Your body image and how to change it by saying NO to fad diets!
Losing weight is NOT about fad diets!
In recent years, weight gain has become a major issue in many countries around the world and it has created a massive industry: a whole spread of companies that promise they can guarantee weight loss.
But how many of these companies are truly interested in dealing with the real causes of the weight gain issues affecting so many? I doubt if many of them are truly interested as long as their products continue to sell.
As a therapist, I find that more and more people are coming to me wanting to lose weight but just don’t seem to have been able to achieve it, even after trying many of the diets being sold in the market place.
There are a number of areas to look at when dealing with body image.
The first thing is to “STOP DIETING”, because the real key to safe and permanent weight management is very simple – just make sure you put less energy into your body than you use and you cannot fail to reduce.
The problem with a diet is that it is commonly a regime of food intake that is not natural to us. We are by nature designed to eat everything that is edible so if you focus on a specific range of foods you are refusing your body some nutrients that it naturally needs.
So eat anything you want, including ice cream and chocolate if you want it. The trick is to only eat an appropriate amount. Eat one piece of chocolate instead of a bar. Eat one scoop of ice cream instead of a bowl. Do not eat unless you are hungry, do not eat until you are full, and do not eat until your plate is empty; only eat until you are satisfied. If there is food left on your plate, so be it.
Secondly, the thing to remember, regardless of what the scales say, is that the fat to muscle ratio is what truly determines how well toned and shaped your body becomes (scales versus measurements).
Areas to measure when toning up and shaping up are chest, waist, hips, left and right bicep and left and right thighs because 1” is roughly equivalent to 1lb in weight; weight is usually taken once a month, measurement weekly.
The third thing to look at is the reason or reasons that are causing you to gain weight (these can be many) and deal with them. If you are having difficulty doing this by yourself, do enlist some help, either from a very good friend or a professional.
We often laugh about comfort foods, but some foods do make us feel happier, so if we are feeling below our best, we sabotage our way of eating by heading for the biscuits, chocolate or whatever it is that fills the empty space. The trick here is to understand more about why you feel down and learn how to deal with the way you feel. There are psychologists paid large sums of money to work out how to make you part with more of your hard earned cash and of course, if you learn to stop walking down these sweet aisles in supermarkets, you will be much more able to resist the impulse – after that all you have to do is get past the checkout without grabbing a bar to eat on your way home!
Just remember – the real key to safe and permanent weight control is to balance what you eat to what you need. Some days you need more, some days less. And don’t forget, a brisk half hour walk round the block counts as exercise, the gym is not always necessary.
I hope the observations I have made here help some of you – if you have any questions, please contact Vernon Harris directly on 07866 730941 or 0330 350 1551 to discuss your issues confidentially or please do visit my website. www.vernonaharris.com/vgb.