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The Tales We Tell Ourselves and How to Overcome them to achieve permanent weight loss
A Weight Loss SecretSome people have discovered a simple weight loss secret that can help keep you losing pounds even if you have ..... The tales we tell ourselves A big part of an unhealthy lifestyle
is unhealthy thinking. There are these little tales we like to
tell ourselves that keep us blindly dependant on food.
Tale #1: Ill eat the last few cookies in this package today so
I wont be tempted to eat them tomorrow when I start my diet.
Do you ever find yourself ready to start a diet tomorrow but
instead of throwing out all your junk food, you decide to eat
some of that night so you wont be tempted to eat it while you
are on the diet?
Calories are calories and it doesnt matter whether you eat them
today or tomorrowyou are still eating them! By throwing out the
secret stash of cookies behind the food processor you are
carrying out a much better and more empowering act. Throwing out
food signals to your brain that you are getting serious about
your health and well being.
Dont just limit your home to this cleansing process, remove
access to all foods. Whats in your glove compartment? What
about the desk drawers of your office? Replace these secret
stashes with non-perishable healthy snacks such as protein bars.
Tale #2 But if I pay for it, I have to eat it This tale is
best told in restaurants where we are served three to four times
the recommended serving size. Too many times we partake in the
soup, salad, bread and appetizer and we are full before our
dinner arrives; but we make a valiant attempt to eat as much of
our dinner as we can hold. Why? Because weve paid for it!!
Do you feel as though you dont get your moneys worth from a
restaurant unless youve cleaned your plate? How many leftovers
have you diligently packed up and brought home from a restaurant
only to throw them out two weeks later? It is seemingly
unacceptable to leave food on the table for the wait staff to
throw out, but it IS acceptable to use a non-biodegradable
Styrofoam container and store this food in our refrigerator
until the Its Okay to Throw it Out stamp can be placed on the
food. Perhaps we feel that if the food rots in our own
refrigerator, we dont have to feel guilty because weve at
least given ourselves the opportunity to eat the food and weve
surrounded the food with loved ones during its final days.
If you apply this, I have to eat it because Ive paid for it,
logic to restaurants, you must also apply it to the many science
experiments gone awry in your crisper. How many fruits and
vegetables have you purchased with the best intentions only to
throw them out weeks later after theyve begun to take on a life
of their own? You paid for those vegetables, but we have no
problem letting them rot in our refrigerators. The logic doesnt
make much sense now, does it?
Tale #3: Five minutes of exercise wont do me any good, so why
should I bother? Ive spent years reading books and magazine
articles on fitness and nutrition. Im fascinated by the various
fads and trends that come and go. Every year there is a new diet
or exercise trend; some hold value and some are simply
ridiculous, but occasionally I hear something that perturbs me.
There seem to be two different exercise camps, those who believe
that 6-8 minutes a day can bridge the gap to health and those
who tell you not to bother working out if you are only going to
work out for five minutes.
I believe that five minutes can make all the difference in your
exercise routine and Im living proof. I can recall countless
exercise sessions where I bartered with myself, Just exercise
for five minutes and then you can quit. Time and time again I
found that once I got off the couch, put on my workout clothes
and climbed on the treadmill, I did not stop after five minutes,
but continued for the full workout. Sometimes all the motivation
we need to exercise can be found in simply beginning to
exercise. There were also days that I quit after only five
minutes, but I did so with no regret.
Our heart is the most important muscle in our entire body and it
needs exercise just like the rest of us. Instead of complaining
about how much you dont want to exercise, try being grateful
that your body will still move in the ways you need it to! When
I weighed over 300 pounds I could not walk around the block(and
it was a small block!) I could only muster five minutes of
energy at one time before I was completely out of breath and
sweating. I did what I could and I built upon my successes. Five
minutes can make all the difference in a workout!
Tale #4: I should eat this because there are starving
childrensomewhere By average, we are the most wasteful country
in the free world. According to recent studies, the United
States is the most wasteful country on the planet creating 210
million tons of municipal waste every year. I doubt a half eaten
hamburger and two bites of cheesecake are going to change this.
If you feel truly feel guilt over the starving children, adopt
one. There are many, reputable organizations where you can send
a few dollars a month and help someone less fortunate. Closer to
home you can volunteer at a local food bank or donate canned
goods to a local shelter. Turn this tale into a helping hand for
someone whose problems are much larger than yours.
Tale #5: Fried okra counts as a vegetable. Okaytechnically,
okra is a vegetable. But according to All About Okra, if you
heat okra, especially if you deep fried it, okra loses most of
its nutrients and self-digesting enzymes. They recommend cooking
okra as little as possible e.g. with low heat or lightly
steamed. Too often we fool ourselves into believing that we are
eating healthy, especially here in the South. We eat collard
greens and green beans, but they are slow cooked with ham hocks.
We eat corn on the cob slathered in salt and butter. We smile
and tell ourselves, Im eating my vegetables.
You can debunk the old adage, How do you spell flavor? F-A-T.
by purchasing a steamer and experimenting with some of your old
favorites. Weve forgotten how wonderful foods taste when they
are fresh and lightly cooked to let the natural flavors shine
through. If foods were meant to be fried, they wouldnt grow
that way?
Tale #6: You dont have to be hungry to eat ice cream.
Theoretically, this is also true, but not just with ice cream.
According to medical research, our stomach is about 12 inches
long and 6 inches wide at its widest point. The stomach of an
average adult has the capacity to hold approximately one quart.
One quart equals four cups or 32 ounces of food and drink.
Compare that to the fact to the fact that a biggie coke by
itself at Wendys is 32 ounces.
So, when you get that full feeling, that
unbutton-your-pants-Thanksgiving-dinner-full feeling, think
about the sheer volume of food that is packed in your stomach.
Youve stuffed over a quart of food into yourself. Do you feel
as gross as I do?
Our stomachs hold, on average four cups of food; but we do not
need to fill our stomachs to capacity in order to feel full.
There is a difference between being full and being satisfied. In
addition to the hundreds of health benefits of water, the simple
fact that it fills up part of the capacity of your stomach is
reason alone to drink it.
Eating only when we are hungry, stopping when we are satisfied
as opposed to waiting until we feel full and removing the
emotional aspects associated with eating will help us move
toward a healthier lifestyle.
Tale #7: Ill eliminate x from my diet and Ill lose weight
The Susan Powter, Fat-makes-you-fat, so-if-its-fat-free,
eat-all-you-want logic went out the window years ago, but many
of us still hold on to that hope. We want to eliminate one part
of our diet for a short period of time and watch the miracles
happen!
Diets that restrict your intake of a particular food will work
in the short-term, but hold no weight (no pun intended) in the
long run. Restricting carbs, or sugar, or protein, or fatall of
these restrictions will enable you to lose weight, but when you
reintroduce these elements into your diet, whether you go on
maintenance or quit the diet, you will gain weight. You must
permanently change the way you eat and your lifestyle in order
to have permanent success with weight loss.
Concentrate on why you turn to food for comfort, or the reasons
you overeat -- once you tackle the emotional battle, with a
little bit of education on fitness and nutrition, you can make
long lasting, positive and easy to live with changes that dont
exclude ANY foods.
Tale #8: If its all natural, its good for me. Even though
products are labeled as organic that doesnt mean they are low
in fat or calories. Become a label reader. Know what you are
eating. When I purchase fruits and vegetables, I use a fruit and
vegetable wash on them when I return home to remove any
pesticides used in growing and harvesting these items.
And with regard to supplements, remember that the FDA does not
regulate these items and there is no guarantee that the label
will keep its promises or the ingredients are tested and safe
for you.
Myth #9: Eating cures all. Eating is designed to give our
bodies the fuel it needs to carry us throughout the day. Weve
buried this logic under layers and layers of chocolate cake and
cookie dough ice cream. Food has become our cure all for
emotional problems; and occasionally physical ones as well.
After a bicycle accident as a child, my mother eased my tears
with chocolate chip cookies. After my tonsils removed, it was
ice cream that soothed my aching throat.
And now? after a long hard day, most of us would rather sit in a
nice restaurant and be served rather than fight traffic to make
it home only to slave over the stove, or even put a frozen
dinner in the microwave.
The only problem food cures is hunger. Period. Food can
temporarily relieve symptoms of other problems, but its not a
cure. Stop treating the symptoms and treat the problems. Uncover
the unhealthy associations youve made with food and tackle
those issues. If you fix your life, you wont mind fixing
healthy food.
Tale #10: I have to lose weight before I can love my body.
This may be the single saddest tale we tell ourselves. It is
only when you begin to love your body that you give it the
attention it deserves. Give the only body youll ever have the
most precious gift of all, self-care.
Our cars come with owners manuals that tell us when to change
the oil, have the engine services and even when to rotate the
tires. Develop an owners manual for your body. Prescribe how
often it should be moved and stretched and what kind of food
provides maximum performance.
Take a moment now that youve read all these tales and email me
your thoughts. Are their tales you tell yourself that youd like
to share? Email me at: Linda@facethefat.com.
Yours in health, Linda Lindsey
About the author:
Linda Lindsey is a compelling speaker and author of an e-book
entitled, Face the F.A.T. Linda focuses her time and energy on
helping to make a difference in peoples lives through public
speaking and writing articles with a focus on nutrition,
exercise and Food Association Theories, an innovative weight
loss approach that involves finding an individuals root cause
of obesity and reversing its power in their lives. To contact
Linda, send her an email at linda@facethefat.com.
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