Dieting Dilemmas And How To Overcome Them
There are many dilemmas we face when dieting and we have two options. One is to continue to eat and use these dilemmas as an excuse and remain overweight. Or secondly, learn how to deal with these dilemmas and be successful in our weight loss campaign.
“I don’t have time to shop for healthy food. Besides, I often eat out in restaurants or cafes.”
This is the ultimate excuse. If weight loss is important to you, you will make time to find healthy options. Sure, with responsibilities in the office and at home, not to mention the demands of relationships, it’s easy enough to dream about a 27-hour day where everything gets done. However, you can always find time for the things you want to do!
If you shop for food, it’s just as easy to shop for what’s good for you. Stock up on fresh fruit and vegetables. Frozen vegetables have plenty of nutrients as well, so fill the freezer. If time is a real limitation buy ready washed and prepared vegetables and salads.
What’s the price of convenience? Often it is the pleasure of good food. As a nation we are drifting away from home cooking, but why? Adopt the Continental attitude. In Italy and France, good, fresh food is practically a religion. Preparing food is a great way to relax after a long day. Make cooking your way to unwind.
No rule demands that you order a starter, main course and dessert in a restaurant. If you are eating out a lot for business, there may even be times when you’re not hungry. Why not choose two starters and eat one as a main course? Or order extra portions of vegetables and a big salad while the others have dessert. If you feel cheated, treat yourself to a healthy fruit salad when you get home.
Scrutinise the menu. Are they serving salmon in cream sauce? Ask for it grilled, without sauce. Order what the restaurant already has but in a less fattening format. Most restaurants these days have a healthy option. If your favourite restaurant is only full of fattening food then perhaps it is time you tried somewhere else!
Alcohol is the great un-inhibitor. A few drinks and you slide right into the destructive “what the heck” mentality. Drinking alcohol before you eat increases appetite and it’s also a source of extra calories. Start your meal with a large glass of water instead.
“I’m so tempted by chocolate!”
First, the good news, we all get food cravings. That’s quite normal and 95% of women admit to cravings, the majority of which are for chocolate or chocolate-based foods. The mere idea of starting a diet can trigger off a craving. As soon as you can’t have something, you want it all the more!
The real problem is that cravings make us feel bad because they make us eat foods we are avoiding when we don’t really want to eat anyway. Acknowledge that this feeling is normal and try to actually eat what you crave only once and within your treat allowance.
Stop the mood, not the food
Look at the circumstances triggering your cravings. Most cravings start from a negative mood. When women tend to act on their craving, it tends to add to the feeling of negativity. Address your bad mood and the reasons for it and your healthy eating plan will fall into place.
Try and think how you will feel in a couple of hours time if you eat the food and how you will feel if you resist. People think their cravings will get worse when in fact, most urges decline with time. See if you really need that snack after ten minutes.
Try not to think about forbidden foods. Concentrate on the foods you can eat. Low-fat foods, high carbohydrates and indulge yourself occasionally. Deprivation only leads to bingeing.
We tend to crave foods we eat as snacks. Try to eat treats as part of your meal, not between meals. Research suggests that cravings increased among people who munch between meals and decrease for those eating chocolate as part of their meal. If there are snack-type foods you enjoy, it’s more sensible to have them as part of a meal. This also works for PMS carbohydrate cravings. At this time of the month boost the level of carbohydrates at mealtimes to ensure that your body gets what it desires.
Cravings occur when people are really hungry. Eating balanced, regular meals keeps your blood-sugar levels stable, reducing the urge to over indulge. Try to have three meals a day, plus a snack. Never skip breakfast, will you only eat more calories later.
If a particular food tempts you, set up a resistance plan. The longer you can go without eating something then that food loses its appeal. Eating is habit forming. Most people who eat chocolate everyday will admit that it is mere habit. If they can resist it and get over the hurdle of the first couple of days then that habit starts to break and our desire for the chocolate diminishes.
“I’m doomed - my whole family is overweight.”
Even if there is a tendency to obesity and fuller body figure that does not mean that you cannot fight nature. Blaming obesity on your genes does not help you control your own body weight. Environment is more important than genetics. Often a family is overweight because of their emotional relationship to food. The first step is to acknowledge the role food has in your lifestyle and then change it.
Address your attitude to food and think how you can change it. If you make positive changes, it may encourage other members to follow suit. Remember we should eat to live, not live to eat and food should not be an emotional crutch to us.
Take an honest look at yourself, then set realistic weight loss goals. Choose a health goal, such as lowering cholesterol, or an activity goal, such as training for a fun run. Society sometimes dictates an unrealistic body shape. We may not be able to achieve this but identify what we can do something about. If you can make an improvement and lose weight you will feel so much better anyway and have more confidence to deal with what you do not like about your body shape.
"I Blew It, I might as well give up now"
No one can be vigilant all of the time. For some people, the slightest lapse leads to a full blown binge.
After one or two biscuits, they think they may as well eat the whole box. Such thinking spells disaster. There's a difference between lapse and relapse says psychologist Dr Andrew Hill of Leeds University, "expect a lapse in anything you are trying to control - whether it's eating, smoking or drinking." The key is not to let your bad moment turn into a bad week.
Okay, so you lost control. Getting back on the diet as soon as possible is the key. The longer the time period of dieting before your next weigh in, you may find you have done no damage at all. Slip-ups are inevitable but they will not undo all efforts. We are all human so allow yourself to have a not-so-good day now and again and feel alright about it. Punishing yourself only makes the problem worse.
It can be useful to break the day up into units, such as, morning, lunch, afternoon and evening. Getting through and achieving one good unit at a time being your aim. Review each unit as it ends. If it was a good one, pat yourself on the back. If it was bad move on to the next unit. A bad unit can possibly be counteracted by being better in the next unit. You can also break food into units. Get a loaf of bread and put two-thirds of it into the freezer. Buy a box of biscuits in individual serving pouches. Making food hard to get at gives you more time to think about what you are doing and to ask yourself; "Is this what I really want?"
The day after overindulgence, don't starve yourself or put in punishing hours at the gym. That only sets up a cycle of bingeing and purgeing. Instead get back to your normal healthy-eating plan straight away. Put the excess behind you and have faith in your ability to succeed.
Try to prepare for different situations, dining with friends or going on holiday, and see how well you stick to your healthy-eating routine in these circumstances. If something doesn't work, try to figure out what went wrong and why, and apply these lessons to future situations. Think up alternative solutions before you need them.
“My friends and family undermine my efforts.”
People are frightened by change. Some of them will even deliberately lead you into temptation by offering you sweets and cakes. Others will tease you about past diet failures or alternatively suggesting that you're too thin. Remember it may be the green eyed monster syndrome, they may be jealous because they need to diet or fear that now you're changing your body, you'll change everything else, including them! Or with all the headlines about eating disorders, they may be afraid you'll go too far.
Just who is it you're dieting for? You made a commitment to yourself. Use those feelings of self worth to bolster your motivation. Put yourself first and eat healthily.
Educate your saboteur. Tell them that you're unhappy with your weight and this new way of eating is important to you. Spell out that this lifestyle change is not a rejection of your mother's nurturing or your partner's gifts but an effort to be healthier and happier.
If your partner's idea of pampering is actually hindering your diet, then you have to educate them. If your boyfriend or husband keeps bringing home chocolate, it may simply be a lack of imagination. Most men are totally clueless when it comes to a present and sweets are a no-brain option. So explain that chocolate is not what you really want. Ask for flowers, a book or magazine instead.
Ask your friends and family for support. Maybe a friend could accompany you on walks or runs. Or maybe you and your partner could enrol in a cookery class, making food preparation a time for pleasure.
“I've been eating sensibly for months but now I am no longer losing weight”.
This is quite normal. We lose weight quickly at the start of a diet and then the
weight loss slows down. At first your body loses mainly water and glycogen (the energy stored in muscles) which are burned off quickly. Then your body switches over and you start losing fat tissue. Fat reducing takes longer. Add to this the fact that we tend to start a diet enthusiastically but get bored quickly and stop following it as strictly. Bodies are stubborn, especially if you've dieted before, so jolt it back into action.
Most psychologists say the best way to monitor your food in take is to write down everything you eat when you actually eat it. Overweight people are much more likely to underestimate their intake of both calories and fat if they don't have to write things down. So complete your truth sheet now! Complete it truthfully and inevitably a weight loss will result. You can not then have the popular ‘slimmer’s amnesia’.
Fight boredom every step of the way. Forget bland diet foods and experiment with fresh, seasonal produce, herbs and spices. Sample foreign foods and different cooking styles. Learn to steam, poach and stir-fry food to bring out the flavour without adding fat.
Set yourself a goal, like drinking two litres of water each day. The next week try eating less red meat and more vegetable-based meals and so on. Find the high-calorie moment in your day and change it. If you eat more calories earlier in the day, you have a better chance of burning them off. Get moving, exercise will help your weight loss.
Alter your way of thinking
Instead of being obsessed about losing weight, be pleased you haven't put any on. Stability is an achievement in itself. It is a growing trend to be overweight in this day and age and to gain a 1lb or 2lb every year as you get older. If you have prevented this then give yourself a pat on the back. Then consider how you will change your eating habits to bring about the next weight loss.
It's said that losing more than 10% of your starting body weight is an unhealthy goal. When you hit this target, concentrate on maintaining it. Don't get within pounds of your goal and then set a new, lower target. See the good in small changes and be comfortable at the weight you've attained.