Maria's Last Diet:

What do you think it would be like for you to review the weight loss steps you will take before you actually take them? Would this be helpful to you? Would you be able to anticipate and plan better? Might you come up with some weight loss strategies in this pre-weight loss review that you would not otherwise think of?

What if you took this early review of your weight loss process one step further and actively practiced and explored what you learned you’d be facing when you actively start your weight loss routine? Would exploring and practicing like this make a difference in what the process of weight loss would then be like for you?

Have you tried something like this? Most women don’t. They plunge right into weight loss activities like dieting and exercise without any exploratory preparation. Exploration in advance of the actual weight loss routine is not for everyone. You have to be the kind of person who sees the value of learning and perhaps even mastering before the real event takes place. You will also have to be the kind of person who is interested in trying to find solutions for the challenges your explorations uncover.

What do you think? Is this kind of thorough weight loss preparation something you are willing to try?

Posted by Maria's Last Diet on Sunday, November 30, 2014 in Getting Ready, Goals/Planning/Intentions/Expectations | Permalink | TrackBack (0)

Unable to Lose Weight? Check on the Connection Between Feelings and Food.

by Maria's Last Diet

When you don’t want to think about and experience certain feelings, you might take some type of action to keep these feelings out of your awareness. One type of action you can take under circumstances like this is to eat too much food or eat junk food snacks. The idea behind such an action step is to do something pleasant to offset the threat of what is unpleasant.

If at all possible, try to become aware of what these feelings are that scare you right to food.

Posted by Maria's Last Diet on Saturday, November 29, 2014 in Emotions and Eating | Permalink | TrackBack (0)

Having Trouble Losing Weight? Check Out Your Mental Representations.

by Maria's Last Diet

What kind of mental representations are you carrying around and are these representations conducive for losing unwanted weight?

A mental representation is an image or pattern in your mind of something you previously experienced. In most cases, the image or pattern is not something you’re necessarily aware of, but it is there nonetheless, influencing you.

Let’s suppose, for instance, that when you discuss things with other people, you expect to be criticized. Expecting to be criticized is your mental representation of how people will react to you. You may not be aware of this expectation. You may only be aware of choosing your words carefully and making sure you are supportive of the other person’s ideas so she will think well of you.

What are your mental representations regarding weight loss? Remember, a mental representation is an image or pattern in your mind of something you previously experienced. Try thinking of what you’ve been exposed to and what might have stuck with you?

Posted by Maria's Last Diet on Wednesday, November 26, 2014 in Psychology | Permalink | TrackBack (0)

Look What Can Make You Become Overweight

by Maria's Last Diet

Things aren’t going well for Holly. They haven’t for a long, long time. Yet Holly goes along as if things aren’t as bad as they are.

Holly is 40 to 50 pounds overweight. She has been on many diets, but none of them got her the result she was looking for. Her fervent wish is to be slim and beautiful. She was once slim. When she was a young teenager, Holly had the world in the palm of her hand. She was slim, fit, and pretty; very pretty. Everyone said so.

Slowly over the years Holly began putting on weight. She knew she ate too much and she hated the way she binged. She tried to change, but it never worked. She couldn’t do it. The pounds stayed on and the periods of dieting grew shorter and less effective.

Holly’s situation looks to all the world like Holly has a problem with her weight, which she does. She also has problems with her marriage, with a career that is dissatisfying, is not talking to two of her siblings, and she is constantly getting calls about two of her three children’s behavior and learning problems in school. Yet Holly goes along as if things aren’t as bad as they are.

Posted by Maria's Last Diet on Tuesday, November 25, 2014 in It's Not Just About Food | Permalink | TrackBack (0)

What It Takes Besides Dieting and Exercise to Reduce Your Weight

by Maria's Last Diet

One reason why the results of exercise and dieting are often less than satisfactory is you cannot treat a complex issue with a simple solution. Weight gain is not only due to a pattern of eating or a sedentary lifestyle. The pattern of eating and sedentary lifestyle are the endpoints of a composite of certain thoughts, feelings, goals, motivations, and perhaps even beliefs.

Taking the opportunity to think more deeply and broadly about what is driving your weight-gaining eating is a weight loss activity well worth your while. Identifying central emotional themes, for instance, is a good way to start on a more complex understanding of a weight problem. What are your central emotional themes? Are you in touch with how these central emotional themes affect your thinking, your goals, your feelings, and your motivations? Do you know how this psychological network operating behind the scenes comes to influence your eating behavior?

Yes, there is a lot to the process of weight loss and this requires a more comprehensive approach than exercise and dieting alone.

Posted by Maria's Last Diet on Thursday, November 20, 2014 in It's Not Just About Food | Permalink | TrackBack (0)

Women’s Weight Loss—Diagnosis and Treatment

by Maria's Last Diet

Diagnosis: Overweight

Traditional first line treatment: Exercise and dieting

Revised diagnostic plan: Pay attention to the way you engage in the weight loss process.

Revised first line treatment: Your reactions to the different aspects of the weight loss process are at the heart of the treatment.

Case in point: Let’s say you lose a lot of weight during the first few weeks and then you hit a weight loss plateau. How do you handle the plateau? What is your reaction? Do you remain hopeful? Are you patient? Do you monitor your skill set here by pounds alone? How creative are you in maintaining your weight loss motivation at this juncture? What ways do you come up with for jump-starting your weight loss?

As you can see, the revised first line of treatment has to do with your weight loss psychology, and a very personal psychology it is. The traditional first line treatment of dieting and exercise, while appropriate, is much too cook bookish. It does not take into account those all-important individual matters that stop a person from successful weight loss.

If you are going to have a treatment for losing your unwanted weight that works, really works, then you need a diagnostic approach that will reveal what really needs to be treated.

Posted by Maria's Last Diet on Wednesday, November 19, 2014 in Psychology | Permalink | TrackBack (0)

Do You Know Why You Eat When You Are Not Hungry?

by Maria's Last Diet

Do you think you know yourself? In some ways you certainly do. In other ways, though, you may not know yourself at all. Surprisingly, what prompts you to go to food when you’re not hungry is so often outside your awareness. When you are trying to improve your eating so you can lose weight, these food prompts of which you are unaware become the cornerstone for personal change.

Here’s how it works. Let’s say you go to food when you’re not really hungry. You’re probably well aware of having the desire for food. You’re most likely equally aware of your intention to find the food you want and aware too of the steps you will take to get to the food. It is usually the case, however, that you won’t be aware of what prompted you to start this chain of events?

If you said you just felt like having a large snack or a bit of a binge, that would be true? But what made you feel like eating excess food? You could say too that you always go for a junk food snack of some kind at this time of day. But giving time-of-day as a reason would be hedging your bet. There may be some truth to the fact that your eating was due to time of day. Nevertheless, time of day is most likely a habit formed for the reason you wanted fattening food in the first place, a reason that shall remain nameless. Unless…

Posted by Maria's Last Diet on Tuesday, November 18, 2014 in Priming | Permalink | TrackBack (0)

More About Using Psychology to Lose Weight—Self-Understanding

by Maria's Last Diet

A neglected topic in regard to losing excess weight is self-understanding. Being able to perceive, express, and reflect on your experience as you go through the weight loss process will help you make the personal changes leading to weight loss. Self-observation is definitely a key factor in this undertaking. Some ways to accomplish the self-observation needed to better understand yourself are by questioning, clarifying, and confronting.

Questioning why you did something or are about to do something can put you more in touch with what is making it difficult for you to lose weight, or to start a diet, or to keep lost weight off. Questioning can also stir up your curiosity, which what might get you to look at some aspect of your behavior you hadn’t noticed before.

Clarifying is a way to sharpen your understanding of yourself and why you did what you did or didn’t do what you should have done. You can clarify by simply restating an idea to make it more comprehensible. Or perhaps you can emphasize the emotional aspect of the issue so you can feel more clearly what it is really like for you.

Confronting yourself and the way you are going about something may be what prevents you from spoiling your good weight loss effort. There may be more to what you’re about to do or not do than you thought, and strong confrontation will bring this to your attention. Confronting yourself like this gives you the opportunity to more usefully reflect on your behavior, or your thinking, or feelings rather than letting yourself slide over these matters.

Self-understanding is not usually listed as a weight loss activity. Yet you won’t be able to get rid of your unwanted weight unless you include it.

Posted by Maria's Last Diet on Friday, November 14, 2014 in Self Awareness | Permalink | TrackBack (0)

How You Monitor Weight Loss Progress Makes a Difference

by Maria's Last Diet

One thing you will definitely be involved with when you are hard at work trying to reduce your weight is checking to see how you’re progressing. Assessing the effects of your hard work can take, and should take, a number of different forms. There is, of course, the traditional, “how many pounds have I lost.” What else do you use as a measurement of how you’re doing? You probably use clothing. “I’m down one size.” Or, “ My jeans don’t feel so tight anymore.” Another method of self-evaluation may be how closely you are sticking to your diet.

Here are some other indices of how you are doing that you can also put to use. Take your thinking, for example. How are your thoughts now that you are well into the weight loss process? Do you think less about missing your old fattening food favorites? What are some of the new thoughts that have taken the place of these old thoughts? What about those circumstances that used to send you right to food? Are they still as prevalent? Are you handling them more directly without resorting to eating them away?

There are lots of ways to evaluate how you are doing on your weight loss regimen? In fact, using multiple ways of assessing your weight loss progress is a more certain sign that you are doing all you can to assure eventual permanent weight loss.

Posted by Maria's Last Diet on Thursday, November 13, 2014 in Monitoring/Feedback | Permalink | TrackBack (0)

Being Overweight—How Long Has It Been Going On?

by Maria's Last Diet

How long have you been concerned about being overweight? For most women it is not a matter of months or even a year; it is longer, much longer. During this time you probably have done a lot of wishing and wanting. You intend to do something about your weight, but when it comes right down to it, something gets in the way. There is always (well, maybe not always) something getting in your way. There must be regret, plenty of regret. Is there self-criticism as well? Self-criticism is pretty universal during the long period of being overweight and being unable to do much about your weight, except gain it and maintain it.

Did you ask yourself why you endure such a long and troublesome period in your life? You must have your reasons. Do you know them?

If you are still putting up with being overweight, take a look and see why. No one puts up with something for so long unless it has some important value to her. Knowing why you are living with being overweight is a significant first step to doing something about it.

Posted by Maria's Last Diet on Wednesday, November 12, 2014 in Difficult to Lose Weight/Easier Weight Loss | Permalink | TrackBack (0)

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Weight Loss Problems Can Be Solved by Weight Loss Planning and Preparation

Unable to Lose Weight? Check on the Connection Between Feelings and Food.

Having Trouble Losing Weight? Check Out Your Mental Representations.

Look What Can Make You Become Overweight

What It Takes Besides Dieting and Exercise to Reduce Your Weight

Women’s Weight Loss—Diagnosis and Treatment

Do You Know Why You Eat When You Are Not Hungry?

More About Using Psychology to Lose Weight—Self-Understanding

How You Monitor Weight Loss Progress Makes a Difference

Being Overweight—How Long Has It Been Going On?

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