Maria's Last Diet

by Maria's Last Diet

Dear Maria...

Is it better to just cut down on my eating - or start out "cold turkey" on a strict diet?

Many people trying to change a behavior wonder about this issue.

Gradual cutting down may offer some advantages. Perhaps it wouldn't be such a shock to your system. Maybe easing into a different way of eating would help you get used to the idea.

On the other hand, beginning with a specific diet plan might help guide you and support you.

The most important point about choosing between the two methods is which one you believe will work. If you are convinced one way is better for you, then that's the way should do it.

by Maria's Last Diet

This is the way it works with successful dieting. The successful dieter takes manageable steps that sharpen her skill, guarantee success, and increase her self confidence. She thinks of ways to make the long, arduous task of dieting all the way to her weight loss goal less formidable for her.

Instead of thinking about losing the 50 pounds she needs to lose, she concentrates on losing just a few pounds first. During the time she allots to losing just 4 or 5 pounds, she concentrates on what is required of her. She sees how she feels and she keeps track of what she thinks. She develops a mindset for getting herself through the emotional rough spots that might prevent her from following through and keeping to her diet food.

The successful dieter builds her dieting skills, her weight-loss motivation, her self confidence, and all her other keys to success by taking lots of small dieting steps and having lots of small diet successes.

by Maria's Last Diet

What do you do about diet slips?

    Be prepared.
    Have your first aid kit ready to be put into action.

If you go into a diet realizing that you will probably make mistakes, sometimes without meaning to, then it won't throw you so much when it happens.

Thinking about this beforehand gives you more self control. You can say to yourself: If and when I overeat, or eat the wrong thing, then I'll do such and such.

It is not slipping off your diet plan that causes you a problem. It is your reaction to the slip that causes the most damage to your self-esteem and also to your weight loss motivation.

Being armed, being prepared, knowing that something can be done in the face of momentary failures, reduces the stress caused by these all too common slips. It allows you to cope much more effectively so you can come out of a setback with your diet intact again.

by Maria's Last Diet

Dear Maria...

I can't just throw out all the food in my house like I got rid of all my cigarettes when I quit smoking - so I'm always tempted.

You bring up a very important point. When you are trying to kick a habit, you need to use what in the relapse prevention literature is called stimulus control. That is, preparing your environment so it reduces temptations. Of course, you can't remove all food from your kitchen.

What you can do is clean out the food you have the most trouble with. Don't keep it around to try and prove to yourself that you are strong enough to resist overeating and not lose control. You will only be setting the stage for a diet lapse.

So, clean out your favorite goodies, the usual high risk suspects, the tempting foods that support your emotional eating habits. You can even do more than that. You can substitute weight loss food that's more diet friendly and have it always ready.

It may sound like a small thing, but this kind of stimulus control is a very effective weapon against backsliding and diverting you from your weight loss goal.

by Maria's Last Diet

Dieting is like climbing a rope. If climbing a rope is hard for you (...and dieting is hard for everyone), there are three things you'll need to get to the top: building your skill, having success, and feeling self-confident.

These three things are intertwined. You can't get one without the others. Think of it this way - you know you can't climb the whole rope. so what do you do. You try to climb a little part of it. That takes less confidence and skill than climbing the whole way up at once.

If you are successful in climbing the first small part of the rope, then your confidence increases. As your confidence increases, you feel more like going ahead to develop the skill you need to climb higher.

The same is true for a diet.