7 Mistaken Beliefs That Prevent Weight Loss

OK, but may need modification for diabetes

A lot of good advice here, but some of it may need to be modified for people with diabetes.

Hunger IS GOOD

Too many people are afraid of not eating. Remember the body can go 3 weeks without food. The human body understands how to handle starvation. What is does not understand, is how to handle obesity. MANY, MANY cultures incorporate forms of fasting in their rituals.

People today act as if going hungry will kill you. No, obesity will kill you. I DO NOT RECOMMEND being underweight. Get to your healthy weight range and stay there, but going without food can be BETTER THAN EATING, if it helps you get there. And drink lots of water....not soda..not coffee....not tea....not diet soda....not vitamin water.....not vitamin water 10.....real water.

Starvation alone works.....starvation (~500 to 1200 calories per day) and exercise works better and is much healthier for you. Something that helps me keep energy is the two serving cans of pineapple (in pineapple juice) that walmart sells. It has 22 grams of sugar, but only 120 calories in the can. The small one serving (YES ONE SERVING, check the back) microwavable Chef Boyardee or Dinty Moore makes for a good lunch. (NOTHING ELSE...no chips, soda, etc). Soup is good too, but tends to have a lot of sodium.

I go to the gym every day. I have lost about 10 lbs in the last month, and am looking to lose another 20 to get to my goal weight. I feel awesome after working out.

Remember, if your body is using it's stored fat, by definition it is not getting enough calories to replace what it is burning. Being hungry is part of that process.

Fitness Mitakes

It is extremely important that people follow a HEALTHY diet and workout plan, rather than drastically cutting calories or using food as a means to uplift their spirits when they are feeling down. I always have my clients WRITE DOWN what they eat, when they eat it and what they did as far as exercise each day. This way they make themselves accountable and are more likely to stick to a plan. Healthy living takes planning... Just lie anything in life, we need to work hard at keeping healthy in order to exercise. Keep reminders of what you want to achieve around your house, get a training buddy, keep a food journal...There are several things that can be done to maximize chances of success.

Best of luck!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Harry Johnson Jr is the 1998 Body For Life Champion - You can learn more about losing weight and getting into great shape at his blog, www.harryjohnsonjr.com

not helpful

i find much of this simplistic and unrelated to working on the front line of overweight persons....if one works in high pressure job - worry seriosly /possibly panic if you cannot find time to eat on time and frequently ...staying alert and energized- many careers and lower wage jobs have no relaxed time/regular/dependable meal times

Giving in to cravings can be a serious disaster for weight management-causing binges and loss of any success -trigger foods often have addiction lke effects on obese persons.All of this article is fine for those genetically and behaviourly already in good shape and control ofeating habits

Learning to maintain weight loss

Weight Watchers' program teaches members who reach their desired and healthy weight how to maintain that weight. Once the goal is reached, the member at goal spends 6 more weeks adding food to her diet. She weighs in each week for six weeks, and can see how well she is managing to maintain the weight. After the six weeks, she (or he) weighs in once a month to keep track of how well the member is keeping the weight off.

Vtrim Weight Loss

An even more efficient weight loss program you should check out is Vtrim ( http://www.vtrim.org ). The Vtrim-online approach to weight loss focuses more on the behavioral component of dieting, as well the importance of maintaining a healthy lifestyle. Vtrim is very unique in which the participants are encouraged to set behavioral goals, rather than set individual weight goals, to achieve more permanent weight loss.

Cog Therapy and Weight Loss - other thoughts

Takign a different look

1. Does anyone in America( or elsewhere in the world) really know, so they can independently measure, what's healthy for thier body at their age? Most adult Americans don't have the knowledge, incentive, or methods to measure and judge health beyond contradictory, 'bullet-point' advise produced by narrowly proven theoretical 'truths" that are the currency in the media industry. Sound bites/bullet points are a by-product of heavily pre-processed thinking; just like weight problems are partially the fault of heavily pre-processed foods.

2 As possible measures of health, most folks use the pain-free, normal seeming, mobility measure. Some will go a bit further with "I'm okay emotionally and socially - I have friends and a measure of success" and others will go even further with "I am at peace with the universe". Are any of these really accurate measures of health? Consider - these are the measures generally force-fed during elementary schooling and cognitively, everything you really use to be functionally able, you learned by the end of 6th Grade.

3. Cognitive theory says - what you believe is true & IS your functional, working truth. If, however all you have is media-available "experts" (and expert has no whole-world standard of measure) guiding you, then how can you personally judge, let alone be personally responsible for 'the truth'? Additionally, just because someone is published and thereby an author-ity, don't conclude the writer knows anything for certain other than their own truth. They write to sell you their understanding of truth - including psychologists, medical doctors, Ph.D's and Nobel Prize (and other honorific) winners. Just because people agree with someone, it doesn't mean what they speak is "the verified, validated and reliable in all circumstances" truth.

4. Finally, if you look to the US government to provide truth and guidance - because you don't want the responsibility to think and act - then we should all ask for legislation that requires all food buyers to have a license. Before buying any pre-processed food (e.g. ready-meals, bottled beverages, bagged items, boxed items), the purchaser would show a license, granted on their demonstrated knowledge of their own state of health as well as ability to determine nutritional quality. Sounds far-fecthed but consider labeling for "light foods", FDA & OSHA enforcement of the temperature of served coffee, and government mandates that school lunches no longer feature fried, starchy, or sugar-rich foods.Governments have taken less well-founded action than licensing personal food purchases.

Cognitive therapy works for many people -- YMMV of course

I have lost 30 lbs. over the past 16 months using techniques from Dr. Beck's first book. (Incidentally, you might look up her father, Dr. Aaron Beck -- he literally wrote the book, or at least one of the best-known books, on cognitive therapy for managing mood disorders.)

If you think that's not very fast, well hey, there are people who in the same amount of time have lost 30 lbs and then gained it back!

Dr. Beck doesn't recommend starving yourself. Her point is that realistically, especially if you work outside the home, you sometimes are going to feel hungry, and this isn't reason to panic, or to go off your plan and grab something crappy from a vending machine. Until I did some of the exercises she recommends, I literally got panicky when I was hungry and thought I had to drop everything to deal with it, or else I'd go nuts. This was an overreaction of course, but many heavy people do have these mistaken thoughts, and it's great to be free of them.

I'm not suggesting that one magic method should work for everyone, but it seems some of the posters here don't realize that cognitive therapy is a proven medical standard of care in psychiatry -- it's not some crackpot notion. Dr. Beck is just applying it to weight loss.

peace out

WHAT!?!?

Seriously, I think you should be arrested for saying that online! That is bogus information! You wasted 5 minutes of my day!

Katherine Hobson: I'm not quite sure what I should be arrested for, but if my response to the other commenter doesn't answer your questions, please feel free to raise more specific points and I'll respond here. Thanks!

You're kidding right?

What planet are you from?? Hunger IS indeed bad. People should eat 5-6 times a day and never get to the point of hunger. Hunger makes the normal person eat more than they would normally eat because their blood sugar levels drop. Hunger lowers your fat-burning metabolism. Food is a necessary fuel for the body.

Don't give into cravings?? Why not? They don't go away; they get worse!! Then you binge and eat twice as much as you would if you ate what you craved in the first place!!

Sure it's okay to take a break from exercise. As a trainer and avid exerciser, I do allow myself a break. Once in a while, your body needs it and actually reboots itself from a few days off, once you start up again.

Where in the world did you get all of this stuff from???

Katherine Hobson: This info is all from cognitive therapy, as the story indicates. As far as hunger goes, her point is just that hunger will not kill you. If it's 5pm and you're eating at 6pm, you do not need to have a snack because you're terrified of being hungry. Many people do not actually know what hunger feels like -- they are eating constantly because they think they're "hungry" but actually just want to eat for other reasons. Her point is to know your body enough to know the difference. As for cravings, if you eat what you crave all the time, you may find yourself in calorie imbalance if you crave nutritionally dense foods all the time. And as to the breaks from exercise -- that was slightly misphrased (my bad, not hers). Her point isn't that you should never take a break from exercise -- everyone should schedule some time off-- but that simply "not wanting to work out," absent some physical or other reason, is not necessarily a reason to depart from your planned workout. Most of us don't feel like working out a few times a week, but once we do, and after we do, we feel great. That's her point, not that we should drive ourselves into the ground and never allow ourselves a day off or a treat.