Some people eat only when they are hungry and stop when they have had enough. These are the lucky ones, people who stay trim and thin without effort. For them food is simply a source of nourishment and energy.

Other people eat to satisfy inner emotional needs and they don’t stop eating when they have had enough. Are you one of these people? Do you eat even when you don’t need nourishment and energy? Do you eat to feel good, or to relieve emotional pain or discomfort? This often leads to serious weight problems, so read on.

Part of the problem is the role that food plays in your life – a role of comfort and entertainment. Culturally and instinctively we prepare and serve foods to comfort those who have experienced loss, to celebrate joy or to show friendship and love.

But the major part of this problem is the way you were raised; the things that happened to you when you were a child that concerned food. This includes the use of food or candy as a reward, the things that the grownups said about food, the withholding of food as a punishment, the lack of food in some families, and the eating habits of the adults who served as examples for you.

WHAT IS EMOTIONAL EATING?

Emotional eating is when a person turns to food as a way to deal with feelings. These feelings can be pain, or anxiety, or boredom, or jealousy, or joy, or any other feeling. Emotional eating also involves obsession with food, weight and dieting.

Emotional eaters use food to avoid dealing with feelings, or to temporarily relieve unpleasant feelings. Unfortunately their eating often leads to guilt which can only be soothed by more eating, or by restrictive dieting, excessive exercise or purging.

Emotional eaters are often obsessive about their weight and how closely they stay with their diet plan. In this case they will panic when their weight goes just above their planned maximum. They will eat only certain foods, and often have an extremely restrictive diet. This type of emotional eating can lead to serious eating disorders like anorexia and bulimia, which can be life threatening.

HOW DO YOU KNOW IF YOU ARE AN EMOTIONAL EATER?

Do you eat when you are not hungry? Are you obsessed with food – do you think excessively about when you plan to eat, or find yourself concentrating on not eating?

Do you alternately diet and binge, and then fell guilty? This is a strong indication of emotional eating.

Do you purge excess food by throwing up or use laxatives? Do you exercise compulsively? These behaviors are bulimic and are very dangerous to your health.

If you are in the habit of eating to feel better, then you might want to find out the source of your emotional eating and do something about it. In a study of 3,500 people, women suffering from moderate depression or anxiety ate an average of 118 extra calories each day. That could cause a weight gain of 12 pounds over just 1 year.

HOW DO YOU OVERCOME EMOTIONAL EATING?

Emotional eating is caused by using food as a way to handle emotional situations. Dieting is not recommended, as it can actually create more problems. When you are unable to stay on your diet you suffer guilt feelings that can only be soothed with more food and in turn, more guilt. What is needed is an approach that deals with your basic emotional issues.

Instead of trying to focus on what you are eating, you need to learn new skills to deal with stressful emotions. This can require the help of a Personal Coach or Psychotherapist. There are also many books on the subject, as well as audio programs, self hypnosis programs, and many types of instructional materials. Basically, you need to find replacements for the comfort that food now provides. You need to put food in its rightful place and learn healthy eating habits. There is a lot of help available.

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

Terry Brussel-Gibbons, PhD, is a certified Clinical Hypnotherapist with over 30 years experience. She is Director of the Success Center in Encino, California and is a success coach, keynote speaker, and author. Download her free E-book “Weight Loss Secrets”, at www.trimandthin.com

This article on weight loss has been written because it is a subject that is top of the agenda for so many people today. We want to lose weight so that we can look good, stay healthly, and stay active.

Weight seems to be the main concern of so many people these days, and understandably so. With the birth of revolutionary diets and weight loss programs, America, and indeed most of the western world, has become knee deep in diet obsession.

This is perhaps the reason why diet programs have made money over the years not only for their programs but also for the meals and supplements that they offer to their clients.

But though these diet programs really work, nothing can surpass the natural method of losing weight, which involves a consistently healthy diet and regular physical activity such as sports activities or regular exercise.
Below are some tips that can help you lose weight the natural way.

1. Be committed
Perhaps one of the ways that can fast track your weight loss is commitment. In losing weight, you have to give your whole heart and soul to the task. You cannot do it halfheartedly as you will only vacillate. There should be a hundred percent effort on your part. Losing weight is not easy and you really have to be really committed to it if you want to be able to stick to the long haul.

2. Be consistent
One of the secrets of diet plans is the fact that you have to be really consistent with your diet plans. This means that if you plan to really lose weight, you have to diet and exercise, every single day. You cannot diet and exercise one day and then stop all of a sudden and then start again. Remember that if you start losing weight, the shedding of pounds is relatively slow but the gaining is fast. This is because your body is not yet used to the amount of food that you consume. Because it is deprived of the usual amount of food that you eat, your instinct is to eat more.

3. Be aware.

Losing weight can be really frustrating and may even be stressful for most people. This is something that they have to undo after many years of doing. Who would not be frustrated?

Still, people who are under the program should be made aware not only of the physical effects of losing weight but also the emotional effects. People, being individuals, will react to the task in different ways. Some will have a flash of annoyance while others will probably be even more determined, depending on the reason and degree of motivation.

4. Be in the know.

Before you decide on losing weight, you have to read a lot of literature on the proper way of doing it. Remember that unlike being under a specific diet program, you do not have a set of guidelines that you can follow. You have to do everything on your own.

And unlike some diet programs, you will not have any instructor that will guide you through your paces, so to speak. This means that you have to be well informed on every aspect of the diet especially if what you are doing is already healthy.

5. Be disciplined.

If you really want to lose weight, you have to be disciplined enough to see it through. This means that not only will you have to consistently avoid the foods that are not good for you, you have to be disciplined enough not to indulge on some occasions such as Christmas and New Year.

There is of course a lot of information out there on this subject in such places as your local bookstore, your local library, a number of Blogs have helpful information as does the internet itself.

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

john savage has a helpful Blog Weight Loss Naturally which is well worth a visit

Offer a woman the choice between a dress she likes a lot, that fits well but is size 12, and a dress she likes, which also fits well but is labeled size 8, and she’ll take the lesser sized item every time.

Why are we so hung up on sizes? Men don’t care. If something is too snug, they just go to a larger size. If the fit is a little tight for a woman, she’ll buy it anyway, and swear to lose a few pounds so it fits more comfortably. We will never go to a larger size that hangs loose — it makes us feel overweight and bloated.

Many years ago, I worked in the garment district. I was shocked to learn that, as manufacturers, we were allowed to change a label two sizes in either direction if that was necessary to fill the retailer’s order. Two sizes is a big difference! That’s when I learned to ignore labels, especially during sales. Often the only reason something really nice is still hanging on the rack, despite deep price reductions, is that the marked size is inaccurate. I acquired a lot of inexpensive, beautiful clothes that way.

The female obsession with sizes has not been lost on the production folks. A size 8, for example, is now two and a half inches bigger around the waist than its size 8 counterpart 30 years ago. There are now sections in stores carrying size 2 and size 0 (what?), just to make us feel good. Pay more for your clothes at a fancy department store and I guarantee you’ll fit into a smaller size than at the local K-Mart.

I buy the same size now as the clothes that have been sitting in my closet for ten years while I “get back on track.” Strangely, the new clothes fit while the older ones still refuse to button. In as short a period as ten years, sizes have grown one to two inches!

Where’s the reality? As a nation, we are getting fatter all the time. More than 60% of us are overweight, more than half of that number physiologically obese. Yet apart from specialty outlets such as Lane Bryant, the stores are filled with standard sizes. The old humiliations of a size 18 to 24 have been cleverly replaced by Womens 1X, 2X, and 3X to be more acceptable.

Does the fact that we fit into “smaller” sizes contradict our growing national girth?

No, it’s just one more instance of the mutual-fooling-ourselves in which we so delight. Let’s be honest and look at the size of our bodies, not our clothes.

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

Dr. Bola is a psychologist and an admitted diet fanatic, specializing in therapeutic reframing and the effects of attitudes and motivation on individual goals. Visit her at: www.DietWithAnAttitude.com/index2.html

Losing weight is something that we all worry about, as a society. In fact, studies show that North Americans are heavier than they have ever been before, and this includes our children. With all the health problems that are caused by obesity, that’s a very serious problem – it will probably impact on our health care costs in the very near future.

At the same time, the desire to be thin and fit has never been stronger. Advertising and images in the media tell us that a thin body is the only acceptable body – and this is particularly true for women and girls. Putting all these facts together, what we have is a situation in which more and more people are very unhappy about their weight.

To discover the easiest ways to lose weight, we should consider why North Americans are overweight today, and how this is different from the behavior of most other societies. There’s a popular book on the market right now about why French women don’t gain weight, despite a diet that is rich in meat and dairy fat. What’s their secret? And why are most Europeans and Asians ‘naturally’ thinner and fitter than North Americans?

The answer is simple. There are two reasons: First, the food that people eat in most traditional societies is of better quality than the ‘instant’ or packaged food that we tend to eat. This is changing – in another generation or so, people all around the world might end up with the same weight problems that Americans already have. But there’s a lot to be gained by eating food that’s prepared in a traditional way, and that is as close to its natural form as possible.

The other reason is that people in more traditional societies are more physically active. This may surprise you, given the obsession with exercise that many North Americans have. But it’s true – because of amount of time that we spend sitting in our cars, we simply don’t get as much exercise as we should. Exercising vigorously two or three times a week is still not as effective as the constant exercise that you get if walking or biking is your regular means of transportation.

So, in short, these are the easiest ways to lose weight over time: First, eat foods that are in their natural state, or as close to it as possible. And second, use your car as little as you can. Some people make it a rule not to drive if they are traveling less than ten or fifteen blocks, for example.

These aren’t the quickest ways to lose weight, but they are the easiest and the best. That’s because, unlike a diet, these are lifestyle change that will make you healthier. Once you start enjoying regular exercise and good food, chances are that you’ll never want to go back. So unlike diets, which might offer more impressive results in the short term, you are unlikely to gain back the weight that you lose in this manner.

Here’s how to get started:

First, when you go the supermarket, try to avoid the center aisles. In most markets, the meat, milk, eggs, fruits and vegetables are located at either end of the store, and in the back. The center aisles, on the other hand, are where all the packaged food is kept. If you avoid the middle of the store as much as you can, you will end up with a cart full of natural protein and produce, the perfect ingredients for losing weight.

Here’s another hint: don’t let yourself get hungry. Eat regular meals, so that you don’t feel deprived. If you’re like most of us, once you feel hungry you are more likely to eat whatever happens to be available, healthy or not. That’s where the problems start. If you have regular, healthy meals and snacks, you won’t be tempted by the junk food that’s all too readily found in any corner store or vending machine.

Finally, avoid using your car as much as you can. It’s better for the environment, and much better for you. Walking for a few hours every day is actually a better way of losing weight than if you exercise vigorously a couple of times a week. Try to work walking into your daily routine – for example, can you leave home a half hour earlier and walk to work each day? With gas prices reaching an all-time high, think of all the money you’ll save while you’re using weight!

Follow these simple life changes for lifelong health and fitness. Over time, your body will settle at a healthy weight, and you can begin to enjoy the ample benefits that this brings!

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

Authored by Michael Bens. For more great information on weight loss, diets, nutrition, and living a great healthy life style visit Gabae Weight Loss