Losing weight is one thing, and losing it sustainably is another. Shedding a few pounds is no great trick for most women: the problem is keeping them off. For an overweight woman the only real, long term solution is to make changes in her lifestyle that she can live with. Here are some tips to help you avoid the pitfalls of unbearability.
Tip 1: The second bite of chocolate tastes exactly like the first.
If you’re the type who feels compelled to finish the chocolate bar, try this mind trick. Ask yourself this. How is the second bite of chocolate different from the first bite?
Then ask yourself this: What do you gain in experience by eating a second row, then a third, until the chocolate bar is gone? Really think about that.
The first bite takes you into a new realm of taste. Even if you swig it down with coffee, that chocolaty flavor will stay in your mouth for a while. Further bites do not take you to another level of taste. Moreover, finishing the bar may leave you not only a little heavier but also frustrated and angry at yourself.
You can lose weight and sustain the loss without forgoing sweets entirely, simply by adopting sensible moderation. Not every meal has to end in dessert. Make your treats just that, treats, not routine.
Tip 2: Don’t skip breakfast. Or other meals
You drink a coffee, it slightly suppresses your appetite, chug down a glass of water to rehydrate yourself from the caffeine, and feel primed to start the day, without breakfast. With black coffee containing no more than one or two calories, you figure your abstinence from food is a net weight loss.
By mid-morning, ten to one you’re facing a donut and suspect that a second or third coffee will give you the jitters.
Skipping meals and winding up hungry is a good way to make bad food decisions. There’s also the fact that the coffee and water may give you a brief boost but they’re no substitute for actual nutrition.
Tip 3: Never shop on an empty stomach.
Hunger in the supermarket is a recipe for bad food choices. The starving will eat anything and the hungry will buy anything – with your stomach rumbling at the store, suddenly a packet of chocolate-covered squid chips looks good. If you shop on a full stomach you’re more likely to choose actual food you could use in the house based on a sensible diet, and virtuously leave the junk food behind.
Tip 4: Chew.
Don’t gorge your food. Savor each bite and chew, which is good for digestion, and your thighs too, because you’ll be likely to eat less. Don’t eat in front of the TV or while you’re surfing the Internet, because these activities reduce your awareness of your meal. You’re more likely to realize you’ve eaten enough if you consume the meal in a more leisurely fashion. And finishing everything on your plate like we were taught isn’t really going to help anybody in need somewhere else. If there’s enough left over, store it for later and if there isn’t, throw it away.
Tip 5: It’s not a competition.
Smile at the woman who proudly pats her post-natal six-pack and tells you she was back to normal in a week. Don’t let it get to you. Everybody has her own metabolic quirks, genetic makeup, reactions to different foods and pace of losing weight. Put a group of people in a closed environment, all on the same savage diet, and even if none cheat, each will lose weight at a different pace and way.
If you do feel competitive, you’re more liable to fall for fad diets that are neither sustainable in lifestyle, such as living on nothing but cabbage soup, or, as the pounds seemingly melt away from everyone else, you may be more likely to eat for comfort. The end result in both cases is not the sustained, slimmer you. Let it go. Learn what works best for you and lose weight at your own pace.