For most people, dieting is hard work. It is made harder by moving into punishment mode.
“Do without, you can't eat that, don't be weak, give up all the nice things you eat.”
Yay, great fun, punch the air! I love dieting!
Now all you eat for a week is cabbage soup, dry crackers, lots of salad but no dressing. Oh, and smile! Positivity is important.
In Built Failure
In many cases, dieting is doomed to failure. It is un-natural to starve yourself.
Quoting from a 1997 publication titled; “Handbook for Treatment of Eating Disorders” by D M Gardner, it states, “One of the most important advancements in the understanding of eating disorders is the recognition that severe and prolonged dietary restriction can lead to serious physical and psychological complications.”
Research: The Starvation Experiment
One of the breakthrough pieces of research is a story in itself. One of the problems in looking at eating disorders and diets is the people under observation have problems so cannot be considered to be a normal cohort of subjects to observe. However, during the Second World War and experiment was undertaken. A group of thirty six healthy, psychologically normal men underwent a restricted calorie diet for six months.
Initially they were fed normally, for three months, whilst base data was collected. For the next six months, the men were restricted to half of their previous food intake. At the end of six months, the men were slowly brought back to so called normal levels of food intake.
This group of so called normal men had varying responses to the lack of food .The stand out change in the subjects was the huge increase in a preoccupation with food. Men would dream about food, asleep and awake. They would talk about food, collect recipe books or food related items like coffee cups and kitchen utensils. Many would hide food and consume it over long hours away from others. They took on hoarding behaviors even to hoard things that were not related to food. During the rehabilitation phase, these new behaviors did not miraculously disappear. For a number, binge eating continued.
There were other changes in their emotional states, personalities, social interaction and how they thought and functioned.
The starvation experiment or the Minnesota experiment, it an interesting study for anyone having difficulty with their attempts to diet.
Punishment and Reward
So what is the solution? Punishment and prohibition is not likely to work in the long run without leaving some damage. There are a number of systems now that promote rewarding yourself when you reach certain milestones but the worry is, unless you are careful, you are rewarding yourself again for enduring hardship and punishment. The old cycle returns.
The Basic Formula
Everybody knows a fair bit about losing weight these days. You can kid yourself but the rules really are simple. It all boils down to one basic formula.
Energy in must be less than energy out.
Lists
It is how to achieve this that is the dilemma. A good place to start is to make some lists of things such as; the foods you love and could not do without, the foods you could do without and the ones you can take or leave. There is likely to be on a scale of “Yum” to “Yuk!”
Another list could be the sort of exercise you could see yourself doing and that which you know you would never do. It does not have to be a long list.
What about your patterns and behaviors. This might be harder but what rules do you live by? “I always have a take away food on Friday nights.” “I like to have a snack when I watch television”. “I must have a cake with my coffee”. Whatever, there will be a host of things you like and a raft of things you would not like to go without.
When you know what you can't live without, don't try to. I love a snack after meal time as I watch television. I could not do without it. I now make my snack smaller in volume and substitute where I can, healthier alternatives. A piece of fruit, a vegetable stick. And yes, okay, now it is true confession time, I finish it off with a cookie. But instead of three cookies, I have one and it is the best cookie I can buy. It is a more expensive but luxury cookie, and a small one at that. Boy, does it taste good!
Lifestyle
The answer is to make diet part of a lifestyle option, a positive move that does not see you flogging yourself for being the miserable weak piece of filth that magazines and the media try to push you feel about you. Increase your energy output. But don't bother with buying the full set of Lycra swim wear if you hate swimming. Do something you like and start off gradually so you will continue to enjoy it. Exercise does not just mean running, swimming, gym, aerobics, cycling and the like. I feel tired just thinking of those things.
What about walking, gardening, dancing to music, shopping. Yes shopping! Maybe park your car a little further away next time. I used to hate mowing the lawn. It is larger than some and when the spring rains come and the sun warms the soil, off it goes. Now it is one of my exercise options. Mow, one two three, Mow one two three...
There will be something that works for you but you need to understand what you really like and what you can forgo, to make the necessary changes.
Desire
If you want to lose weight, you will do so. If you feel you should, you will not. Make the change because you want to and it will work. The key to dieting is it has got to be easy.
