A lot of us have seen those quick weight loss diets. They are advertised on tv and on infomercials, and promise to magically melt off those pounds. Losing the weight fast is only a small part of the battle. You need to know why those quick weight loss diets are destined to fail for you, and how to make a plan to win.

In order to not only lose the weight, but keep it off, you need to make some changes. Permanent changes. This is what those quick weight loss diets don’t tell you. You don’t have to sacrifice all the foods you love and exercise 24/7, but you do need to make a plan and stick to it. If you continue to make progress, no matter how small, you will win at the weight loss game.

The first step is a goal. Figure out a realistic amount of weight you’d like to lose. Don’t shoot for the stars, just say to yourself you’d like to lose x pounds a week. 2-3 pounds a week is a good start if you’re stuck. Don’t compare yourself to others. Try taking a picture before you start, so you can see your progress along the way, which can be very encouraging.

Now, on to the work part, exercise. This is the tough hurdle for most people. Most of us have long days at work, and lots to do at home. It’s very hard to fit in time to exercise, and even easier to just pass on it for tonight. Unfortunately, the easy way doesn’t produce results. Even something as simple as doing 25 situps before going to bed is beneficial. Just remember, it doesn’t have to be hours of exercise to have an effect. Granted, 30 minutes or more of exercise a day is the target, but something is better than nothing. Once you get used to it, it becomes more natural and just another task like getting a shower.

Here’s a good tip to make exercise easier. Try setting up either an exercise bike or a treadmill in front of the tv, or within view of it. Now, put on a good movie. TV shows have commercials which tend to bring your focus back to exercise, instead of being a distraction for you. Quite often you’ll exercise a lot more than you planned, without even realizing it!

Now, the other change you need to make is your diet. I refer to diet as what you eat, not what you can’t eat, or are stuck eating. Just take a look at what you eat, and figure out what you can avoid or substitute for something with less calories. Calories are the name of the game. If you burn more calories than you take in, you lose weight. Simple equation. Exercise burns more calories, so you can either lose more weight, or burn off those couple of items you maybe should have avoided eating.

So, quick loss diets do work, but you need to make changes or the weight will come back, and then some. Eating better, and exercise, makes a huge difference. Just start small, and work you way up to where you want to be. Once you get the ball rolling, it definitely gets easier.

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So many of us have tried diets (lots of them!) and started exercise programs… we know losing those extra pounds is good for us… we want to be healthier… we want to succeed… and contrary to popular belief we DO have willpower. So what’s the problem?

According to Dr. Matthew Anderson, a counselor, organizational consultant, columnist for eDiets.com and author of The Prayer Diet, a spiritually based weight loss program diets fail for the most part because they address the externals of loosing weight, rather than the emotional issues behind our eating habits. Why? These changes are not the quick, easy fixes we’ve been taught to expect when it comes to weight loss… which is why they don’t get more attention from many diet gurus. Fixing the emotional stuff is hard.

Dr. Anderson suggests that there are five internal issues that can block your success when it comes to losing weight and improving your health:

1. Inadequate Mothering – Most overweight people use food to “mother” themselves, and this may well be because they didn’t get enough nurturing when they were young. Comfort food becomes a solution that provides all the sweetness, care, love, attention, affirmation, acceptance and validation that their own mother was unable to give.

2. Avoiding Strong Emotions – Far from pleasant, intense feelings like anger, fear, hurt or guilt are often so hard to face… hard to deal with… and easier to bury, to avoid altogether. Food provides much needed comfort and distraction until these terrible, troubling feelings pass.

3. Deprivation of Spiritual Needs – Spirituality is a basic human need (not a choice). These days this part of life is often tossed aside in the hustle and bustle of jobs, kids and other obligations. The harder we push soul needs aside, the more intense they become… driving many of us to food for comfort.

4. Inadequate Stress Management Skills – Life these days is hectic and hurried… and growing tougher and more challenging all the time. Anyone who doesn’t have solid coping skills is much more likely to turn to food for comfort. Digging into a bag of chips or munching a delicious doughnut is a much more pleasant way of handling the constant stress and challenges of a fast-paced life.

5. Childhood Traumas – If you’re more than 70 pounds overweight, according to Dr. Anderson, there is a significant possibility that your weight is related to unresolved childhood pain. Early on you learned that food offered comfort and solace from the pain, and this behavior pattern, once established, has been brought forward into your life today.

According to Dr. Anderson, long-term, lasting weight loss comes only after we identify the emotional triggers to our eating, and learn to manage them. This is not a quick or easy fix. It takes time, effort and a good deal of soul-searching to identify what’s driving your behavior and keeping you on the path to unhealthy eating.

And in case you’re wondering Dr. Anderson practices what he preaches. By facing up to the emotional reasons for his own overeating, he lost 65 pounds, and has kept 55 of it off for the last 5 years.

So while the emotions behind our eating may be the reason diets and exercise programs continue to fail us; dealing with these troublesome problems may be our ticket off the diet merry-go-round.

Article Source: http://www.dietarticles.info

Valerie Slaughter, a veteran marathoner herself, runs a beginner marathon website and is the author of “You Want to Do What!?” For articles, tips and more information about how to stay fit, healthy and lose weight, visit: healthandfitnessnut.wordpress.com

WHAT IS EMOTIONAL EATING?

Seeing food as more than just a source of energy and enjoying it simply for the satisfaction it gives is not wrong. In fact science shows that food can promote good feelings by chemical reactions caused in our brains. What IS a problem is when an individual cannot experience pain, anxiety, joy or even boredom without turning to food as means of dealing with those feelings, or they are obsessed with food, weight and dieting.

Emotional eaters turn to food as a source of distraction from dealing with feelings. However, eating these foods leads to feelings of guilt which can only be soothed with more eating, restrictive dieting, excessive exercise or purging.

Emotional eaters tend to value themselves based on their weight and how closely they’ve stuck to their ‘ideal’ diet. Because of this distorted relationship with food, foods are labeled “GOOD” and “BAD”. Emotional eating can lead to serious eating disorders and depression.

HOW DO I KNOW IF I’M AN EMOTIONAL EATER?

Do you turn to food for reasons other than hunger? Are you obsessed with thoughts of food – whether you plan to eat it or are concentrating on restricting yourself from eating it?

Do you regularly try diets and fail – leading to guilt and further over eating? Do you think about or attempt to purge excess food by throwing up or using laxatives? Do you exercise compulsively when you think you’ve eaten too much?

HOW DO I OVERCOME EMOTIONAL EATING?

Since emotional eating is caused by looking to food as a coping strategy for emotional distress dieting can actually create more problems. When the emotional eater fails to stick to a diet they suffer feelings of guilt that can only be soothed with more food and in turn, more guilt or punishment.

Instead of trying to focus on what they are eating, the emotional eater needs to learn new skills for coping with stressful emotions. Often this requires the help of a Personal Coach or Psychotherapist who deals with emotional eating. It is only by finding replacements for the comfort food provided that the individual can put food into its rightful place and learn healthy eating habits that last a lifetime.

Article Source: http://www.dietarticles.info

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