Maria's Last Diet

by Maria's Last Diet

Are you not losing the weight you want to lose even though you’ve dieted and exercised? Or did you lose weight but gained back the weight you lost? Are you feeling frustrated and disappointed and in need of a solution?

To lose weight and keep lost weight off, you must solve whatever it is that’s making it tough for you. Have you tried and failed to come up with a good solution?

How would you like a guide to help you solve what is making weight loss so tough for you?

What would you want in such a guide?

Please take a moment or two to contribute to the list we are collecting for what women want in a guide to solve their weight loss problems. You can do this by adding a comment to this blog post.

by Maria's Last Diet

If you’re having trouble losing weight, what do you think the problem is?

If you’re unable to maintain your weight loss, have you identified the problem you’re having?

We’re collecting a list of problems that women have with losing weight and keeping lost weight off. Please take a moment or two to contribute to this list. Tell us your problem(s) by emailing us at or by adding your comment to this post.

Thanks.

by Maria's Last Diet

Do you have a problem losing weight?

Do you want to solve this problem right away, the sooner the better?

Did you come up with your own solution that didn’t work?

Would you commit time and effort to a solution that will work?

If you answered yes to all four of these questions, please share your problem and the solution that didn’t work by commenting on this post.

by Maria's Last Diet

Bist du das?

Women characteristically have some initial success with weight loss. This initial success heightens their expectation of total success, which turns out to be an expectation they do not meet. Repeated failure to make it to what they expect renders their expectation unrealistic. Some commonly held unrealistic expectations about losing weight are how fast you will be able to shed those extra pounds, how much weight you can lose overall, the amount of effort you will have to put in, and that losing weight will change your life.

What gets people coming back time and again to make another try at weight loss are the variety of explanations they give themselves for their failure: didn’t try hard enough, didn’t try long enough, didn’t use enough willpower, didn’t exercise enough, the diet was too difficult, it was a tough time in my life. There’s a reason they failed, and next time they will do better.

Further support for the let’s try again with lots of positive feelings and a big dollop of hopeful attitude is a person’s investment in losing weight. Looks, health, social and occupational success are powerful motivators. Even falling far short of your goal but having a little weight loss success might be encouragement enough to try again, especially when wishes for looks, health, social and occupational success are spurring you on.

Women who want to lose weight also take great pleasure in the fact that they decided to do something about their weight problem. Deciding to change or making the effort to start can bring great relief from many different kinds of unpleasant feelings. It can dispel feelings of desperation and hopelessness. It can alleviate self-loathing and stamp out terrible guilt. Doing something, anything, about your weight problem, even if it is just a little thing, can make you feel in control, renew your hope, and make you think you can do it.

If the task of losing your unwanted weight and keeping the weight off permanently is beyond the reach of eighty percent of women as statistics show, then there is indeed something wrongheaded about doing the same thing over and over and not getting the result you want.

by Maria's Last Diet

Et tu?

Libby freely admitted that she isn’t exercising, which was her way of making an excuse for not losing weight. Not exercising is the reason she gave for not losing weight. No exercise, no weight loss. The no-exercise confession was simply a diversion. This is Libby’s way of easily deflecting the fact that she wasn’t doing anything consistent and effective about the calories-in side of the equation; using the no exercise gambit to cover up the not-watching-what-you-eat frame of mind.  

Women like Libby, who eat too much, too often, and too improperly, hop on the same bandwagon and use not exercising, not exercising enough, not exercising properly as excuses for not losing weight.

by Maria's Last Diet

She knew the formula long before she was able to use it. It took her time to get ready. After all, she had built herself solidly into that body. By the time she was forty-six she automatically flew to food at any turn of events, big or small, emotional or physical, slight distress or crisis, morning, noon, or night. Lately she had been noticing this more and she was having flashes of insight into her dedication to this kind of existence. She could see how it was the center of life around which everything else orbited. Far from being discouraged by such a thought, it startled her out of her reverie. It made her think that change was possible.

For Maria, trying to lose weight had always been an obstacle course with a roadblock at every step. What exactly got in her way? To find out, she did a pretty simple thing. She took her journal and began to write a description of the experience of dieting, trying to catch the trouble spots right when they came up.

   excerpt from Breaking Up With Food: Maria’s Last Diet. By Julie North Schwarz and Kenneth Schwarz PhD — a novel of passionate weight loss

by Maria's Last Diet

What would happen if a fairy godmother waved her magic wand and made the daily goals you set for weight loss feel easy to achieve?

Interestingly, it doesn’t take a fairy godmother to pull off such magic. You too have what it takes to make your daily weight loss goals feel easy to accomplish.

But first (uh, oh, there's a catch). (No catch). See if you can identify which daily weight loss goals feel the easiest and most natural for you to work on. Don’t pick goals with activities that would feel too demanding, too strenuous, or too stressful for you. Remember, this is subjective: what feels the least effortless for you. Why subjective when it comes to effort? Because people differ in what motivates them and what is most congruent with how they define themselves. Some people don’t mind training for a long distance race. They find running, no matter what the effort, enjoyable, freeing, and even comfortable.

When your daily weight loss goals feel more effortless, it probably means your goals and the activities helping you reach these goals are more consistent with how you see yourself, who you are in the present moment, and with what motivates you most. This in turn will enable you to feel like you come up against fewer obstacles and feel more satisfied.

by Maria's Last Diet

When you are trying to lose weight, what do you think about making a list of resources to improve your quality of life and to feel better when you are not feeling up to par? What would you put on your personal list? How about some or all of the following: journaling, having fun, ways to relax, strengthening your focus, physical activity, being in touch with family and friends, self-affirming activities, comforting relationships, plenty of sleep, ways to deal more effectively with worries. What else would make it onto your personal list of resources?

After you make your own list of resources, write a description of yourself when you’re feeling well. Whenever you anticipate or experience not feeling well, use one or more of the personal resources on your list to lift you up a notch or two so you can feel well again. Successful weight loss for women depends on maintaining a feeling of wellness and having a good enough quality of life.

by Maria's Last Diet

What are you waiting for? A miraculous diet pill? Genetic engineering. Some marvelous breakthrough?

Why not take a page from the most common form of childhood cancer, acute lymphoblastic leukemia? Acute lymphoblastic leukemia was fatal 80 percent of the time in the 1970s. It is 80 percent cured today. And there were no spectacular medical breakthroughs that brought this about. The advances were made over time by carefully selecting and integrating successful treatments, eliminating ineffective treatments, providing supportive care and follow up to continue and monitor progress and prevent relapse or recurrence.

Can permanent weight loss, which has an 80 percent failure rate today, have a success rate of 80 percent some time in the future? What would it take to identify effective treatments, select and combine treatments if necessary, drop out the ineffective ones, and give the kind of support and follow up needed to maintain the changes?

by Maria's Last Diet

How often in the midst of trying to lose weight have you said, “that’s too hard?” What did you do then? Did you stop trying?

I bet you would have gone ahead and done whatever it was if it was easier to implement and required much less effort. Take sticking to a diet, for instance. If you’ve been rigorously staying on your diet and today you hit a wall and just couldn’t sustain such diligence, what about easing off and making it easier on yourself? Would changing your dieting strategy be all the motivation you need to keep on keeping on and not give up?

Of course, there’s “when the going gets tough, the tough get going.” But not always. With weight loss you can’t always tough it out. Sometimes, when there’s no gas left in the tank to stay on a diet, it’s best to adopt an easier, more comfortable strategy. The fact that you progressed and didn’t quit as a result of going easier on yourself may actually act to increase your diet motivation.