Maria's Last Diet:

There are visceral sensations in your stomach. It’s thoughts, about food and eating. It’s physical weakness, dizziness, anxiety, headache, irritability, and inability to concentrate. It is also transient changes in blood glucose, increases in plasma grehlin, motilin, and leptin. It’s the amount of time since your last meal, the sight and smell of food, and the extent to which you like this food. It’s a physiological state and a subjective state that differ from individual to individual. This is a behind the scenes look at hunger.

If it’s true that overweight women don’t give themselves the chance to experience their hunger, then it’s a good bet that letting yourself get hungry is a step towards loss of weight.

Posted by Maria's Last Diet on Monday, August 31, 2015 in Hungry Feelings | Permalink

Is Being Overweight a Psychological Problem? What Do You Think?

by Maria's Last Diet

Psychological problems always take time to work out. There’s no quick fix. No promise that the solution will be easy. Why? Psychological problems are usually there for a reason; they represent an important goal of yours. Psychological problems are usually longstanding with a pattern of behavior that is set and habitual.

Have you ever thought that being overweight is a psychological problem? Let’s see if being overweight meets the criteria: no quick fix, not easy, there for a reason, important goal, longstanding, set and habitual pattern of behavior.

If being overweight is a psychological problem, can you identify what your psychological problem is? Give it a try. See what you come up with. Once you identify the problem that’s where you point your effort.

Posted by Maria's Last Diet on Sunday, August 30, 2015 in Eating/Weight/Diet Problems | Permalink

Can’t Solve a Weight Problem. Listen up.

by Maria's Last Diet

Everyone, but everyone with weight to lose always runs up against a weight problem. Beware of weight problems. They can cause serious discouragement, outright avoidance, and premature quitting.

A common weight problem is not being able to get started on a weight loss regimen. There’s procrastination, which of course is put off for tomorrow what you should be doing today. There’s ambivalence, which is should I or shouldn’t I, and you’re stuck somewhere in the middle. There’s trying not to even think about starting because you don’t want to face what it will take for you to lose weight.

How are you going to solve the problem of not getting started? Well, you could force yourself to start. Or you might plunge right in without giving it a second thought. This is the act before you have a chance to think about it solution. Maybe you try to bribe yourself: “If I start, I’ll reward myself with __________.” You could also turn to punishing yourself if you don’t get started.

If you were to use psychology to solve the weight problem of not getting started, what might you do? Here’s one psychological approach. Since getting started to do something about your weight is the problem you’re facing, why not learn more about the problem you’re having. You could, for instance, set up a pros and cons chart, one with two pros and two cons. The first set of pros and cons would be pros for losing weight and cons for not losing weight. This is the usual form pros and cons take. The second set of pros and cons would be pros for NOT losing weight and cons for Losing Weight. In other words, positives for NOT losing weight and negatives for Losing Weight. If you pay careful attention to this second set of pros and cons, you will pin down exactly what it is that keeps you from starting.

The solution to not starting will now be about focusing your effort on doing something about this second set of pros and cons. Gone will be the need to force yourself to start, bribe yourself, break your ambivalence, and exact punishment if you don’t get started. Psychology is not only the smarter way to go about solving the weight problem of not starting. It is also the best way to get to the heart of your weight problem so you can solve it and move on.

Posted by Maria's Last Diet on Saturday, August 29, 2015 in Eating/Weight/Diet Problems, Psychology | Permalink

Food and Emotions—A New Possibility for Emotional Eaters

by Maria's Last Diet

Emotional eaters take heed! It may not be the emotion that leads to emotional eating. Instead it may be the way you regulate the emotion that results in emotional eating.

If you are an emotional eater, have you checked recently to see how you go about regulating your emotions? Do you, for instance, adjust your emotion to fit the situation? Are you aware of your feelings so you can do something about them? What about being accepting of your emotion(s)? Being accepting is yet another emotion regulating strategy. Can you accept a certain amount of emotional distress if that’s what the circumstance calls for? Do you anticipate how you will feel and do something about it beforehand? Or do you try to regulate your emotion as it is occurring?

It is obvious, isn’t it, that there are many ways to regulate emotion. As an emotional eater, why don’t you see how you go about regulating emotion. And while you’re at it, determine just how effective your emotion regulating strategy is.

Posted by Maria's Last Diet on Wednesday, August 26, 2015 in Emotions and Eating | Permalink

Why Diets Fail

by Maria's Last Diet

It’s for sure that diets fail. Just ask anyone. And, if you want to check this out more scientifically, there are plenty of statistics that support this claim.

Diets are the mainstay of those who try to lose weight. But actually, research on diets shows you can lose weight on any diet. All you have to do is stick with it—stay on the diet, that is.

And the trials and tribulations of sticking with it is a big part of why diets fail. Who can stick with it? Can you? Have you? For how long? Will you stick with it next time? Who knows?

Diets are definitely hard to stick to. There is so much that gets in the way of you sticking to them. You can probably list 10 or more obstacles that can prevent you from staying the course, start to goal weight.

As you can see, what makes a diet work and not fail is you, plain and simple. It is you trying to stick to it who has to make all the personal changes that will make your diet succeed. In fact, these personal changes, like changing your eating habits, being better able to gratify yourself in other ways than with food, and not lifting your mood by binges, are the real movers and shakers when it comes to sticking to a diet. The diet is merely a food plan and as such it has little to do with losing weight other than giving you a guide to adhere to.

So if you lean on your diet too heavily to do your work for you, guess what? This is why diets fail.

Posted by Maria's Last Diet on Monday, August 24, 2015 in Failure | Permalink

Why Is It So Hard to Lose Weight

by Maria's Last Diet

Why is it so hard to lose weight? Is it because…

•   you have to do too much nurturing and you have to refill yourself?
•   there’s too much drudgery in your life and eating is your way of putting some spark back in?
•   you love to eat and nothing makes you feel better than food and eating?
•   weight loss is hard and you don’t do hard?
•   you can’t stay on a diet?
•   you are an emotional eater?
•   you don’t want to make the personal changes that losing weight calls for?
•   you’re always making excuses?

Do you have your very own personal reason why it’s so hard to lose weight?

Posted by Maria's Last Diet on Sunday, August 23, 2015 in Difficult to Lose Weight/Easier Weight Loss | Permalink

Weight Loss Problems and Why You Have to Be an Entrepreneur to Solve them

by Maria's Last Diet

Weight loss is an entrepreneurial undertaking. This is the case because you are trying to create a new you under conditions that are uncertain. What is uncertain is how you will respond and react on a moment-to-moment basis. You will be unsure as to whether you can solve this or that weight loss problem and whether the actions you take will be strong enough or clever enough to overcome a down mood or a bad relationship or little motivation. You can be assured too that your weight loss enterprise will feel the impact of lots of mistakes and outright failure on the way to your weight loss goals. Are you entrepreneur enough for all this?

Posted by Maria's Last Diet on Friday, August 21, 2015 in How to Get There, Problems and Obstacles | Permalink

An Antidote for Weight Loss Frustration—See What You Think

by Maria's Last Diet

Do you expect that when you put in a certain amount of time and effort to lose weight the results will be proportional? But what if change doesn’t take place in a linear fashion? What if loss of weight and changes in eating habits are nonlinear? In other words, a little effort might result in a big change and a big effort might generate only a small change.

Keep these thoughts in mind. They should help you from becoming disappointed when nothing or just a little is happening.

Posted by Maria's Last Diet on Thursday, August 20, 2015 in Changing/Learning | Permalink

Weight Loss Depression. Are You a Candidate?

by Maria's Last Diet

Is your weight right out there where everyone, including you, can see it? You might hide your weight under a big loose blouse over a tighter-fitting tee shirt underneath. But you know there is an overweight woman there and so do other people who see you.

You are desperate to lose weight, and you set about doing just that. After some hard work and quite visible weight loss, you begin to feel moody. You notice your self-esteem is much lower than it has been. Recently you’ve even had days when you’re pretty much down in the dumps, and it has been hard to work on these days. What does this sound like to you? Could it be that you’re depressed?

Why depressed? You just did something you wanted to do—lose weight and get thinner. If you are depressed, why in the world are you feeling this way?

Here’s one answer. Sometimes your weight is your best line of defense. You can always blame it on your weight. For instance, you might think any of the following: “I wish I wasn’t so fat so I’d look better.” “I can’t possibly go out looking so fat.” “If only I was thin, I wouldn’t be so self-conscious.” “Maybe I didn’t get the promotion because I’m so overweight.”

Well, guess what? Some people lose weight and they find that the thinner version of themselves doesn’t measure up either. But now they can no longer blame it on their weight. They have to face their insecurities and shortcomings dead on, no layer of fat to cushion the blows. So this is when weight loss depression can rightfully creep in.

Posted by Maria's Last Diet on Wednesday, August 19, 2015 in Emotions and Eating | Permalink

Diet Mistakes—Do You Make Any of These Four?

by Maria's Last Diet

Dieting is an arduous endeavor. It is tricky. It tests you in all kinds of ways, and you are bound to make mistakes. See if you make one of these mistakes.

1. Jump right in before you’re ready.
Just like anything else you do that is not second nature, preparation is so necessary. For more on getting ready go to the Reading Room on the left-hand side of this blog.

2. Counting on your diet to do what you should be doing.
Your diet is merely a food plan detailing what to eat and how much to eat. Someone has to work this food plan. That someone is you. So don’t count on your diet to do the heavy lifting. This is your job. For more about your job when it comes to dieting, go to the Reading Room on the left-hand side of this blog and check out the relevant categories

3. Not learning from your mistakes.
How many times have you heard “you learn from your mistakes.” Well, it’s true. And it’s certainly the case when your trying to lose weight. If you are dieting, you probably make a very predictable mistake. It’s called a diet cheat. Everyone, but everyone cheats on their diet. But not every dieter learns from her cheats. Learning from your cheats separates the successful from the not successful dieter. If you want to know more about how to profit from cheating on your diet, go to “Cheat on diet” in the Reading Room of this blog.

4. Thinking it’s just about food and eating.
Successful dieting and weight loss, believe it or not, have little to do with eating and food. Women who want to lose weight know that it takes some important changes to their behavior and their thinking, and these changes supersede all else. These changes determine the food you put in your mouth and what and how much you eat. If you concentrate all your energy on food and eating, that will be the tail wagging the dog.

Posted by Maria's Last Diet on Tuesday, August 18, 2015 in Making Mistakes | Permalink

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It’s Impossible to Lose Weight If You Don’t Let Yourself Get Hungry

Is Being Overweight a Psychological Problem? What Do You Think?

Can’t Solve a Weight Problem. Listen up.

Food and Emotions—A New Possibility for Emotional Eaters

Why Diets Fail

Why Is It So Hard to Lose Weight

Weight Loss Problems and Why You Have to Be an Entrepreneur to Solve them

An Antidote for Weight Loss Frustration—See What You Think

Weight Loss Depression. Are You a Candidate?

Diet Mistakes—Do You Make Any of These Four?

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