I Married A Fat Bitch

Posts Tagged ‘Diet And Exercise Programs’

A lack of adequate weight loss motivation is probably the most common problem people face when trying to lose weight. Most people set out to lose weight without any thought at all as to how they are going to keep themselves on track on their diet and exercise programs.  Without mental preparation, weight loss motivation will often fade very quickly, and result in repeated failed attempts to lose weight for an individual. 

Motivation to stick to your weight loss program can come from a variety of approaches.  For some people, positive reinforcement will work best.  Rewards for reaching small goals can keep you feeling positive and focused on your overall weight loss goal.  It is important to be careful about what you choose as your reward system though.  Many people actually impair their weight loss by rewarding themselves with unhealthy foods that they’ve been avoiding on their diet plans.  High-carbohydrate foods, especially sweets, are particularly bad to use as rewards because they dramatically shift blood sugar.  Rapid changes in blood sugar can spark intense cravings and the associated insulin release can block fat burning for up to two days.  Non-food rewards typically work much better.  Getting a massage, buying yourself a present, getting a spa treatment, or whatever appeals to you can be an excellent reward to keep your motivation for weight loss going without setting you back with your weight loss program.

While the positive reinforcement approach works well for many people, others may do better with negative reinforcement, also known as punishment.  Using a set of punishments for “being bad” on your weight loss program may help keep you more focused on following your diet and exercise regimens.  Here again, it is important to choose your punishments carefully.  In some cases, people “beat themselves up” emotionally, and if they are prone to eating more to quell unpleasant feelings, punishing themselves for diet or exercise transgressions may be the worst thing they can do to help themselves lose weight.

Instead of punishment, motivation to lose weight can often be better enhanced by using accountability – to yourself and/or to others.  The key to accountability is to keep a written record of what you are eating and what your exercise activities are.  Using a diet and exercise log will allow you to monitor what yourself so you can see how well you are following your weight loss program.  Then will keep you accountable to yourself and help you decide if you have done something worthy of reward or punishment. 
 

It often helps considerably to be accountable to someone besides just yourself, such as a family member or friend who is willing to track your weight loss progress with you.  A person who can give you support when you may be feeling weak and can share your happiness when things are going well can be one of the best forms of weight loss motivation there is.  Having someone to help you decide and administer rewards and/or punishments can be helpful too.  For example, if you set a goal and reach it, your weight loss assistant might agree to give you a foot massage.  If a punishment is appropriate for cheating on your diet or skipping your workouts, perhaps it could be that you have to clean your weight loss assistant’s windows.

Finally, there are many methods out there to recondition the mind to strengthen the motivation for weight loss.  Techniques such as those of Anthony Robbins, The Sedona Method, Emotional Freedom Technique, and self-hypnosis can not only strengthen your motivation in general, they can help you resist specific challenges to your ability to stay motivated.  For example, if you have a craving for a particular diet-sabotaging food, there are ways to handle that.  If there’s a particular person who seems to “push your buttons” and trigger behavior that sabotages your weight loss, there are ways to handle that as well.  Different things work to varying degrees for different people, so investigate the options to find techniques that appeal to you and give them a try. 
 

With a little effort, you can develop very strong motivation to lose weight and use it to achieve your weight loss goals.  Now that you recognize the importance of the mental aspect of weight loss you can take the steps to prepare yourself properly to keep your mind working with you rather than against you so you can lose the weight and keep it off for good.

To learn about the most effective techniques for weight loss motivation from the best mental conditioning programs available, and to receive a free weight loss program, visit Dr. Best’s TrainYourBrain4WeightLoss.com website.

Weight loss surgery is very much a last resort for a lot of people and something to be put off as long a possible while they look at all of their options. In actual fact, in most cases patients are assisted in this by their doctor who will often insist on an extended program of diet and exercise before referring a patient for surgery. But is this approach sensible?

Aside from the simple fact that just about everyone agrees that diet and exercise programs do not work and are a complete waste of time for the vast majority of people, there is strong evidence to suggest that delaying surgery is putting patients at risk.

In a recent study the medical records of more than 2,000 patients who had gastric bypass surgery between 1995 and 2004 in the same medical center were studies. The team carrying out the study wanted to see if there were any factors which could have been used to predict the risks for these patients before they had surgery and the team of researchers found 5 things which they believed increased a patient’s risk of surgery.

The factor was gender with men being at greater risk than women. The second factor was having a BMI (body mass index) of more than 50. The third factor was age with people under the age of 45 being at lower risk. The fourth factor was the presence of high blood pressure, frequently related to cardiovascular disease. The final factor was previous evidence of pulmonary embolus (a blood clot in the lungs) or a proclivity for this condition.

The team then awarded one point for the presence of each of these factors and divided the study group into those at low, medium and high risk according to their scores. Next, they examined the death rate for each of these three groups and found that the death reate in the low risk group was 0.31%, in the medium risk group it was 1.9% and in the high risk group it was 7.56%.

Of course there is nothing you can do about your gender but, as far as the other factors are concerned, the effect as far as the risks of obesity surgery are concerned are obvious. Ageing, continuing to gain weight and developing health problems will all raise the risks for surgery. Accordingly, if you are morbidly obese, then perhaps you ought to think about having surgery early and balance the risks of waiting against the chances of finding a successful alternative.