Maria's Last Diet

by Maria's Last Diet

What are the four main problems women have when they want to lose weight?

            Starting

            Sticking to it

            Keeping the lost weight off

            Solving the personal issues that are preventing weight loss

If you need help with any of these problems, please go to The Reading Room, the White Paper, and Articles for women who can’t lose weight. All are in the left-hand column of this blog at MariasLastDiet.com. Or, if you want to have an actual book or an e-book to read through and refer to, check out the weight loss books for women section on the right-hand side of this blog.

If you need more specific help, email us at and we’ll point you in the right direction.

by Maria's Last Diet

For every weight loss problem, there's a solution.

What's making it tough for you to lose weight? Is it that you can't stick to a diet. Can't start a diet? Eat when upset? Binge? Don't like dieting? Not enough motivation? Gain weight back?

Did you try to solve the problem you're having? Did your solution work?

If not, check out the posts in the Reading Room on the left hand side of this blog. See if one of these posts is the right one for the problem you're having.

by Maria's Last Diet

Is this you, too?

Libby had gone on diets most of her adult life—and skillions of exercise routines, too—but only successfully losing weight on crash diets—and crazy, crash exercise like biking or running for miles on end. Nothing, not even gaining back all the weight she crash-dieted and crash-exercised herself out of deterred her from wanting to do it all over again and again and again. Believing in diets is not bad in itself. Diets aren’t bad when they’re used right.

“I was heavy through high school, and then in my twenties I went on a crash diet—I knew I shouldn’t do it, crash diet I mean. Along with the diet, I rode my bike vigorously for at least 20 miles a day. I lost 50 pounds. I was in the best shape of my life.” Libby talked with great pride. Then she segued into “That was then, this is now, and I’m fat again, much fatter than ever. If only I could do what I did then.”

More than anything, Libby wanted to lose her weight through diet and exercise. But even though she lost weight lots of times previously, she gained the weight back again with a vengeance. Now she was her heaviest ever, and she just broke yet another diet she was on.

Libby was desperate to lose weight, but that wasn’t happening. The way she foreclosed the possibility of trying a new approach would most likely guarantee that losing all her excess weight would never happen. A dieter’s false hope for Libby was better than no hope, and so diet and exercise it was once more.

by Maria's Last Diet

What else do you battle when you battle weight? You certainly battle attacks on the self for weighing too much, for looking like you do, for being unable to lose weight. And then there is guilt. Feeling guilty that you overate yet again or that you snuck some comfort food while trying to get yourself to diet. Guilt, you might say, is a battle-and-a-half.

When you battle with your weight, you battle a wide variety of self-defeating behavior. Self-defeating behavior is what makes or breaks weight loss, and as such, it should be at the forefront of your battle with weight.

by Maria's Last Diet

Because losing weight can be hard, because it’s difficult to see at times just what is going wrong, many women blame the diet itself for any difficulties they have sticking to it. Often though, women go from diet to diet looking for something that a diet just doesn’t provide. It certainly is important to go on a diet that is compatible with your lifestyle. Many diets are good, but it is what goes on within the dieter that counts most.

Before you chuck your diet

1. Try to describe the exact time when you felt like the diet stopped working for you.

2. Complete this thought: This diet isn’t working for me because…
 
3. Write a detailed description of the last two diets you went on, how they worked out, their good parts and bad parts.

4. Write out your answer to this: Is it the diet that isn’t working or is it what I’m doing that isn’t working?

5. Complete the following: If I were to create the perfect diet for me, it would be…

6. Describe what you really liked about this diet at first.

   excerpt from   How to Break the First Big Rule of Women Who Stay Fat. By Julie North Schwarz and Kenneth Schwarz PhD

by Maria's Last Diet

Should being overweight or obese be considered a chronic condition? A chronic medical condition like diabetes, dyslipidemia, or multiple sclerosis is a condition that lasts a long time, maybe even for a person’s whole lifetime. Being overweight or obese usually lasts a long time, certainly over the three-month minimum set for chronic conditions by the U.S. National Center for Health Statistics. Yet being overweight or obese is usually considered a contributing factor to a chronic condition and not the chronic condition itself.

If obesity or overweight is a chronic condition, here are some things you must consider. You will have to be ready for the long haul. You will need to develop what it will take for you to keep on keeping on. Problem solving is a must so you can deal with obstacles you encounter, making sure these obstacles don’t deter you from your goal or cause you to give up entirely. Among all else, you’ll have to learn how to maintain progress and prevent relapse.

Can you do all of this? You probably can’t at first. It’s best then to start with an action plan that is short-term. Make a plan that is well within your grasp. Nothing fancy. Nothing unrealistic. Make a very specific plan, one that you are confident of keeping. For losing weight, select some small goals that you can bring about in a day, maybe two days, or a week, if you are confident a week is within your grasp. Just to be sure you are being realistically confident, you can gage your confidence by a 0 to 10 point scale, where 0 is having no confidence to 10, you are totally confident. Apply this confidence measure, for example, to a plan where you will eat only at meal times with no snacks at other times on Monday and Tuesday of this week. See how this works for you and then go on from there.

If being overweight or being obese is a chronic condition, it doesn’t mean it has to stay a chronic condition. For more information on how to be a chronic overweight or obesity buster, please go to The Reading Room and the White Paper, both of which are in the left-hand column of this blog at MariasLastDiet.com. Or, if you want to have an actual book or an e-book to read through and refer to, check out the weight loss books for women section on the right-hand side of this blog.

If you need more specific help, email us at and we’ll point you in the right direction.

by Maria's Last Diet

What makes you eat too much or eat fattening foods when you’re not hungry?

Check off the reason(s).

     Habit  _____
     Emotions _____
     Relationships _____
     Greediness _____
     Self-Criticism _____
     My Genes _____
     Lack of Confidence _____
     Anxiety _____
     Depressed Mood _____
     Disparaging remark by other person _____
     Medical Condition _____
     Worry _____
     Celebrating _____
     Low Self-Esteem _____
     Tiredness _____
     Feeling Elated _____
     Obesogenic Environment _____
     Disappointed _____
     Bored _____
     Feeling Hopeless _____
     My History With Food _____
     Anger _____
     TV Watching _____
     Self-Soothing _____
     Not Feeling Connected _____

Did I miss any personal reason you have for eating too much or eating fattening foods when you’re not hungry? If so, add it to the list.

by Maria's Last Diet

How do you eat to lose weight?

1. Do you avoid and refuse calorie-rich foods you really want? Do you rigorously count calories? Are you eating diet food to make sure you don’t gain weight? Is skipping meals part of how you go about losing weight?

2.  Or—do you take smaller portions? Are you especially conscious of the food you are eating? Do you think of your weight when you are choosing what foods to eat? Will you intentionally eat less at the next meal if you ate too much during your last meal? Will you eat healthier to compensate for eating unhealthy food at a previous meal?

3.  Or—do you eat more in tune with your hunger and fullness signals? If you are less hungry, do you eat less? When you are full, do you eat less? Do you choose food to eat based on how satisfying and healthy it is? Are you able to eat to lose weight without dividing food into good food and bad food categories?

What’s your way of eating to lose weight? Is it number 1, 2, or 3, or some combination of each of these?

by Maria's Last Diet

Are secrets worth keeping and defending?

   There are secret wishes and hopes and plans.

   There is secret eating.

   There are feelings kept secret.

   There are actions too secret to speak about.

   There is a secret self that no one must know.

   There is a secret life of food.

Are secrets worth keeping and defending?

by Maria's Last Diet

Do you know someone who is overweight yet fails to recognize she is overweight? Okay, so you can see what will most likely happen here. If someone doesn’t identify herself as being overweight, she is probably at risk for gaining more weight.

What happens, though, with the woman who perceives herself as being overweight, whether she actually is overweight or not? Curiously, you would think she would be less at risk for gaining weight than someone who doesn’t see herself as being overweight. However…

Research reported in the International Journal of Obesity found that perceiving yourself as being overweight actually presented an increased risk of future weight gain.

What’s been your experience?