Americans keep getting fatter, no other country comes out with more diets, diet programs and dieting aids, and the dieting industry is making tons of money. Does this sound right? Who is benefiting here? It doesn't seem to be the consumers. If diets work, why are Americans continuing to get fatter each year? Why are our children fatter than every before?
Perhaps it's time for consumers to get smarter about choosing what or who they are going to believe when it comes to how to how to get lean and fit. It's just not working folks. What they are selling isn't working. It's time to stop depending on the dieting industry to tell you what you should do since you aren't getting what you want from them.
This is the reason I wrote my book. I want people to be smarter consumers. Yes, I do want people to be healthy, lean and fit but I want them to learn what works and doesn't work. The first step, however, is to face up and admit to yourself, and to the dieting industry that if it hasn't worked after so many years, you are going to let go of it. Let go of attempts that haven't ever worked. It's time to find another way--maybe it won't sound like a panacea but maybe if it sounds like a panacea, that's the indication that it's not going to work.
Monday, February 23, 2009
Friday, February 13, 2009
Why do I crave something sweet after every meal?
Most of the time this boils down to habit. Like other animals, humans can be easily conditioned to things. For example, if you grew up always having dessert after dinner, your brain will be conditioned to expect that and it will prepare your body for eating sweets after dinner. That usually means not feeling satisfied at the end of the meal, feeling a craving for something sweet. You will salivate, preparing for the delicious treat. This doesn't mean you can't get rid of the habit, but that it takes some time and an effective strategy to get there.
I used to have a habit of drinking Diet Coke. I only drank one per day but my body expected it anytime between 11 and 2 each day. That's the time that my office schedule allowed it in the beginning. I was so conditioned that my body and mind wouldn't leave me alone until I got one. Even when I could honestly say that I didn't quite enjoy drinking them as much as in the beginning, I still craved it. It's been over 6 years since I've had any soda but it took a conscious effort and some time to get past the cravings.
Without knowing what your individual efforts have been to get rid of the habit or what your history is, I couldn't give you an answer that would apply only to you. However, this is what it usually is.
Psychologically and physiologically, the best way to get rid of sweet cravings is to:
I used to have a habit of drinking Diet Coke. I only drank one per day but my body expected it anytime between 11 and 2 each day. That's the time that my office schedule allowed it in the beginning. I was so conditioned that my body and mind wouldn't leave me alone until I got one. Even when I could honestly say that I didn't quite enjoy drinking them as much as in the beginning, I still craved it. It's been over 6 years since I've had any soda but it took a conscious effort and some time to get past the cravings.
Without knowing what your individual efforts have been to get rid of the habit or what your history is, I couldn't give you an answer that would apply only to you. However, this is what it usually is.
Psychologically and physiologically, the best way to get rid of sweet cravings is to:
- improve what you eat in general--eat more nutritiously. This makes sure that you're not lacking anything.
- wait 20 minutes after a meal before having your sweet. If the cravings are due to having gone too long without eating so that your blood sugar is low, it gives your body enough time to raise the blood sugar so that you don't have the cravings.
- Don't try to go "cold turkey" with your attempts to get rid of sweets after meals. Gradually change the type of sweets you eat by having desserts that are made with fruit so that you're having more natural sugars and less granulated or high fructose sugar, cut down on processed foods and sweets. Also reduce the quantities of the sweets gradually until you have the habit licked.
- You can even try this little (temporary) trick I used once with a patient and it worked nicely for them. Eat your small dessert first. Make it a small amount-then have your meal. This does two things-if low blood sugar is the problem, you start stabilizing it sooner and the meal keeps it there. If habit is the problem, you will disrupt things just enough to weaken the habit for sweets after the meal.
What is set-point?
Basically "set point" is the weight range that your body is physiologically programmed to maintain. For example, if your set point is between 140 and 145 pounds, your body will try to do whatever it can to stay within that range. If you go under the range, you may feel hungrier so that you eat more food or become less active so that the body can get back within the range. If you go over the range, you can lose appetite so that you eat less and, again, get back into the set point range. Everyone has their own set point range.
That is one of the biggest problems with the "one size fits all" approach to dieting that the dieting industry takes. People are led to believe that they should be able to lose all the weight they want to lose or that a weight chart says they should lose. This is a disservice to people. How frustrating to not know about set point and make endless attempts to lose a particular amount of weight when your body will be working against you if you go outside your range!
If you look back through the years at your weight history you can get an idea of your set point. Most likely it's around the weight that your body seemed to stabilize at when you weren't dieting stringently. For some people this is too hard to figure out because they have constantly dieted for years.
Having a set point is actually a good thing. It's just another wonderful survival mechanism that the body has. Accepting that you have a set point and becoming familiar with it will help you be more successful with your attempts to be more fit. That's because you won't continue to fail at unrealistic attempts to lose weight. You will choose methods of losing weight that are doable for you and you will be more relaxed while you're making changes.
Finally, there is one way that you can semi-permanently change your set point to a lower range. That is with consistent, aerobic exercise. When you engage in this type of exercise, your metabolism increases temporarily for hours after the exercise has ended. If you do this consistently, you can see that you will keep your metabolism and, therefore, your set point at a lower range. If you stop doing consistent, aerobic exercise your body will go back to it's original set point range. So when you exercise think about the fact that you're not only burning more while you're exercising, but for hours afterwards (even if you're sleeping)! That's nice, huh?
That is one of the biggest problems with the "one size fits all" approach to dieting that the dieting industry takes. People are led to believe that they should be able to lose all the weight they want to lose or that a weight chart says they should lose. This is a disservice to people. How frustrating to not know about set point and make endless attempts to lose a particular amount of weight when your body will be working against you if you go outside your range!
If you look back through the years at your weight history you can get an idea of your set point. Most likely it's around the weight that your body seemed to stabilize at when you weren't dieting stringently. For some people this is too hard to figure out because they have constantly dieted for years.
Having a set point is actually a good thing. It's just another wonderful survival mechanism that the body has. Accepting that you have a set point and becoming familiar with it will help you be more successful with your attempts to be more fit. That's because you won't continue to fail at unrealistic attempts to lose weight. You will choose methods of losing weight that are doable for you and you will be more relaxed while you're making changes.
Finally, there is one way that you can semi-permanently change your set point to a lower range. That is with consistent, aerobic exercise. When you engage in this type of exercise, your metabolism increases temporarily for hours after the exercise has ended. If you do this consistently, you can see that you will keep your metabolism and, therefore, your set point at a lower range. If you stop doing consistent, aerobic exercise your body will go back to it's original set point range. So when you exercise think about the fact that you're not only burning more while you're exercising, but for hours afterwards (even if you're sleeping)! That's nice, huh?
Monday, February 2, 2009
I will lose all control
If I'm not strict with myself I feel that I will lose all control and never be able to stop eating. What do I do?
This is a fear that many people have. However, the data doesn't support it. In practice, when people work on letting go of their restrictive rules of dieting that tell them they cannot eat certain foods and that they are bad if they break a rule, the opposite happens. As you get rid of the psychological deprivation that you have set up through constant, rigid dieting, you become more and more of a normal eating person who's body signals when you've had enough and tells you that it doesn't want any more. It grows to be satisfied with less and less food until it reaches a normal appetite level. In my book, Mind Over Fat Matters: Conquering Psychological Barriers to Weight Management, I explain what psychological deprivation is, how we create it through rigid dieting and rules, and how to eliminate it so that you can follow through with eating in a way that will cause fat burning instead of leading to compulsive eating.
www.FatMatters.com
This is a fear that many people have. However, the data doesn't support it. In practice, when people work on letting go of their restrictive rules of dieting that tell them they cannot eat certain foods and that they are bad if they break a rule, the opposite happens. As you get rid of the psychological deprivation that you have set up through constant, rigid dieting, you become more and more of a normal eating person who's body signals when you've had enough and tells you that it doesn't want any more. It grows to be satisfied with less and less food until it reaches a normal appetite level. In my book, Mind Over Fat Matters: Conquering Psychological Barriers to Weight Management, I explain what psychological deprivation is, how we create it through rigid dieting and rules, and how to eliminate it so that you can follow through with eating in a way that will cause fat burning instead of leading to compulsive eating.
www.FatMatters.com
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