Archive for the ‘Habit Changes’ Category
MORE ON WEIGHT LOSS LIMITS….And Eating Sanely
Friday, January 27th, 2012While we’re still thinking about “The Fat Trap” and how hard it is to lose (see 1/13/12, below), let’s return to the “What can you do?” question. The blog ends with a few key ingredients that lead to better weight, despite the built-in challenges discussed. More or less, they consist of:
*know what you’re up against
*make the habit changes you can
*exercise
*be kind to yourself
*address emotional overeating
*do all you can to keep it up
These ingredients have also formed my working definition of sane eating for the past several years. You’ll find this in the Eat Sanely workbook’s first pages:
We must find a way to eat that maintains a healthy enough weight,
without worry or guilt,
that we can more or less stick with forever,
not just for the course of a diet.
And the steps then outlined for eating more sanely:
1. Know This Problem is Overdetermined (it’s not just you)
2. Start With an Understanding of How You Change
3. Know What Kind of Eating Plan Works for You (what’s to eat?)
4. Obstacles Will Occur and Must be Understood and Resolved
5. Movement Has to Happen
6. Keep it Up and Get Help Where Needed The components this definition and plan mesh with the “what can you do about it” conclusions. It may well prove, for example, that many overweight and chronic dieters will lose weight only slowly and with difficulty. Realistic weight loss goals, though, improve chances of success. Focus on what’s achievable, and you’re more likely to relax and feel good about progress. You’ll less likely give up in frustration. You’ll be building the kind of consistency that leads to change that can finally last. (more…)
How Much Weight Can You Really Lose?….And what can you do?
Friday, January 13th, 2012Here is a recent post from my Psychology Today blog (http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/thin-within) These recent studies confirm the wisdom of a sane eating approach….
Just as we all start resolving to lose, we’re hit with the news that it may never work. If you’ve been overweight for a while, if you’ve dieted only to keep regaining, the problem may well exceed willpower.
In this season of “20 Lbs in 20 Days!” other headlines ask “Do You Have to be Superhuman to Lose Weight?” Or, “Are We Programmed to Pack on Pounds?” Unpopular questions, for sure, but ones to which science increasingly answers “probably”.
Research from around the world concurs. Once we’ve carried the weight, our bodies seem to adjust to that new “normal”. Our chemistry then seems to fiercely defend the larger body size. We’ll experience this as relentless hunger as well as painfully slow losses and discouragingly quick regain. The ramped-up hunger, the sluggish metabolism, the rapid accumulation of fat: all of these are hormonally driven, arising from the extra weight itself. Losing weight, then, becomes at the very least a mighty struggle against biology. (more…)
WEIGHT LOSS SURGERY Part 2: Paving the Way for Long-Term Success
Wednesday, November 16th, 2011Paying attention. Learning to choose wisely. Planning. Coping with stress. Not eating when sad or mad or lonely. Exercising. Picking yourself up after slipping. Sticking with it. It sounds like a plan for weight loss, right? It’s also how to avoid gaining weight, and a good map for self-care overall. It is, finally, the path to long-term success after weight loss surgery, too.
Weight loss surgery, as Dr Oz’ book You, On a Diet says, is not “the easy way out”. Nor does it mean “you never have to worry about dieting again”. Losing weight (and not gaining it, for that matter), requires just about everyone in today’s world to pay attention to what and how they’re eating. If you have weight to lose, it’s going to take a lot of attention, and the often uncomfortable work of making lasting habit change. That’s really the only way.
That said, the effort it takes to reach and maintain a healthy weight rewards you. Better health, more energy, a longer life: these are among the rewards. And for some—especially those facing the most difficulty–bariatric surgery offers a viable way to lose weight. The surgical change prevents overeating for a time. However, people can and do eventually regain (at least some) lost weight unless new habits are firmly rooted. The best way to think of surgery, then, is as a tool to help weight off relatively quickly, while you learn and practice and reinforce the habits that will keep it off for good. (more…)
WEIGHT LOSS SURGERY Part 1: Neither Nightmare nor Magic Wand
Tuesday, November 8th, 2011Mention weight loss surgery, and you’ll get some strong reactions. “Surgery!?” , some will exclaim, as if you’ve suggested amputation for a scraped knee. People just have to eat less, or deal with their emotional problems, is usually the thinking here. At the opposite extreme, there are those who believe their lap bands will finally free them from diet struggles. “At last I’ll be like everyone else, not always thinking about food.” Both of these surprisingly common views distort reality and don’t support real solutions.
Recent statistics suggest that about two thirds of American adults qualify as obese (with children’s rates catching up). Nearly 250,000 people had bariatric (weight loss) surgery last year alone. Increasingly, the overweight turn to surgery as procedures become safer, insurance-covered, and effective against illnesses like diabetes. Given these facts, a discussion of sane eating, and how to achieve it in life, must make room for these realities. To fit them into the discussion, we first must confront those harmful misconceptions. (more…)
Why You Should Cook More to Weigh Less
Wednesday, November 2nd, 2011Look for Dr. Katz’ articles, and more on staying fit, at http://www.hivehealthmedia.com Check out the front page, guest posts, and weight loss entries.
COOKING TO EAT MORE SANELY
Friday, October 21st, 2011Yes, it would be great to adopt all those habits that lead to better weight loss and health. But here’s one to tackle that you might underestimate in your search for diet solutions. Simply put: Cook more often.
Cooking can check weight and improve health even if you’re no expert low-cal chef. When we cook at home, we can avoid the added salt, sugar, and fats contained in take-out, fast-food, or restaurant fare. We can control portions better. We can up the vegetables, shrink the starches, make more of those foods we don’t gorge on. We can make extras for dinner to bring for lunch and thereby avoid the cafeteria. We can get used to, and develop preferences for, real fresh foods that are good for us and our waistlines.
Two myths can stand in the way of our cooking more, however: (more…)
IF SELF-CONTROL’S A MUSCLE, WHY CAN’T I EXERCISE IT?
Friday, September 9th, 2011A new book on willpower asserts that it’s a muscle. That is, you can strengthen it with practice, and you can exhaust it with stress and overuse. This makes sense, and years of research back the idea. For those trying to eat differently—to lose weight or simply to choose more wisely—the strength of this muscle can determine whether change occurs or not. As with physical exercise, many of us struggle to start and stick with it. However, even those who can flex the muscle in other situations can find it too weak to budge when it comes to food. So if self-control’s a muscle, why can’t you exercise it here, too?
The book Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength, by Roy F. Baumeister and John Tierney, draws on Baumeister’s work on self-control. The benefits of self-control have been documented for decades. And studies have established that practice indeed bolsters self-control (even if people vary genetically in that trait). Baumeister’s work goes farther, finding that self-control can fizzle out—when people’s minds are taxed and fatigued, when they’ve been struggling at self-control for too long a stretch at once. Here is more solid evidence against restrictive dieting. And here is support for the idea that small, persistent efforts will become habits. That’s all good news, and helpful for those working to lose weight.
It can be hard to see, though, how this applies to those who say “It feels like a force comes over me”, as they head for the ice cream. Or: “I just wasn’t thinking,” as they pull into KFC. “I knew I was doing it but didn’t care,” as they attack the brownies.
And what’s going on when a person’s done well for months, then suddenly finds herself slipping into old ways, regaining every lost pound? These are the stories of many, maybe most, overeaters. (more…)
FALL CHANGES
Monday, August 29th, 2011Sometimes I think we should make resolutions in September instead of January. After all, this is when we’re shifting anyway—returning to work or school, getting kids ready for new routines, adjusting to cooler weather and shorter days. It’s a time of transition, usually to busier days that are nevertheless more structured and predictable than in the looser summer months.
By resolutions, I’m not referring to grand declarations of sweeping change once and for all. I’m thinking more of those smaller, much more realistic adjustments–changes or additions to a routine, say– that may not sound dramatic but lead to solid results that tend to last over time. These are the kinds of changes that can join your new, or reestablished, fall routines without too much pain.
For example, we often return to more predictable mealtimes in the fall—even if schedules vary from day to day with kids’ activities or work meetings. Busy as we may be, we can at least look at the week ahead and know where we’ll be when. Healthy weight maintenance and sane dealings with food relate directly to how we approach mealtimes. To move closer to those goals, pick one mealtime to improve on a regular basis. Try the change for a week, fine-tune and problem-solve as you go along, then try it a second week. If you veer off your plan for any reason, resume as soon as you can and go from there. (more…)
HE’LL LEAVE YOU IF YOU GET FAT? Really?
Friday, July 29th, 2011Here is another article recently posted at http://www.yourtango.com/tereseweinsteinkatz
As the Huffington Post said, “It’s been a rough year for women struggling with their weight.” That followed a new survey where half of men polled said they’d leave a mate who got fat. Wait a minute, though….it’s really not that simple.
We already know a few discouraging facts. It’s well established, for example, that overweight women have more trouble being hired. Their weight also biases the care the health care they receive. And, there are the increased health risks. There’s the hassle of finding nice clothes. What’s more, while all married people, statistically speaking, gain more weight over time than singles, women gain more than men—and partly for biological reasons. Now this latest. (more…)
Deprivation is Not Good
Thursday, July 28th, 2011This article recently appeared at http://www.yourtango.com/tereseweinsteinkatz
Isn’t deprivation a built-in part of losing weight?
Maybe. Yet people report feelings of deprivation as a primary reason for abandoning weight loss efforts. Often these feelings lead to overindulging in sweets, high-fat, and junk foods and in binge eating. To lose weight, to make changes for the better, does require eating less of such things. Is feeling deprived, then, inevitable? I think to make changes that last, that become part of us, the answer has to be “no”.
Part of what has to happen, I think, is a change in perception, in how you think about and conceive of these foods in your life. People who come to successfully manage their weight start to recognize the role of choice. Their inner dialogue will tend to some form of: “Yes, of course I can have that slab of mud pie…but do I really want all that goes with it—feeling stuffed, guilty, and then struggling forever after with the weight?” Taking care of themselves, then, is doing what leaves them feeling more peaceful and on track with longer-term goals, not what immediately pleases the senses.
This change in perception doesn’t happen overnight. Many only come to it after years of struggling with diet. It can help, though, to consider the following. (more…)
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