the work. It's not that a body shaper won't help you look better. It's that it might be missing the point.

Dieting Is Mostly Mental: Can I Change My Mind?

by Maria's Last Diet

If you can't seem to lose weight, but you really want to, maybe it's time to "re-think".

How about taking a close look at 5 very strong beliefs and/or opinions you have about dieting and losing weight, and see if they stand up to scrutiny.

Maybe you think

   In order to lose weight, you must go on a strict weight-loss diet.
     or
   I just don't have any willpower.
     or
   I want to go on a weight-loss plan, but I never have the time.
     or
   Even if I lose, I'll end up gaining weight back.
     or
   Dieting is painful.

Whatever your personal beliefs are, mix it up a little. Ask questions about them, like, is this absolutely true? Is it true all the time? Can I change my mind? Have I ever proved this wrong? Can I start to think differently? Can I change this belief into something that will actually help me lose the weight? Must I just accept these ideas as rules, or can I start to "re-think" them, and come up with better ideas?

Re-think, re-organize your ideas, and re-sist the same old same old. It helps so much.

To Lose the Weight, What All Does it Take?

by Maria's Last Diet

Do you fit into one of these two categories when it comes to dieting and losing weight?

    You fail more than you succeed.
    You keep trying and trying despite your prior failures.

Does this mean that you can’t meet your expectations about staying on your weight-loss diet and losing the weight?

“Believing” and “committing” are indeed motivating. They make you feel that when you believe and commit, you’ll get the result you desire.

But it may be just the opposite. Belief and commitment without a whole lot else to back them up may simply bring false hope.

Dieting, losing weight, and keeping the weight off permanently require a realistic appraisal of what you are hoping for and how you expect to go about it. For example: If you have your mind set on losing weight, are you really ready at this time? Are you motivated? What about your willpower? Have you prepared? What can you do to prepare? Have you planned? What have you planned? What goals and sub-goals have you set for yourself? Have you chosen a diet you like, one that is good for you nutritionally and psychologically? There’s all this and more.

If you want to believe and commit, and have what it takes to back this up, click on the “Find Your Issue” link below and look up ways to go about getting the real goods.

Self-Control Vanishes When You're Starving

by Maria's Last Diet

What does a starving person do? She dreams of food, she thinks about food, she yearns for food. She goes for food whenever she can. Don't do it. Don't go on a starvation weight-loss diet. It doesn't work. It usually does the opposite of what you want, sending your self-control right out the window.