Maria's Last Diet

by Maria's Last Diet

Diets. Diets. Diets. Which diet is best? Which one will help most with weight loss? Which will make you feel full and satisfied? Does it make a difference whether the diet is low fat, high carbohydrate or high protein, low carbohydrate? No, according to research reported in The New England Journal of Medicine (“Comparison of Weight-Loss Diets with Different Compositions of Fat, Protein, and Carbohydrates”). No, too, according to research published years before in the journal Metabolism (“Calories Do Count").

What is best is not the diet. It’s adherence, adherence, adherence to any reduced calorie diet.

by Maria's Last Diet

Losing weight is a process where you replace old eating behavior with new eating behavior. If you think of it, these behavior changes always take place within a certain context.

Most likely, at first, the context for change is in your own home. The context might also be one in which you got rid of any foods, which would have tempted you into old eating behavior. Have you found too that it helps to confine your eating to mealtimes and even to the same eating space, the kitchen or the dining room, rather than the family room where not long ago you nibbled while you watched TV?

You can tell that context matters when the old weight-gaining behaviors come threatening when you eat out, go to a dinner party, or just go over to a friend’s house. The same might be true when you are not as vigilant about having tempting weight-gaining food in your pantry as you did a week or two ago or as alert when you loosen the restrictions on where you eat when you’re home.

Context is definitely a factor in behavior change. But there’s context and then there’s context. There are contexts like your kitchen and your pantry that are obviously tangible for you. But there are also powerful emotional contexts that are equally 'tangible.' These are contexts that you create or carry around with you, And there are those emotional contexts that others create and you have to deal with. Emotional contexts like their more obviously tangible cousins strongly influence the reappearance of old eating behaviors that interfere with the replacement of these old behaviors by new weight-losing ones?

So to be prepared is not to expect that just because you’re able to replace old behavior with new behavior in one context, you can replace old behavior with new behavior in all contexts. And remember too that context does not only mean an external setting like a room or a restaurant. Context also very definitely refers to your emotional states and the states of others, states like low self-esteem, disapproval, excessive worry, regret, envy, and many more.

by Maria's Last Diet

A Canadian research study to be reported in the January 2016 issue of the scientific journal Appetite says definitely you are not. Of the 5790 foods in 40 different categories of foods studied, more than half were not significantly lower in calories and fat than comparable products without fat claims.

So what does this tell you? You may want to believe your doing what will help you lose weight. But it may only be that you fell for the claim.

by Maria's Last Diet

FYI — Eating away from home, as you know, is dangerous to your intention when you want to lose weight. But did you know that the proportion of daily energy in American diets from eating out increased from 18% in 1977-1978 to 32% in 2005-2008?

FWL (for weight loss)­ — Hang on tighter to your intention to lose weight by eating at home as much as you can.

AFD (another form of deprivation) — Dieting is definitely a case of “doing without.” So not only will you have to do without your old weight-gaining comfort foods and snacks for weight loss success, you will also have to do without eating away from home so much.

FAQ — Is all this worth it?

IMNSHO (in my not so humble opinion) — It is!

by Maria's Last Diet

How much impact does your attitude have on each and every thing you do to lose unwanted weight? Does your attitude inlfuence whether you like what you’re about to do or dislike it?  As you can imagine, if you like something, you will probably approach it with good motivation. What you dislike, however, you will presumably try to avoid or at least do it halfheartedly.   

If by attitude we are talking about a momentary frame of mind, that’s one thing. But attitudes can also be dispositional. In other words, an attitude can be the result of a rather fixed personality trait and you are disposed to think or act in a certain way. For example, are you inclined to see acting reasonably as being preferable to being emotional? If you have a longstanding preference for something like this, you have developed an attitude about it.

Can you tell what your attitude is to each and every thing you have to do to lose your excess weight? It will be a great help to you to become aware of your attitudes. You may have to change some of them right along with your weight if you hope to achieve successful weight loss.

by Maria's Last Diet

There are a number of ways you can go about reducing your weight. The most common, of course, is going on a diet. Your diet could be a commercial diet easily available through a book or a diet program. Or the diet you go on could be one you make up yourself. A diet, as you know, is really a food plan, a guide for what to eat and how much to eat in order to lose your unwanted weight. If following a formal food plan is not your thing, you could reduce the size of your portions, which is another common and less formal method for weight loss.

Let’s talk more about portion size, since cutting down on portion size is something all people who want to lose weight think of doing. First off, what is your usual portion size, the one you make for yourself or the one you get at home? If it is a large portion, can you think what it would be like for you to change the standard from large to smaller portion? What would it be like? Would you feel you were depriving yourself or helping yourself (to lose weight)? What if you created a smaller portion that wouldn’t emphasize its difference from your old larger portion. You can do this by not serving a smaller portion on the same old large plate you used for the larger portion. By using a smaller plate with a smaller portion you wouldn’t be emphasizing what you’re missing. Because of the good fit, smaller portion with smaller plate, the look would signify that the portion size is just right.   

If you’re going to try out the smaller portion weight loss method, try buying food in smaller portions as well. This technique is similar to that of limiting temptations, especially in the beginning when you are switching over from the old way to the new way and the old way might still be dominant. People do this when they quit smoking, for example. They don’t keep cigarettes at home or in their cars. They try not to buy cigarettes for fear they will be too easily tempted. Dieters use this same out-of-sight, out-of-mind strategy when they don’t keep potato chips, cake, or candy around.

What do you think? Could smaller portion size be a viable way for you to lose weight? If so, what would your weight loss psychology be regarding portion size?

by Maria's Last Diet

What makes for successful weight loss? First, let’s define successful weight loss as permanent weight loss. This means you lose weight and you keep the weight off, period.

Here’s what the weight loss research sets out as important assets for achieving successful weight loss. You are the kind of person who starts losing unwanted weight early in the weight loss process. You lead an active life with lots of physical activity and little TV watching. You eat less food and you choose healthy foods rather than calorie-dense foods. You monitor your eating behavior closely and carefully. You don’t snack very much. You rebound nicely from diet cheats and use these cheats as learning experiences. To achieve all of this, you use flexible rather than rigid controls.

Your emotional stability is good and you function well in your daily life. Your life is generally stable. You are free from depression. You are able to handle stresses in your life so they are less affecting. You function for the most part independently, although you are open to support and use support when you need it.

Whew! Do you really need to be so picture perfect in order to lose weight? What have you found to be the case?

by Maria's Last Diet

One of the things that happens when you are determined to do something about your unwanted weight is you lose some of your freedom. Right in the thinking or planning stages you become aware that by taking action you will no longer be free like you have been. As a result, you could very well find yourself attracted to other alternatives rather than go ahead and begin your weight loss routine. Or you might look for ways to get back what you are about to lose.

It’s best if you can understand your strong reaction to the loss of freedom and do what you can not to limit your freedom even further. In other words, don’t put more pressure on yourself to go ahead despite the loss of freedom. See if you can find a more self-compassionate way of proceeding.

by Maria's Last Diet

Do you know that how full you are does not necessarily determine the size of the meal you eat? You would think that fullness would be the natural way to tell yourself you ate enough. There’s another, maybe more natural way you go about regulating the size of your meal. It’s all in your pre-meal planning.

It turns out you, along with most people, are highly proficient at gauging just how full you will get from different foods and you take this estimate into consideration when you plan your meal. From countless times doing this, you learn how much food and what kind of food to put on your plate for the level of fullness you are seeking.

Losing your unwanted weight, then, starts with meal planning and not with what you put in your mouth. 

by Maria's Last Diet

Homeostasis, what is it? It is a relative state of equilibrium. Medically, homeostasis is a relatively stable internal state of such physiological conditions as body temperature or the pH of blood. Psychologically speaking, homeostasis is a stable psychological state you try to maintain under various psychological pressures.

It is no secret that eating too much food and eating too many fattening foods is a way to establish this all-too-needed psychological homeostasis. Weight-gaining eating is a way to create the equilibrium you need to feel okay, calm, confident, in stable mood, and emotionally satisfied. The disturbances to your psychological equilibrium disappear or at least appear less important when you use food and eating and weight to rid yourself of these disturbances and to maintain a stable state.

The only hitch to this weight-gaining, weight-maintaining way of achieving psychological homeostasis is the backlash that comes from how upset you get with yourself for using this method to feel stable. Yes, you regain your stable state from the rush of too many calories, but you lose your stability soon after to disappointment and self-criticism, maybe even self-loathing, for choosing this particular method of homeostatic regulation.