Maria's Last Diet

by Maria's Last Diet

Keep in mind that behavior is always multiply determined. There is not just one motive or one goal that governs behavior or mindset. So don’t look for a single cause for being overweight and staying that way. You may find what you think is the cause, but you will soon see that for women who can’t lose weight the single cause theory doesn’t work. In fact, it’s so hard to lose weight because there are multiple causes that get intertwined. So make sure to always look for multiple causes.

Of course, the most immediate causes are overeating or eating fattening food. But they don’t count. You can’t cite them as causes because they’re the behaviors that are being caused. You have to discover the psychological reasons that propelled you to overeat and indulge in fattening food? Remember, though, to look for multiple causes.

For example, food takes away bad feelings. But it also simultaneously might make you feel more able. And then, too, it might have been the way you soothed yourself all through elementary school and high school, and you’re still overeating to soothe yourself. Overeating may be your way of rebelling against strict rules or too much emphasis on looking right or looking sexy.

Everyone has their very own psychological reasons for eating too much or eating too many fattening foods. What are yours? And remember to look for multiple causes.

by Maria's Last Diet

Isn’t it strange? Women gain all this weight and don’t know why. The psychology of weight gain is such that the end product, too much weight, is disconnected from the original motives for gaining weight in the first place.

Check this out for yourself if you don’t believe me. If you’re a woman and you’re overweight, what was your motivation for gaining weight in the first place? And please don’t say you were hungry or you love food. You can be hungry and love food and not gain weight to the point that you become overweight. Also please don’t say your motivation was that you ate for emotional reasons without citing the original motivation for eating over your emotions.

In other words, how did you start down this path to being overweight? What prompted you to turn to eating too much food and/or eating too many fattening foods? Do you know? Original motivation, although no longer apparent, is what has sent you down this chain of events. While many might argue the case differently, it’s always in your best interest to interrupt the chain of events at its source.

by Maria's Last Diet

What is it that makes a woman eat like there’s no tomorrow? Check out her backstory and you’ll find out. Here’s an example of the kind of backstory that I’m talking about.

A woman in her thirties, a wife and mother, had low self-esteem since she was a child. She remembered her self-esteem issues having to do with thinking she wasn’t good enough in many different respects. She was self-conscious, felt she stuck out like a sore thumb, and was convinced since age eight that she was too fat. This quite beautiful and very thoughtful woman was habitually critical of herself from childhood to adulthood. There was always something she did or didn’t do that she would criticize herself for. Her eating fell into this same category of something with which she could disparage herself.

What was this woman’s motive for such self-condemnation? The woman didn’t realize that the catalyst for having such a hurtfully, negative outlook had to do with her mother getting away from her constantly, the mother leaving the daughter to enhance her own life rather than “be there” for her daughter.

Overeating and snacking on fattening foods was this woman’s way of giving herself yet another reason for attacking herself and for feeling depressed about herself. Her focus on her weight, her body shape, and her shortcomings protected her from being aware of her mother’s repeated desertion. She didn’t want to think of her mother like this. The woman wanted to think of her mother as “being there” for her.

by Maria's Last Diet

What is your dieting made of? Without a doubt you’re going to think first of the diet food you’re eating. You may probably include in your thinking how many calories, or the fat content, or amount of carbs, or whatever your particular diet preference is.

But what about all the non-food aspects of dieting? You can start with wishes and desires. Add expectations. What about intentions? Then there is implementing your intentions in order to make your wishes, desires, and expectations come true. There are habits to break and new habits to form. There are worries, doubts, losses of confidence, anxious moments, self-criticisms, and facing failures.

In a word, there’s diet psychology, which as you can plainly see is the lion’s share of what your dieting is made of.

by Maria's Last Diet

There is nothing about personality, methods of coping, being depressed, or being excessively anxious that is characteristically associated with or is cited as a cause of being overweight. This is what the psychology research shows.

Now take anorexia nervosa, the eating disorder where you become pathologically thin yet you misperceive yourself as fat. Here the psychological research identifies a clear confluence of symptoms that make up the disorder. Roughly, they are conflicts about development, faulty family functioning, and excessive anxiety.

Why is there a distinct set of psychological symptoms for the abnormally underweight but not the abnormally overweight? Are we to conclude that being abnormally underweight is abnormal and being abnormally overweight is normal?

How can it be that seriously underweight is psychopathological and seriously overweight is accepted as a physical condition with nothing psychopathological about it?

by Maria's Last Diet

Are you a know-it-all about dieting, diets, and weight loss? Have you been there done that before and you act like an expert despite the fact that you aren’t one? If so, you are in danger of being closed-minded and not open to alternatives. You can see the downside of such closed-mindedness for losing weight, can’t you?

Why a know-it-all? Why closed-minded? Could it be that without holding on tightly to prior opinions, inflexible beliefs, and predictable ways you would feel insecure and anxious?

How to fix this state of affairs? Try being open-minded, more flexible in the weight loss steps you’re willing to attempt. To make this change, though, you’ll probably have to also work on your insecurities.

by Maria's Last Diet

Are excess weight and weight loss physical? Putting on and taking off pounds are certainly the epitome of a physical process. Expanded waist lines, jiggly fat here and there, outfits that no longer fit. Lose weight, weigh less, clothes fit, more energy. Definitely physical.

But wait. What about the psychological part? Ate too much to lift mood. Needed a reward. Couldn’t stop myself. Eating out of control. Just couldn’t resist. Took stock, made a commitment, followed through, found substitute rewards, took control. Now shedding those extra pounds. Definitely psychological.