Does this sound familiar to you?
Over the years you've tried to lose weight again and again. At times you've managed to lose some, but then the weight has crept back on, often taking you back to where you started and maybe a little heavier.
This is the way that many women experience the process of weight loss and there is one key reason for that – deprivation.
The first choice for most of us when we want to lose weight is to go on a diet; we might see one in a magazine, in a book or on TV and decide to start following that particular eating regime. Now, that is absolutely fine for a short period of time. We can all follow a diet for a week or so, maybe longer if we’re very determined. But sooner or later, we start to feel deprived. The diet tells us there are certain foods we cannot eat and these start to find their way to the forefront of our minds.
The thing is the mind doesn’t understand the concept of ‘no’ or ‘don’t’. If I say to you now, ‘don't think of blue elephants', what happens? I guarantee you just had an image of a blue elephant pop up in your mind. You just can't help it; your mind doesn't register the word ‘don't', it only sees, ‘think of blue elephants' and that's what happens.
Exactly the same thing happens when we go on a diet; we have a whole list of foods we’re not ‘allowed' to eat, it may be fatty foods, carbs, perhaps alcohol, and they are the ones that we actually end up focusing on. You can see how this will drive you crazy!
So, what's the answer? How can you lose weight without feeling deprived?
One simple strategy is not to restrict anything from your diet. Tell yourself you can eat exactly what you want and combine this with eating only when you are hungry.
Get into the habit of monitoring your hunger levels, the easiest way is on a scale of 1-10. Once you start doing this, you will notice the times when you are truly hungry and when this happens you can eat what you like, making sure that you stop eating once you are full. This may take some practice, but by only eating when you are hungry, you will find that you naturally eat less.
Why not give it a go the next time you want to lose weight?
By knowing that nothing is restricted from your diet, you will feel a real sense of freedom.
Eat for the right reason, because you are hungry, and you will lose weight and be able to maintain that weight loss.
The perfect solution!
