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Emotional Overeating and Weight Loss Psychology Are the Real Deal

by Maria's Last Diet

This woman was eating herself up. She didn't think of it this way. She called it her up and down moods, her anxieties, her depression, her anxiety attacks, her binge eating. She was terribly overweight, and she felt embarrassed about her appearance. Yet she kept eating herself up.

Oh, she functioned and fit in well socially with friends and family--as if nothing was wrong. She worked, earned a living, was raising her son, and was in a committed relationship with her live-in boyfriend. Even she believed this side of her. But she knew the other sides of her as well.

She took medication for her depression and anxiety for years, but the up and down moods, etc. didn't remit. Of course not. She was still eating herself up alive.

The breakup with her boyfriend finally pushed her into psychotherapy where she began to learn that she was eating herself up by taking so much blame on herself. No matter what others did, there was always a lot of blame she could level at herself. Her therapist caught her doing this time after time after time, and they talked about it together over and over in many different ways.

It took a long time for this woman to stop blaming herself completely. But along the way gradually, steadily, she stopped eating herself up as much, and lo and behold, she began losing some weight. She was not eating herself up like she had been, and there was now no reason for her to fill back up her half-eaten self by binging and overeating.

This beautiful, valuable, smart, funny, lovely, loving, caring, lovable woman has turned the corner on blaming herself, and she is now 75 pounds lighter.

Posted by Maria's Last Diet on Friday, July 29, 2011 in Emotions and Eating | Permalink | TrackBack (0)

There Are 3 Levels to the Weight-Loss Process. Don't Get Off at the First.

by Maria's Last Diet

There are levels when it comes to reducing your weight. First, there is your intention. “I intend to lose all of my unwanted weight.” You can make what you intend to do even more specific: “I will aim to lose 45 pounds.” Even more specific—“45 pounds before next year.” As we all know, the road to weight-loss failure is paved with good intentions. It takes more than good intentions to achieve successful weight loss.

Next level: How will you actually do what you intend? This means having a plan, the kind of plan that lays out exactly or approximately how you will reach your goal. It can go like this, “I have every intention of losing a lot of weight. To do this I will have to—and here comes the plan—increase my motivation, settle some unsettling personal problems, pick a diet, make a list of dieting obstacles that have made for diet failure in the past, and so forth.”

The third level has to do with what makes the plan work.The plan makes your intentions work, but what makes the plan work? In a nutshell, the more specific the plan, the better the plan will work. For example: settle some unsettling personal problems can be specified in much greater detail. In it’s present form it’s too general, too vague. To make it more specific, very specific in fact, you’d have to specify as many of the variables as you can—such as, when, how, where, and why.

This third level of greater plan specificity is what makes the whole ball of wax work. With specifics like my biggest personal problem is my deteriorating relationship with my daughter, you would have to plan just how to repair the relationship, either in part or fully. You could start with the single biggest trigger for bad feelings between you and your daughter. If it’s her failure to observe her weekend curfew, start there. Plan how, when, and where you will talk with her about this and what you will say. Plan how to listen to her too. Review what she might say and how she might react emotionally, and then plan out how you could respond so that the friction between the two of you would be at a low.

Let’s review. Your intention. Your plan—which includes settling some unsettling personal problems. The importance of plan specificity. There you have it. The three levels that insure you against weight-loss failure.

Posted by Maria's Last Diet on Thursday, July 28, 2011 in Goals/Planning/Intentions/Expectations | Permalink | TrackBack (0)

Energy Matters When It Comes to Losing Some Weight. So Don't Squander It.

by Maria's Last Diet

Make no bones about it. It takes energy, lots of energy to reduce your weight. You have to be able to rebound from setbacks and remove those obstacles blocking your path and hang on tightly to your motivation. Even your thinking about what it takes for you to lose unwanted weight is energy spent. Well spent. But nevertheless spent.

There's no way around it. The power of positive thinking won't work. Visualizing a rosy future in which you've lost lots of weight won't cut the mustard either. Any unrealistic thinking, wishing, fantasizing, and so forth, will only take your focus and energy away from the real effort you need to put into your weight-loss process.

For successful weight loss, you've got to replace fantasies of an easy ride with a realistic appraisal of all you have to do. If you can do this, you will have what it takes to make your wishful thinking come true about reaching your desired weight.

Posted by Maria's Last Diet on Wednesday, July 27, 2011 in Thinking/Wishful Thinking | Permalink | TrackBack (0)

What is the Best Way to Lose Weight and Keep It Off for Good?

by Maria's Last Diet

How are you going to maintain the weight you lost if you don't start practicing ro go off your diet right from the start. Sound like bad weight-loss advice? I guess it could make it difficult to lose weight for a lot of you. With this kind of permissive this kind of liberalism, diet cheats could go through the roof.

But that's not the idea.

You can build cheat on your diet right into even the best diet plan. But don't call them cheats. Think of them as experiments where you go off your diet momentarily for a meal or a snack or a special occasion, and practice going right back on your diet.

To eat off your diet in the weight-loss maintenance phase, you have to have the ability to make the adjustments needed to control your weight. Get it out of your mind right now. There is no way for you to stay at one particular weight. The weight-maintenance phase is more free form than dieting. Sometimes you'll weigh a little more; sometimes a little less.

If you've learned to go off your diet and get back on again, you'll have this move down pat by the time you're ready for keeping weight off for good.

Posted by Maria's Last Diet on Tuesday, July 26, 2011 in Maintain Weight Loss | Permalink | TrackBack (0)

Need Help to Lose Weight? Try the Opposite of Your Willpower.

by Maria's Last Diet

Stop and smell the roses. Or is it stop and smell the coffee. No matter. Mine is wake up and smell the bacon. I hate to tell you but I’ve been eating bacon all along. I’d love you to know that bacon and other such goodies are now guilt free. Yes, I’ve done it, after a ga-zillion tries. No use crying over spilt milk. Well, to tell the truth, I don’t have to cry over spilt milk—not ever again.

What’s all the excitement? I lost all my unwanted weight and I know how to keep the weight off. In fact, I’ve been keeping weight off successfully for the past three or four years. See, I don’t have to be precise anymore. I no longer count the days or the weeks or the months or the pounds.

What’s my secret? There are no secrets when it comes to successful weight loss and successful weight maintenance. Everyone who has ever tried losing some weight can tell you what she did right and what she did wrong. I did lots wrong but look at me.

OK, I’ll share my biggest weight-loss key. It’s won’t-power. Not willpower. Won’t-power. It’s whenever I did one of those wrong things for the umpteenth time and I was sick of myself. That’s when my won’t-power kicked in. Actually it was all my doing. I kicked it in. And it worked. Let me tell you it worked. Almost by osmosis I began relying more and more on my won’t-power. It kept working. So I kept working it.

What exactly is won’t-power? No secret there either. We all have won’t-power. It goes like this. “I won’t ever do that again.” And then you do. So you take it up a notch: “I WONT EVER DO THAT AGAIN.” And another notch if you need to. And so on and so forth until it becomes a regular part of you.

Your won’t-power becomes a bad habit that does good. Keep doing it, and it’ll be there when you need it. It’s not that you’ll never do wrong again. I do the wrong things still. Too much of a fattening food. Sometimes I forget that I know how to eat less. When I visit my aunt and uncle—my favorite aunt and uncle—there’s no stopping me. If you were there, you’d see first-hand, some out-of-control eating. Well, out-of-control eating for someone who has taken the weight-loss journey, arrived at her destination, and upped her won’t power capability along the way.

If I eat too much, I still worry and watch it. But now I believe my worry and watchfulness is part of my won’t-power. My guilt is part of my won’t-power. My dissatisfaction with myself is part of my won’t-power. I don’t have to exercise self-restraint to the point of regret, and that’s why each morning I can say to myself if I wish, “Wake up and smell the bacon.”

Posted by Maria's Last Diet on Monday, July 25, 2011 in Willpower | Permalink | TrackBack (0)

A Realistic Weight Loss Goal is Just What the Doctor Ordered

by Maria's Last Diet

Dream weight. Dream on.

For women trying to lose unwanted weight unrealistic expectations about losing a lot of weight abound. When they don’t meet their goal, they are terribly disappointed. Quite often their discouragement grows so that they lose faith in their ability to lose weight and keep it off. This can lead to them abandoning the whole weight-loss process.

Losing excess weight doesn’t have to be this kind of nightmare. But it can’t be just a dream either. Having a realistic weight loss goal is certainly not too much to ask.

Posted by Maria's Last Diet on Sunday, July 24, 2011 in Goals/Planning/Intentions/Expectations | Permalink | TrackBack (0)

Unable to Lose Weight? Can’t Stick to a Diet? Be creative.

by Maria's Last Diet

Reducing your weight if you’re an overweight woman is a creative act. Just to stick to a diet successfully requires a lot of ingenuity because you have a lot to do battle with. But too many battles can lead to diet failure. If sticking to a diet takes too much out of you, you won’t want to sustain the effort.

“No, I can’t have that—or else.” “I have to make sure I _________.” “Oh, no. I did it again, when I didn’t mean to.” “I’m not going anywhere.” “I can’t face one more minute of this.”

This is where the creative act comes in. Can you figure out something to do that will avoid battling to stay on your diet? You might not be able to avoid all the battles. So, maybe you can do something to reduce the intensity and frequency of the battles, and stay more comfortably on your diet regimen.

There are people, and you may be one of them, who look for every opportunity to reach their goal. They keep themselves moving forward to the goal by taking this or that chance with themselves. Then there are those who are trying to down-regulate the possibility of “failing”. They are self-protective. They are looking for relief, and they try not to venture into “unprotected” territory.

Guess which one is going to be the more creative, the one who is going to generate insights, ideas, and solutions that take her more easily through the battles of losing some weight. Here's to being creative and keeping yourself moving forward to your goal with every opportunity you have.

Posted by Maria's Last Diet on Saturday, July 23, 2011 in Strategy | Permalink | TrackBack (0)

Food Temptation. It’s a Bitch. What to Do?

by Maria's Last Diet

Can all of the fast foods, delicious-looking food ads, large-size restaurant portions sneak up on you so you give in to temptation? Yes, they can, but only if you are already primed by your personal goals, your own needs, your motivations.

What about more subtle advertising like product placement in a movie? The answer again is yes, but only if you are already primed by your personal goals, your own needs, your motivations.

Yes, you can be tempted by the oh so fattening foods that are out there. But what makes for food temptation is not simply what’s out there. It’s what’s in there—in you—that makes the difference whether you will be tempted in the first place.

It’s a fact that there are some women who lost a lot of weight and kept it off. Their way of overcoming temptation was to work successfully on their personal goals, own needs, and motivations. So—take a page from their book.

Posted by Maria's Last Diet on Friday, July 22, 2011 in Temptation | Permalink | TrackBack (0)

What’s Your Level of Self-Esteem Have to Do With the Weight-Loss Process

by Maria's Last Diet

Your weight-loss psychology is a tricky and complicated business. We all know how important believing in yourself and having self-esteem are for undertaking the weight-loss process. Trying to reduce your weight is definitely a test of whether you feel good enough about yourself. Up and down, in and out, try as you may, try as you might—you’ve got to keep your level of self-esteem in sight.

Onto the scene comes a new form of self-esteem, a pathological form. It’s called defensive self-esteem, and it’s mighty difficult to detect if you’re the one doing the detecting. Defensive self-esteem, you might say, is a first cousin once removed of unrealistic optimism. It has as its core function to protect you from your own feelings of insecurity and boost your evaluation of yourself.

If you are having difficulty losing weight, check yourself out and see if you are operating on truly good self-esteem or is it defensive self-esteem. Remember, there are ways to improve self-esteem, and improving self-esteem might have to be one of your tasks if you’re finding it difficult to lose weight.

Posted by Maria's Last Diet on Thursday, July 21, 2011 in Confidence/Self-Esteem | Permalink | TrackBack (0)

Eating the Right Food and Doing the Right Things for Losing Some Weight

by Maria's Last Diet

Busting myths is one of the ways to get a handle on the weight loss process. Jane Brody's article in the NY Times reported the latest research on weight loss published in The New England Journal of Medicine. It's worth a read (or two) if you're looking for good weight loss facts—the hard-hitting kind of weight loss facts that can set you straight about some of the keys to weight loss.

Posted by Maria's Last Diet on Wednesday, July 20, 2011 in Weight Loss Advice/information | Permalink | TrackBack (0)

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Emotional Overeating and Weight Loss Psychology Are the Real Deal

There Are 3 Levels to the Weight-Loss Process. Don't Get Off at the First.

Energy Matters When It Comes to Losing Some Weight. So Don't Squander It.

What is the Best Way to Lose Weight and Keep It Off for Good?

Need Help to Lose Weight? Try the Opposite of Your Willpower.

A Realistic Weight Loss Goal is Just What the Doctor Ordered

Unable to Lose Weight? Can’t Stick to a Diet? Be creative.

Food Temptation. It’s a Bitch. What to Do?

What’s Your Level of Self-Esteem Have to Do With the Weight-Loss Process

Eating the Right Food and Doing the Right Things for Losing Some Weight

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