FOCUS ON 3 HABITS TO LOSE WEIGHT WITHOUT NOOM, KETO OR WEIGHT WATCHERS
Let's do a quick exercise.
- How many diets have you done?
- How many times have you lost weight?
- And how many times have you gained it back?
Take a good hard look at that number.
Can you see that what you are doing IS NOT working.
Are you ready to consider something else?
This can be hard to do because you have to admit to yourself that what you have been doing or years, or decades, doesn't work.
This can be a hard thing to swallow.
After all, you envision all the times you put the latest and greatest diet book on your nightstand, all the times you threw away all the "bad" food in your pantry on the eve of a new diet, and all the times you and your co-workers went on a weight loss challenge.
Could all of that really have been wrong?
Yes.
And yes, it's tough to accept this because no one wants to think they wasted so much time, energy and money on a paradigm that doesn't work.
So how will you ever get to your happy weight without dieting?
You replace your diet mentality with a whole new way of thinking about food and eating. It's called building your Healthy Thin Mentality (HTM).
Instead of following food rules and constantly fighting your hunger and cravings, your HTM will use your hunger and cravings to lose weight.
So this week I want to focus on three things
1. Hunger.
Every day this week, throughout the day, pause for a minute or two. Sit quietly and actively feel your hunger. Is it there? Was it strong 10 minutes ago but now it's calm? Is your stomach growling? Does that thought of food make your mouth water. Does hunger feel completely quiet? Don't fear it, don't try to manage it, don't try to smother it with food. Just calmly sit and see how it feels.
Purpose: You are getting to know what your hunger feels like. This is an essential skill to successfully build your HTM.
2. Have the food you love quickly available to you.
Have a wide variety of food in your kitchen that you know you like. For me, for example, I always have rye bread, cheese, steamed broccoli with butter, cookies, potato chips, hard boiled eggs, chicken, fresh spinach and blackberries. This is just an example, you stock your fridge with what you like.
Purpose: So that when you are hungry you can start to match cravings with what food you actually eat. You might have a bite of chicken and think, "No that isn't it," and then you eat a blackberries in a spinach salad and you feel your body celebrate. You will get better and better at this- give yourself time.
3. Remind yourself that you are not suffering.
As a dieter, you were used to a certain amount of "suffering." You went to bed hungry, you ate vegetables when you were craving bread, you felt weak because you were waiting until meal time or your "eating window." There is none of that when you build your HTM. You are never suffering. When you are hungry you eat what you crave.
Purpose: You stop believing that you are suffering when you ARE NOT eating when you ARE NOT are not hungry. When this light bulb goes off in your head, you are on your way calm, steady permanent weight loss.