Consider both the reality of the goal and the psychology of it when you set goals. If it’s weight loss, it’s even more complicated. You need a realistic goal and the ability to believe you can achieve it. You must also identify the pitfalls along the way. If you’ve tried to shed those extra pounds before and failed, search for the reason that occurred. Did you give up, or was there something that happened that caused the problem to occur?
Losing weight takes determination.
Identify why you want to lose weight. Is it for health? To look better or improve your endurance? People have a multitude of reasons. The reason should be important to you. If your weight is affecting your health, look closely. Your health should be a top priority. If not, you need to discover why. You are important. Taking care of yourself should be a top priority. Parents often focus on taking care of their family and ignore their own needs. That’s not beneficial to anyone. If you’re sick or worse, there won’t be anyone to care for them.
Are you an emotional eater?
People overeat for several reasons. Some literally stuff down their emotions with food. Sad people turn to comfort food like mashed potatoes or their childhood favorite. Anger can make an emotional eater choose crunchy food like potato chips. Overcome emotional eating by keeping a food diary and recording the food you eat and any emotion you feel before consuming it. It will help you identify whether you’re eating your feelings.
Losing weight is more difficult when you feel deprived.
One problem with dieting is that most people feel hungry and deprived. It’s one reason switching from dieting to eating healthy helps those people lose weight. When you eat healthy, you choose food that benefits your body and avoid highly processed food or food with added sugar. You can eat as much whole food as you want. It’s pretty hard to consume excess calories when consuming mostly vegetables. If you want a slice of cake occasionally, eat it. Just don’t do it too often, and don’t eat more than one serving size.
- Start by giving up sugar and food with added sugar. Sugar is addictive and makes you want to eat more to satisfy that addiction. It’s hard to do initially, but it’s well worth it. It makes losing weight far easier.
- Change your mind. When you think it’s too hard to lose the excess weight, it will be. Make it easier by breaking your goal into smaller, easier-to-achieve goals. Instead of focusing on losing 20 pounds, switch your thoughts to 1 or 2 pounds a week.
- If you’re an emotional eater, find an alternative way to deal with emotions. People who feel depressed or angry get benefits from exercising. If stress is a problem, learn meditation or breathing techniques.
- Don’t view falling off the wagon one day as a failure. Start again the next day but examine what caused it. You might find the key to solving the problem of overeating forever.
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