Maria's Last Diet

The Opposite of What You Want to Happen is Not the Way to Weight Loss

by Maria's Last Diet

Beware of trying to suppress a thought or a command to yourself like "you shouldn’t eat" that, because it could backfire on you and actually make the thought more pronounced.

Let’s say you were clipping along on your weight-loss program. Your diet motivation had been excellent, and you didn’t have one diet cheat yet. You were four weeks into your diet plan. Four weeks, did you hear that? You were ecstatic. But—and there always is a “but”, isn’t there—thoughts of having some lemon meringue pie have been sneaking into your mind. So you tell yourself, “I shouldn’t eat any lemon meringue pie”.

Here’s what the research shows. It will be harder for you to resist eating some preferred piece of pie if eating pie has been a strong habit of yours in the past. Nevertheless, if you tell yourself “no pie, no matter what pie has meant to you in the past, whether it’s been a strong habit of yours or not, you are likely to violate your good diet plan and go for a piece of lemon meringue pie.

The solution: Don’t tell yourself no. Instead, when pie cravings rear their pretty little heads, have a plan to counteract them that takes the positive high road. For example, “When I feel like having some pie, I will _____________ instead.” Do a substitution if you can. “I will double up on some good diet food.” Or, you could plan to double your reward for sticking to a diet. There are lots of ways to go about saving your good weight-loss progress. Trying to control the urge by telling yourself no or not to, is not one of them.

 

Here’s One Peril of Restrictive Dieting

by Maria's Last Diet

Context matters. Something feels light if you just lifted a lot of things that were heavy. Noxious odors are only noxious by comparison. While there is subjectivity involved—no denying that, there is also contrast. The contrast phenomenon occurs in different contexts of the weight-loss process as well.

Take the case of a restrictive diet, one in which the dieter has to exercise an unusual amount of self-control. By contrast, less self-control could be perceived as little control at all. This might be what happens when a dieter on a restrictive diet, using all her self-control to stay on a diet, cheats. She sees her diet cheat as a total breakdown in self-control, because she has been using total self-control. Someone who is not restrictive in her dieting sees a cheat as a momentary lapse in self-control.  

The consequence of the more extreme contrast between restrictive dieting, where too much control is needed, and cheating, is the dieter may feel when she cheated, she lost all of her self-control—and she might think to herself, what’s the use.  For the dieter who is dieting in a looser way that requires much less self-control, she sees her diet cheat as not so far away from her overall dieting style and level of self-control. It becomes easier for her to think of her diet cheat as a minor lapse in self-control, and she is encouraged by thinking like this to go right back to dieting without losing any of her good motivation.

 

Optimistic or Pessimistic When It Comes to Weight Loss Difficulties?

by Maria's Last Diet

Do you have an optimistic outlook about losing unwanted weight?

One benefit of being optimistic is that on balance optimists attribute lack of weight-loss progress to external factors. Pessimists to internal factors. An optimist thinks that the cause of cheating on a diet, for example, is due to the situation she is facing. She thinks of this as a temporary problem, something that she can deal with. If the pessimist, on the other hand, did cheat on a diet, she thinks her problem has a lot to do with her as a person—her greediness, her instability, her lying, etc.  

What to do if you want to reap the benefits of optimistic thinking.

Imagine your best possible self by thinking of, and writing down if you like, realistic goals for what you’d want your best possible self to be. Start each goal with “In the future I will…” Concentrate on what you want your best possible self to be as a person, in relationships, in regard to work, and for losing excess weight.

If you can, do this best-possible-self exercise daily for at least two to three weeks. Then see what the results are.

 

Cheat on Your Diet? Use Your Diet Cheat to Turn Weight Loss Failure into Successful Weight Loss

by Maria's Last Diet

Have you been a complete failure at losing excess weight?

You can turn weight-loss failure into weight-loss hope.

Maybe that sounds too much like a dream to you, but it’s true. You can turn weight-loss failure into hope, and then into successful weight loss.

We all know (but tend to forget) that there is no success without some failures along the way. The road to successful weight loss is no different; it is never smooth or perfect. And you know what? That’s actually what leads to success—a bumpy road.

Here’s how it works. If you start your diet, then cheat on your diet, and don’t get back on and stick to the diet, or if you were able to stay on a diet, lose a lot of weight, and then gained back weight (who hasn’t?), you can use that experience to help you do much better next time. You can look back, see where you went off track, and figure out how to keep yourself on track the next time.

That’s what it takes: Using mistakes and slip-ups as a learning tool. Believe it or not, this is how any success is achieved, whether in a business venture, raising kids, cooking, or with successful weight loss. You make your mistakes, and then you correct.

Failure doesn’t need to mean FAILURE. Failure can be a very useful weight-loss tool, if you use it the right way.

So don’t give up. failure=hope=successful weight loss.

 

Here are Diet Tips for Women Who Cheat

by Maria's Last Diet

Cheating on a diet is not uncommon. But think of it in a new way.

The heart wants what it wants—so the saying goes. But sometimes, when the heart can’t get exactly what it wants, it tries to substitute with something else.

Ask yourself this question when you are on a diet and you are being tempted by those donuts, which are right before your eyes. Can you ask yourself: But…what does my heart really want?

It’s a good question, and the answer, if you take a little time to consider it, might be very interesting. You might come up with things like:

What I really want is to feel deserving of good things.

Or:

What I really want is to not feel so empty inside.

Or:

What I really need in my heart is to feel more loved.

These are the heartfelt answers. Maybe the food answer is a poor substitute.