Maria's Last Diet

by Maria's Last Diet

Who have you talked to lately about your unwanted weight? Was it a friend, a family member, a co-worker, or your doctor? If you did talk to someone about weighing too much, how did the talk go? Were you put off by anything the other person did or said? For instance, was the other person a good listener or did she say what she thought without hearing what you wanted to say? Did you feel embarrassed or annoyed by the other person’s use of terms to describe your weight that seemed too derogatory to you, like “fat” or “obese” or “large”? Or did you feel comforted when the other person called it your “weight problem” or “weight gain”?

Being overweight might, on the other hand, be something you don’t talk about with anyone. You keep your thoughts and feelings about your unwanted weight to yourself. You keep it a private, very personal matter that will never see the light of day until you lose a lot of weight and reach your weight loss goal. Then and only then will it be okay to bring up the subject of your weight.

Weight loss support, though, is an important factor in keeping the promise to yourself to stick to your weight loss routine so you can shed those extra pounds. Research clearly shows that the support of a family member, friend, weight loss buddy, and even your doctor can make the difference between unsuccessful and successful weight loss.

by Maria's Last Diet

The mood you’re in affects everything you do. It bears on whether you process what’s going on with you by focusing on relevant versus irrelevant information. Your mood determines whether you can be creative, global, flexible, and systematic in your thinking, problem solving, and action taking. Connections between ways to accomplish things, between thoughts and feelings, between plans and strategies, and between various tasks are also determined by your mood.

It’s no wonder that the weight loss steps you want to take are not always possible when your mood isn’t supportive. This is one good reason to work as hard on your mood as you do on dieting and exercise.

by Maria's Last Diet

Interestingly, one of the biggest reasons people cite for dropping out of psychotherapy is insufficient therapist support. Do you think the high drop out rate for dieting and exercise to lose excess weight is also caused by insufficient support?

The research shows that the single biggest factor for weight loss maintenance, that’s keeping the weight off once you’ve lost it, is continuing support—from a program or a weight loss counselor. Research shows too that just a supportive relationship from a partner or friend, especially if that partner or friend loses weight right along with you, enables you to also lose weight.

There are two other forms of support that, if beefed up or done right, might keep you in the weight loss hunt and prevent dropping out. They are self-help materials and being supportive of yourself.

What’s been your experience with getting support for your weight loss efforts?

by Maria's Last Diet

In psychotherapy an important experience for the patient or client is having a therapist who is empathetic. Therapeutic empathy can make the difference between a successful therapy outcome and an unsuccessful therapy outcome.

Could empathy be one of the keys to you losing your unwanted weight too? Would it help if someone deeply understood you and used this understanding to intervene in ways that were therapeutic for you? Is there such a person in your life? It might be a family member or a good friend; or it could even be you.

Let’s concentrate on you being the one who provides the empathy, the understanding, the emotional acceptance, and acts therapeutically toward yourself. What would that be like? Have you tried being especially empathetic with yourself?

Empathy from another person has the effect of regulating your emotions, which in turn lays the groundwork for personal change. Being understood on an emotional level cuts out emotional reactions like frustration and disappointment, hopelessness and anger, all of which upset the applecart when you are trying to get yourself in a good emotional position to learn new ways.

Being empathetic with yourself in what you are feeling and what you are going through means that you are capable of being in touch with your feelings without being defensive, reactive, harsh and critical, anxious, or disappointed. You can stay right with yourself no matter how you are feeling, and this can pave the way to make your empathic response into a progressive weight-loss step.

by Maria's Last Diet

    Maria didn’t have to take that next step. Wendy was already in tears, and Maria reached out and held her. Wendy nestled into Maria, and Maria put her cheek full against her friend’s face. They stayed there for a long time, neither of them speaking. Wendy’s sobs eventually trailed off into short bursts of catching her breath while she tried to stifle her crying. Maria didn’t know what Wendy’s sadness and holding her would lead to. She stayed with it trustingly, like mother and child, friend to friend.

    Maria left Wendy that day. Both women were all smiles. Wendy had gotten past the rough patch because of Maria. And they were friends, friends like never before. They had hugged many times in their friendship; they had even cried together before. Somehow this was different—for both of them. Maria knew it. Wendy knew it. They had met on the battlefield of weight, and were not blown away by what they had discovered.

    Wendy started to lose the weight shortly after her talk with Maria, and she was keeping it off. She and Maria talked each week as usual, only it wasn’t about the weight issue any more, it was about all the things they always said to each other.

excerpt from a new book in the Symmetry Press series —Weight-Loss Books for Women ~ Using Psychology to Lose Weight ~ to be published later this year

by Maria's Last Diet

When you are working at reducing your weight, do you do it pretty much by yourself, or do you look for support?

Psychology research shows that supportive relationships can protect us and motivate us. Losing unwanted weight with a partner, for instance, can increase our adherence to the weight-loss process as well as make us have more success in shedding those extra pounds.

When you’re working hard at reducing your weight, you may want different kinds of support. You may want support for your feelings, someone to back you up when it comes to how and what you are feeling. You may also want advice and help in thinking about which weight-loss steps come next or how to get more motivation for losing weight. What if you want someone to take over some of the day-to- day load, so you don’t deplete your energy like you’ve done so many times in the past, and then given up and stopped losing weight? This may be the kind of support that makes all the difference in the world. Then, too, there is just the feeling of belonging. That can be very supportive, especially when you are in the process of giving up your old identity of being a fat woman or being too chubby, or however you think of yourself.  

by Maria's Last Diet

Have you ever wanted a weight-loss coach, someone who could tell you what to do to lose weight and keep it off?

What kind of a weight-loss coach would you want? Would it be someone who yells at you when you make the wrong move? The tough love approach. Is that what you think you need? Or, could it be someone who is more of a player’s coach? In that case, more sympathetic, more of a gentle motivator, more a teacher than a task master.

Most women don’t have a weight-loss coach. So you have to be your own coach. That works, but only if you don’t raise your expectations about having negative experiences and negative expectations about losing your unwanted weight. 

There are, however, going to be adverse events along the way. These need to be anticipated and planned for. It is in how you present these things to yourself that will make the difference in how you perceive them. For example, the way you explain to yourself the necessity of not eating sweets when you first start dieting makes a big difference in the way you perceive your first cheat. “If you eat sweets, you’ll ruin your diet.” “If you eat sweets at the outset, that’s only natural. You can go right back on your diet again. Don’t worry.” See the difference?

They say that coaching is an art. True. True. But where there is science to lean on, coaching also takes what it can from science. And science says that “stimuli that would never normally produce pain began to do so after verbal suggestion” that the stimuli would indeed produce pain.

The take-away message is clear. Be the kind of weight-loss coach who makes you feel as comfortable as you can in facing the adversities of weight loss. In other words, be very careful with how you frame your weight-loss instructions to yourself.

by Maria's Last Diet

In therapy, one thing that both therapist and patient count on having is a good alliance. Therapeutic alliance is essentially how well the two people get along and cooperate with one another as they go about their therapeutic work together.

The idea of therapeutic alliance can certainly be lifted and used when you are working out something with yourself as well. In other words, how well do you get along with yourself when you are trying to lose weight and keep it off?

Can you work well with yourself despite the ups and downs of the weight loss process? How, for instance, do you handle the goals and tasks involved in losing a lot of weight? Are you impatient with yourself? Are you able to show yourself respect and empathy when you are trying to make a big change in your life? Do you select approaches to the process of weight loss that are in keeping with who you are and where you are right now?

In a therapeutic alliance, even with yourself, the working relationship is one in which you, the person seeking to change, can feel safe and supported. There will, of course, be rough times—ruptures in the alliance. These ruptures will need to be addressed and repaired. A temporary misalliance doesn’t have to mean that all is lost. In fact, it is often the case that you feel at your best when you are able to repair a ruptured relationship.

It might sound odd to you, this idea of you having a strong, working therapeutic relationship with yourself. But, if you think of it, you have often been your own caretaker, your own motivator, your own pathfinder. In these ways, you have been like a therapist to yourself. And when you attempt big changes like losing unwanted weight and then permanent weight loss, you need this kind of therapeutic alliance most.

by Maria's Last Diet

Are your supporters really supportive?

If so, your intrinsic motivation to lose weight will get a big boost.

Psychology research has shown that when other people in your life acknowledge and approve of your thoughts and feelings, you find it easier and more comfortable to:

• Take the initiative
• Regulate yourself
• Make long-term personal changes
• Master necessary tasks
• Persist in behavior needed to reach goal

For easier and surer weight-loss success and weight-loss maintenance, surround yourself with the most supportive people you can find.