The Slim Habit Blog

I have come across so many people who are overweight who have given up on diets and weight loss programs because they ‘just don’t work’. They feel that they should just come to terms with the fact that they are always going to be overweight, it’s in the genes or they have a ‘dysfunctional’ metabolism.

In most cases it has very little to do with genes or a ‘dysfunctional’ metabolism. There is absolutely no reason why anybody should resign themselves to being overweight. It is possible for everybody to lose weight.

In simplistic terms, weight is all about calories consumed versus calories burnt. Burn more calories that you consume and you will lose weight. There are ways of burning calories. The first is through normal every day activity and the other is by taking exercise. How effectively you burn calories is again down to how much exercise you take and also to the health of your muscles, both contribute to making your metabolism more effective. Keeping properly hydrated is also important for better metabolic efficiency. If you have been a serial dieter, then your muscle mass may have been seriously depleted. Resistance exercises are needed to build your muscles back up and make your metabolism more effective.

How many calories you consume is very important. If you reduce your calorie intake too much your body will work against you and prevent you losing weight. If you consume too many calories you will put weight on probably whether you take exercise or not.

One common trait amongst those who have ‘given up’ trying to lose weight is that the majority of people fool themselves about the number of calories they consume. In one instance the person concerned was convinced that she was only consuming 1600 calories a day. She was incredibly proud that of her healthy diet. The reality was that her daily calorie intake was 3500 not 1600. The extra 1900 calories she consumed was due to the fact that her portion sizes were too big and that she was economical with the truth when it came to totalling her calorie intake. She was not destined to be overweight. She had it in her power to lose weight and lose weight permanently. A dose of honesty and new eating and lifestyle habits the answer to her problem.

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How do you see yourself? Is the image that greets you in the mirror every morning one you like to see? How do you think others see you? Do you worry about what they think? Your self-image is very important, but it’s often not accurate. I you are overweight, there’s a fair chance that you have a very distorted self-image.

Your image of yourself is important because it colors your attitude to yourself, to others and to the way you behave. Did you realize that fat people behave in a very different way to slim people? Fat people do what fat people do. Their behavior is geared to what they can and can’t do and by the way they think of themselves. They mix with other fat people because they feel less threatened and under less pressure to change their ways.

One thing is very clear. If you think of yourself as fat, fat you will remain. The image in the mirror may not be what you would really like to see, but you can do something about it. The first thing to do is not to awfulize about what you look like now. If you think negatively about yourself you will find it hard to make change. Stay positive and you will be able to win through. The person you see in the mirror maybe overweight, but that’s not the real you. The real you is an amazing person. This amazing person can do great things.

A very useful weight loss tip is to practice visualizing yourself as a slim. What would you look like? What would it feel like to be slim? Do this as often as you can and it will start to strengthen your resolve to lose weight. Permanent weight loss is just around the corner.

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Losing weight can be a stressful process, so it can be useful if you can learn how to limit that stress. Knowing about how you breathe is an important tool to limiting stress.

Breathing is an automatic body function controlled in the brain stem. Its primary function is to exchange oxygen and carbon dioxide. We breathe in air to extract the oxygen, and we exhale carbon dioxide.

It’s important that you breathe properly and oxygenate your system. Your new exercise regime will be helping you to do this. But how often do you think about controlling your breathing? Ancient cultures used to put great store in breathing and ‘the breath’. In yoga, breath or prana is considered the vital life energy, and pranayama is the art of breath control.

Scientific studies have shown that correct breathing can help manage stress and stress-related conditions. When you’re under stress, your breathing pattern changes. You start to take short, shallow breaths. This empties too much carbon dioxide out of your blood, and distorts the balance of gasses. This has the effect of prolonging the feelings of anxiety. It also worsens the physical symptoms such as headaches, a tight feeling in the chest, fatigue, insomnia and a feeling of panic.

By deliberately taking slow, deep breaths, and breathing from your diaphragm, not your chest, you’ll help to reduce stress hormone levels, balance the gasses in your blood, and increase a feeling of calm and well-being.

Pay more attention to the way you breathe. You are undertaking many changes in your life right now, and you need to remain calm and focused. Breathing properly will help you do this.

If you want to lose weight permanently, the information on breathing is probably one of the most important weight loss tips you’ll ever learn. Losing weight has to be handled carefully if it is to be successful and if you are to achieve permanent weight loss.

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Do you know what’s going on in your mind? You might think you do, but are you sure? Every day you have about 60,000 thoughts. Are these random thoughts, or are they all part of a logical process? Sometimes our thinking is quite structured and logical, but actually, most of us allow our thoughts to run riot. One thought follows another, often with no rhyme or reason. We’re taken down alleys and cul-de-sacs, and then dumped unceremoniously as another thought zooms in and takes us off again into the unknown. This part of our internal dialogue, the ever-present conversation we have with ourselves. It’s called mind chatter.I

Is there anything wrong with mind chatter? There’s nothing ‘wrong’ with it, no – it happens – but it’s a symptom of out-of-control thinking which can be dangerous. Learning to slow down your thinking and to ‘notice’ your thoughts is an important skill to master. If you have no discipline in the way you think, you’ll end up being controlled by your thoughts.

 Uncontrolled thinking allows negative thoughts to have the upper hand. When this happens, you’re likely to spend a great deal of your time ‘awfulizing’, allowing negative thoughts to balloon and multiply in your mind. This isn’t helpful when you’re trying to change your life and learn new habits. Self-doubt is always tapping at the door, and you need to be able to keep it out.

If you want to be successful at losing weight, you need to learn to control your thoughts. Awfulizing about your weight or how well or badly you’re doing will not be helpful. The best way to lose weight is to not allow negative thoughts to rule. Permanent weight loss can really only be achieved if your mental attitude is strong and you control the way you think.

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Did you know that your body talks to you? It supplies you with a constant stream of vital information, but are you listening? How good are you at listening to your body? Can you now recognize the difference between a hunger signal and a thirst signal? You may have discovered that most of them are thirst signals – over 70% of them are. If you can tune-in to your body, it is such a useful thing to be able to do. There is so much information for you to use – but you have to learn to access it.

There is absolutely no doubt that every day you will be faced with temptation when you are trying to lose weight. To eat or not to eat the slice of cake, to use a convenient excuse for not taking exercise – there’ll be many other similar dilemmas. When you’re faced with a set of positive and negative options, how do you come to your decision? Do you use your ‘gut feeling’?

 Do you know what ‘gut feeling’ is? Gut feeling is a sense of intuition that you can’t rationally account for. It’s emotional wisdom which you’ve gathered from past experiences. It flags up positive and negative alternatives which you are then able to consider with your reasoned thought. ‘Gut feeling’ and reason should actually work in parallel. When you learn to work with both, you start to make smart decisions.  For example: Your gut feeling might tell you that the three-mile run you are about to start will be hard work – disagreeable even – and that you’d prefer to avoid it. Reason tells you that it will do you good and help you to lose weight. You err on the side of reason, but it could easily have gone the other way.

 Gut feeling is an example of information that is available to you from within yourself. You have an ‘inner wisdom’ which you need to learn to understand, interpret and manage. Realize that you have these sources of wisdom, and you’ll take better and more informed decisions.

 Mobilizing your gut feeling and really understanding how it works is hugely useful when you’re trying to lose weight permanently. The more you are conscious of your powers of reason and your gut feeling, the more you will be able to mobilize them to help you succeed in losing weight.

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It’s always difficult at the beginning. Whenever you begin a new task or a new challenge like trying to lose weight, you’re almost certain to have a little self-doubt. Self-doubt can be quite sneaky – it creeps in and quietly undermines your efforts to succeed.

If you want to prepare yourself for a new challenge, like losing weight for example, you need to consider your actions and your reactions. Inevitably, negative thoughts surface, particularly when there’s uncertainty and when the outcome is unclear. If you allow these negative thoughts to grow unchecked, your chances of achieving any degree of success will be reduced significantly.

Have you already experienced self-doubt about losing weight?  There’ll always be doubt somewhere in the back of your mind – but try to notice when you start to have ‘self-doubting’ thoughts. Make sure you don’t allow your negative thoughts to take over your thinking. Remember, you’re predisposed to think negatively.  If you allow your negative thoughts to go unchecked, they will multiply. Notice the way you think, and manage your thinking process.

The next time you feel self-doubt creeping into your thinking, try the following:

Take three slow, deep breaths.

Ask yourself:

·         What’s the reason behind my self-doubt?

·         What was the trigger that started my self-doubt?

·         What do I want the outcome to be?

Concentrate on making that outcome a positive one. If you want to lose weight permanently you have to try and banish self-doubt, because you can succeed. Getting out of the habit of self-doubt will definitely make your weight loss efforts much easier. The more you practice the easier it will become. Learning new habits is the only sure fire way to lose weight and for it not to return. Never doubt that you can succeed. Make the effort and you will win through.

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Okay, this is a raid! Go to the kitchen and open all your food cupboards, and take a good look at what you’ve got hiding there.

What have you found? Doughnuts…potato chips…candy bars…it’s a proper Aladdin’s cave of goodies!

Now, it’s time to be brave! Remove anything which know is going to work against you losing weight. Take out everything you would no longer buy if you went to the supermarket today. Put them on one side.

Let’s move on to the fridge and the freezer. What have we got here? Coke…a stable of Ben & Jerry’s cartons…a stack of ready meals…very revealing! It’s time for you to be brave. Take out anything you know will work against your weight loss efforts.  Have courage, put them on one side. Don’t be tempted to keep anything back.

Have a good look at what you’ve unearthed. Is it a bit embarrassing? If it is, here’s a way to make yourself feel much better about your little transgression… Get rid of everything. Difficult as it might be, give everything away, and don’t be tempted to buy any of those items again.

From now on, your cupboards, your fridge and your freezer need to take on a new look. A ‘new look’, designed by you. Before you go shopping again, sit down and make a list of the food you want to eat. Draw up a simple meal plan for the coming week. You should be thinking of foods with a low sugar content, and eating as much fresh food as possible.

Losing weight can be a bit of a rollercoaster ride if you allow it to be. By clearing out the food and drink that you should be avoiding, you’re doing yourself a great favour. By removing temptation life is going to become a whole lot easier. When you open the fridge door you’re not going to destroy all your efforts by one weak impulse. Out of sight is definitely out of mind.

If you want to lose weight permanently you have to make a real effort. You have to get out of the habit of eating bad foods. If you do, weight loss will become so much easier. Your new habits will gradually support you and help you to say ‘no’. Temptation will never disappear, but you will be in a far better position to resist it.  

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How good are you at listening to your body? Can you now recognize the difference between a hunger signal and a thirst signal? You may have discovered that most of them are thirst signals – over 70% of them are. Tuning-in to your body is such a useful thing to be able to do. There is so much information available to you – all you have to do is to learn to access it.

Every day you will be faced with temptation when you are trying to lose weight. To eat or not to eat the slice of cake, to use a convenient excuse for not taking exercise – there’ll be many other similar dilemmas. When you’re faced with a set of positive and negative options, how do you come to your decision? Do you use your ‘gut feeling’?

What is ‘gut feeling’? Gut feeling is a sense of intuition that you can’t rationally account for. It’s emotional wisdom which you’ve gathered from past experiences. It flags up positive and negative alternatives which you are then able to consider with your reasoned thought. ‘Gut feeling’ and reason should actually work in parallel. When you learn to work with both, you start to make smart decisions.  For example: Your gut feeling might tell you that the three-mile run you are about to start will be hard work – disagreeable even – and that you’d prefer to avoid it. Reason tells you that it will do you good and help you to lose weight. You err on the side of reason, but it could easily have gone the other way.

Gut feeling is an example of information that is available to you from within yourself. You have an ‘inner wisdom’ which you need to learn to understand, interpret and manage. Realize that you have these sources of wisdom, and you’ll take better and more informed decisions and find losing weight much easier

Mobilizing your gut feeling and really understanding how it works is hugely useful when you’re trying to lose weight permanently. The more you are conscious of your powers of reason and your gut feeling, the more you will be able to mobilize them to help you succeed.

Popularity: 6% [?]

Technorati Tags: how to lose weight, how to lose weight permanently, lose weight, say goodbye to diets forever