How to lose weight & the importance of mindset

It's so easy to get stuck thinking about your weight; how to lose it, how to keep it off, and even for some; how to gain it.  Whether you're a man, woman or teenager, we've all compared ourselves to billboards and fit-stagrammers. Our image-focused society focuses on appearance so much, it can seem inescapable. 

What actually works to help you lose weight?

Comparing yourself to others and shaming yourself every time you stray from your diet or workout regime is a bad habit, and leads to overeating, bad self-esteem, binging, trying crazy unrealistic diets and ensures a lifetime of fluctuating weight. But for some reason, we all do it.

Instead of focusing purely on weight loss though, it's been found that focusing on a positive outcome like better health is way more effective for long-term weightloss. Now's the time to stop making yourself feel bad about your weight, and start focusing on the end goal: Living a happier, healthier life. 

Focus on healthy habits for long term weight loss

When you focus too much on any outcome, you get exhausted along the way. If you focus on day-to-day goals though, you'll find you reach the same outcome without all the worry. Let's be honest though, it's easy to say you want to lose weight, but harder to stick to your strategies. So instead of putting excessive pressure on yourself like banning yourself from eating cheese and saying you'll run 15 kms every day, make your day-to-day goals more achievable. 

Instead of these negative goals:

- I'll fit into my skinny jeans in 4 weeks

- I won't eat carbs for 2 months

Try these positive, achievable, measurable goals

- I'll try to eat 5 veggies everyday

- I'll get moving for 30 minutes 5 days a week, even if it's just a walk down the street and back.

- I'll find new healthy recipes and plan 3 meals each week (leaving less time to eat fast food)

- I'll eat vegetarian meals 5 out of 7 days

- I'll have 5 alcohol-free nights a week

The goals above are weight-loss strategies disguised as wellness strategies! By aiming to enhance your health, you approach weight loss in a positive way rather than from a negative, self-punishing angle.

Goal setting & Technology

One of the best things about technology is it's ability to change our behaviour with cool apps and programs and this works for weight loss and wellness too. My favourite for goals setting is WOOP: Where you set a wish, outcome, obstacle and a plan. 

Eg. Wish: To be lighter and healthier

Outcome: I'll feel more confident in my own skin & with my partner

Obstacle: I don't have enough time to shop and cook healthy food

Plan: (when I encounter my obstacle, I'll....)

eg. When I don't have enough time to cook and shop for healthy food I'll...

-Order a weeks' worth of veggies and groceries online, and prepare 3 quick, healthy meals to freeze for the week.

The Woop app is an evidence-based way to stick to your goals, and find actionable ways to make them happen. There are plenty of other fitness and goal-setting apps, but I think Woop seems more authentic. It works with you and your mindset rather than using financial motivation, like apps such as Pact. It's amazing how goals pop into your head when you're using the app - things you didn't even know were important to you. 

Goal setting doesn't have to be a mission

The term goal setting sounds like boring terminology used in stuffy conference rooms and tedious hour-long meetings; but it doesn't have to be. Change the word 'goal' to 'ways for me to be healthier,' and the focus and accountability comes back to you. 

Weight loss for health not looks

Another important weight loss mindset change: Remember being in a healthy weight range is better for your body, it's not about looking a certain way. Carrying extra weight around your tummy is directly linked to heart problems, while generally carrying extra weight is hard on your joints and can accelerate osteoarthritis and joint degeneration.

What do you think are important aspects of weight loss?

Source

How Meditation Might Help You Control Your Weight

A group of researchers at UC San Francisco have conducted a study indicating that meditation could be a key in helping people to control their dietary habits and help them lose weight.  It’s only a small-scale study and needs reproduction, but its findings are consistent with other studies of mindfulness.

Here’s the setup: the researchers took a randomized group of 47 overweight women and divided them into two groups. Both groups received training on the basics of diet and exercise, but no diets were prescribed to either group.

The experimental group received training in “mindful eating” and meditation in weekly sessions. In the mindful eating training, the women were trained to experience the moment-by-moment sensory experience of eating . They also meditated for 30 minutes a day.

The goal of the experiment was two-fold – to use mindful eating to help control cravings and overeating, and to use meditation as a stress relief to prevent “comfort eating.” The preliminary results showed that they were successful. The women in the control group gained weight, while those in the control group maintained their weight and showed significant reductions in their cortisol levels (high cortisol levels are a side effect of stress).

“You’re training the mind to notice, but to not automatically react based on habitual patterns — to not reach for a candy bar in response to feeling anger, for example,” said researcher Jennifer Daubenmier in a press release.  “If you can first recognize what you are feeling before you act, you have a greater chance of making a wiser decision.”

Dr. Catherine Kerr, a meditation researcher at Brown University, is also encouraged by the study. She told me in an email that “These findings are consistent with numerous brain studies showing that this practice of attending mindfully to present moment experience brings about changes in brain areas responsible for body sensations, especially body sensations related to hunger and craving (in the brain area called the ‘insula’), the idea here being that daily practice actually trains your brain to help you tune in to your body in a more healthy way.”

There are caveats to this study – it’s only preliminary, and it had a small test group. Also, the difference in the weight changes reported above only applied to the women in the study who were classified as ‘obese’ by their BMI. Overall, there wasn’t a statistically significant difference between the control group and experimental group when it came to weight.  (The stress levels were different, however.) But given this study’s consistency with other findings, I think that a bigger scale study would show that the combination of stress reduction via meditation and craving control via mindful eating should work to maintain weight if practiced consistently.

The science of meditation is a subject that will never stop fascinating me – now that it’s started to become the subject of serious research, it’s revealing some aspects of the human brain that are truly insightful. I think that as we explore it more, we’re going to discover some human potential that for most people has remained untapped.

Source
http://www.forbes.com/sites/alexknapp/2011/12/15/how-meditation-might-help-you-control-your-weight/

How I Overcame A Weight Loss Plateau By Changing My Mindset

There are many physical ways to overcome weight loss plateau: diet, exercise, short-term tricks. But from my own success at losing weight and from experience working with clients, I've learned there's always an underlying reason why you're not able to lose more weight. Unless you address it, you'll struggle to succeed.

For example, many women lose some (or sometimes quite a lot of) weight when they start eating healthier. But the weight loss almost always stops before they reach their "ideal" body. When I changed my diet in 2010, the first 22 pounds fell off effortlessly and quickly. I was happy with my results, felt more energized and healed many health issues.

However, my weight suddenly froze no matter what changes I made in my diet. It stayed at the same number for over a year.

Eventually I lost the weight I wanted, but it took almost four years. It wasn't just gradual weight loss, either: I hit a weight loss plateau at least three times during those years!
Having overcome the dreaded weight loss plateau several times, I can tell you that the secret isn't some sort of magical diet trick or miraculous exercise routine. It's much deeper than all of that. It's your mindset.

Here are the first steps you can take to overcoming your own weight loss plateau:

1. Discover the real reason(s) you're overweight.

If you're carrying excess weight, the primary reason probably isn't your diet, lack of exercise, lifestyle habits or lack of willpower. Yes, all of these factors play a major role in your health and how your body feels and appears, but they're just a manifestation of the real, deeper reason.

For example, fat works as protection. We're building a shield of fat in an attempt to protect ourselves from perceived threats. Many of us have different fears and we constantly feel threatened, whether consciously or subconsciously. Fat may also serve as a means to hide, be invisible and not shine your true light.

 

Sometimes people feel unfulfilled in some areas of their lives. Perhaps they sense they're not following their true purpose. Maybe they're not happy with their relationships. Maybe they don't feel a spiritual connection. They subconsciously try to fill that inner void with food.

There are many deeper psychological reasons why you might be carrying that excess weight. It's important to discover those that apply to you and address them if you want to get rid of fat with permanent, lasting results.

2. Accept your current reality.

I see so many women obsessively weighing themselves, restricting calories, blaming their metabolism and wondering, "Why am I putting all that effort into losing weight but not getting results?"

Obsessively focusing on weight loss, hating your body shape and thinking that your life will be perfect when you lose weight are manifestations of the thing that's keeping you overweight. It shows when you don't accept what is, when you resist the current reality. And whatever you resist persists.

In order to break through the plateau and release stubborn excess weight, first you need to accept your current body and be OK with it. This doesn't mean that you want to stay the way you are forever, but you need to accept the current reality: "OK, this is what I did to my body, this is how I currently look. No matter what, I still love and appreciate my body".

Only then will you be free to relieve the internal tension, feel at ease and focus on achieving positive changes.

3. Find the right motivation.

When I think about weight loss motivation, what often comes to mind is those motivational posters depicting hot fitness models repeating hollow phrases like "No pain, no gain" or "Strong is the new skinny."

But I personally think this type of motivation is superficial, even damaging. It might get you pumped for a little while, but take a step back and ask yourself why exactly should having perfect abs be your focus?

We are conditioned by the media and mass culture to assume that being skinny and fit will bring us happiness and make our lives whole. Usually these assumptions are not even conscious. But what is truly important is to feel free and connected, have lots of energy and have the confidence to fully express yourself.

You have to figure out how you truly want to feel, identify your core values in life and take ownership of your vision. Everyone is different, so this has to be your personal manifesto, not one cut and pasted from a glossy magazine. Then let those values, that vision and those desired feelings guide you and be your motivation.

This motivation comes from within, is authentic for YOU and brings harmony to your life. Everything else will follow naturally.



Source
http://www.mindbodygreen.com/0-15731/how-i-overcame-a-weight-loss-plateau-by-changing-my-mindset.html

Are You Sabotaging Your Own Weight Loss Efforts?

Why do some people seem to lose weight easily while others fail year after year?

• Is it genetics? Money? Willpower?

While it’s true these may play a small part, there’s something else that has a much larger role.

• It’s mindset.

And yours may be holding you back.
In this article, we’ll explore the science behind your mindset and underlying philosophy, and show you some proven ways to take action to improve it–so you can finally use your mindset to lose weight, get fit and be healthy.

 

What Is “Mindset”?

• Mindsets are beliefs about yourself and your most basic qualities.

Stanford University psychologist Carol Dweck, who wrote a book called Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, says there are two different types of mindsets: fixed and growth-oriented.

People with a fixed mindset think talent alone creates success. When faced with a challenge, they tend to take the easy way out to avoid failure and embarrassment. This is a psychological principle known as self-handicapping.

People with a growth mindset believe they can improve their abilities and create successes by working hard, practicing, and learning. They take on challenges even at the risk of failing. They embrace failure because they know they’ll learn valuable lessons from it.

 

How Mindset Affects Your Health

Research shows your mindset can profoundly impact your life—especially your health. Here are several studies that prove it.

In a study published in the journal Psychological Science, hotel cleaning crews were told that the work they do (cleaning hotel rooms) is good exercise and satisfies the Surgeon General’s recommendations for an active lifestyle. Subjects in the control group were not given this information. Four weeks later, the first group perceived themselves to be getting significantly more exercise than before. As a result, compared with the control group, they showed a decrease in weight, blood pressure, body fat, waist-to-hip ratio, and body mass index. Mindset alone caused physiological changes in their body.

In another study published in the journal Health Psychology, participants were divided into two groups. Each group received a 380-calorie milkshake but one group was told they were drinking a 620-calorie “indulgent” shake and the other was told they were drinking a 140-calorie “sensible” shake.
The researchers then measured participants’ levels of ghrelin, a hormone that stimulates your brain to increase appetite.

Those who thought they drank the 620-calorie shake experienced a dramatically steeper decline in ghrelin after consuming the shake. The study authors concluded that “Participants’ satiety was consistent with what they believed they were consuming rather than the actual nutritional value of what they consumed.”

In other words, your mindset about a particular food can affect your hunger and levels of fullness. If your mind tells your body you’re drinking a “skinny” shake, you won’t feel as full. You CAN use your mindset to lose weight, get fit and be healthy.

Finally, in a study published in the journal Clinical Psychology Review that looked at the science of optimism, researchers found that an optimistic mindset can lead to better health outcomes too—optimistic people tend to be healthier on average.

 

How to Change Your Philosophy and Mindset

So the science clearly tells us that your mindset can have a dramatic impact on your health. The question is, how do you change a mindset that may be holding you back?
This is what Dweck suggests in her book:

 

 

Step 1. Recognize fixed mindset thinking.

Even if you have a growth mindset, that pesky little fixed mindset voice will sneak its way in once in a while. You know … the one that produces these types of thoughts:

• “I have bad genes, there’s no way I can lose that much weight.”
• “What if I fail?”
• “I don’t want to embarrass myself.”
• “I don’t have the willpower to stick with a healthy diet.”
• “I’m just not as smart/lucky/talented.”

When this happens, simply recognize and accept it. Then do this …

 

Step 2. Reframe negative, fixed mindset thinking with a growth mindset voice.

Once you recognize a fixed mindset thought, you have a choice: believe those negative thoughts … or reframe them. For example:

• “No excuses this time … I’m getting started.”
• “If I fail, it’s okay. Great accomplishments don’t happen without risk.”
• “Forget diets. I’ll take it slow and making eating healthy a lifestyle.”
• “If I don’t know how to do something, I’ll learn.”

 

Step 3. Take action.

Once you reframe a fixed mindset thought, the next step is to take action.
Here are some strategies that will help you:

1. Write it down

One of the most effective ways to improve your philosophy and mindset is to keep a journal or planner. Use it to capture your thoughts, plan your day, and track your goals. For example, here’s what I do:

• At the start of every day I write a positive quote at the top of my daily planner (today’s quote is “Life is 10 percent what happens to me and 90 percent how I react to it”).
• Next, I write down everything I plan to do over the course of the day to accomplish my goals (for example, “Write new blog post, network with 3 people, lift weights for 45 minutes, find recipe for healthy dinner”).
• Then, I evaluate what I accomplished at the end of each day.

Writing things down feels good, and it’s proven to help you cultivate positive mental and physical changes in your body. In one study, participants wrote for 20 minutes each day for three consecutive days about either a positive life experience or a control topic.
Three months later, the students who wrote about positive experiences had improved physical health and higher levels of focus—just from writing about it. That’s powerful stuff. If you want to change your mindset, write.

2. Embrace learning

We all consume massive amounts of information every day. You have a choice whether that information helps you or holds you back. Checking your Facebook page 10 times a day may be mindless fun, but what if you spent that time reading books that helped you cultivate a growth mindset?

I recommend Mind Is The Master by James Allen, Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill, The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg, and Make Today Count by John Maxwell. Even if you don’t like to read, buy audio books and listen to them while you drive. Imagine the impact those books and others you’re interested in can have on your mindset over time.

 

3. Take calculated risks

Whether you want to start your own business or get in the best shape of your life, ask yourself this question: will you be better off by never starting or by taking a chance and risking failing?

It’s an easy answer. Embrace failure. Because it will give you the most valuable feedback in the world. The foundation of the growth mindset is the ability to learn from your failures and become a person who continuously improves.

On Carol Dweck’s website, she says, “Although people may differ in every which way—in their initial talents and aptitudes, interests, or temperaments – everyone can change and grow through application and experience.”

In other words, your mindset is like a muscle: the more you use it to both learn and focus on positive thoughts, the stronger it becomes.

Dream big but start small. Focus on your mindset first and you will open doors to anything and everything you want to accomplish in life….perhaps starting with losing weight, getting fit and being healthy.

Source
http://healthhabits.ca/2014/01/31/use-your-mindset-to-lose-weight-get-fit-and-be-healthy/

3 Mindset Shifts That Help Weight Loss

In a recent Facebook thread about weight loss that I was following, one commenter wrote that if she could write a diet book, she’d call it “Eat Less” and then leave all the pages blank. Drop the mic, call it a day, solve our obesity mess with a two-word prescription.

Most of us who have read anything about diets, obesity, and weight loss would nod in agreement. We have too much food, too much sugar, too many processed foods, and too many choices. And the reality is that we could likely engineer a one-size-fits-most diet that would push everybody back to healthy weights. Example: Eggs and berries for breakfast, grilled chicken salad with nuts for lunch, and fish with vegetables and avocado for dinner might get us there if we followed that plan every day (adjusting for variables like vegetarian options and allergies). Most of us who have read anything about diets, obesity and weight loss would also agree that it’s nowhere near that easy.

The diet dilemma has everything to with food. And nothing to do with food.
It really has more to do with adjusting our mindset so that healthy choices feel right—and don’t feel like deprivation, hard work or punishment.

 

I’ve spent most of my career writing about health, and I’ve spent most of my life in a bleep-off relationship with the scale. I’ve had quite a few lows (almost ballooning to 300 pounds while writing diet books, getting a D in sixth-grade gym class), and I’ve also had some successes. (For what it’s worth, our individual definitions of weight-loss success need to include not just pounds, but also things like bodily satisfaction, life satisfaction, numbers like blood pressure and achievement of other goals not associated with pounds.)

We all have the ability to change our mindsets—not with a tire-squealing hard left, but by simply drifting into a new lane of thinking. These 3 switches will help you start:

Reverse the leadership model

The protocol for people who want to lose weight typically comes in two forms. You have the people who seclude themselves, privately trying to swim upstream against all of the forces that will make them gain weight. And you have the follow-the-leader model, in which the would-be dieter listens to the plan/advice/program of the trainer, the doctor, the nutritionist, the author, the infomercial-machine-seller: the person who, by degree or some other definition, knows more about the subject than anybody else. There’s nothing inherently wrong with either model, because either of them can work.

The glitch, however, comes when the follower grows tired of following. And when one grows tired of following, one consumes three pieces of Oreo pie. It’s not that the experts don’t know what they’re doing, because most of the many I’ve worked with and interviewed in my career do. It’s just that we dieters, though most don’t even know it, need a more balanced mix of following and leading. We need to harness some of the power and control back from the people who are telling us what to do. We need to lead, even if we don’t look like we should.

 

Leadership can come in many forms, whether it’s being the person to arrange the neighborhood walking group, or the person who prepares the family meal and makes kale chips instead of buying chocolate chips, or the person who organizes a work team to run a 5K together. The last couple years, I’ve organized weekly workouts with friends and neighbors. I’m the worst athlete in the bunch, so at first glance, the question would be, Why is blubber boy in charge? Exactly zero percent of my friends have ever given me any inclination that’s what they felt. Instead, the dynamics of the group workout are that we all push and pull each other, no matter our athletic abilities. I know I’m not as good as the others, but I also know that these workouts don’t happen unless I kickstart them.

Dieters can redefine the roles we’re supposed to take, and that’s what drives changes in the way we think and act. This is where sustained energy comes from—what we deliver to others, we get in return.

Steer the fear

In the weight-loss world, fear is almost as bad of a word as pudding. We fear the scale. We fear the doctor. We fear shopping for clothes. We fear the camera. We fear being embarrassed. The more we fear, the more we retreat—and the harder it is to climb out of whatever destructive habits we have.
As someone who once was told I had child-bearing hips, I know that the fear is real, and I know it’s not easy to squash. But instead of letting fear steer us, we need to steer the fear.

Plenty of scholarly and popular writings have addressed the issue of goal-setting, though there is some debate about whether we should set dream-big goals or more attainable goals. My take: Every year, you should set at least one physical and mental challenge that scares you just enough to help you make good choices—because those choices are a means to reaching that goal. What is “just enough”? It’s that spot right in between “of course I can do this” and “no way in the world can I do this.” For me, it was taking on the challenge of trying to complete an Ironman in 2013 (2.4-mile swim, 112-mile bike, 26.2-mile run in a 17-hour time limit). I’ve found that the canyon in the middle of those two extremes is where the growth lies.
Maybe it’s not fear in the traditional sense, but that bubbling angst of uncertainty feels different from and healthier than the kind of fear that dieters tend to have. (Tell us about your new challenge with the hashtag #TIMEtosteerthefear.)

 

Crank the voltage

As someone who has finished last in a race (maybe two, but who’s counting?), I do subscribe to the turtle-inspired mantra of slow and steady. When it comes to weight loss, that mindset will win the race. The choices we make over time, not one day or one hour, dictate the way that our bodies will look, feel and act.

I do think it’s a mistake to think that slow-and-steady is always the answer. Especially when it comes to exercise, we need high-intensity, those short periods of working as hard as we can. Why? Because that kind of work—the kind where you’re so immersed in the activity because it’s fun and intense—is what feels good, what feels enjoyable, what feels in the moment and what gives us the post-activity high that helps us make healthy decisions, especially when it comes to food choices.

My friend and sports psychologist Doug Newburg, PhD, has taught me a lot about the concept of feel, because he has studied how it works in hundreds of elite performers. It’s different than feelings or emotions. Exercise, like eating, shouldn’t feel like a chore. For it to truly work over the long term, it has to feel more like recess than like detention. Going all in—whether it’s running, dancing, playing tennis or playing tag with your kids—excites you enough to take you out of your own head, and that’s what makes you want to do it again and again. The byproduct of playing hard is that, without thinking, you find what you were after in the first place.



Source
http://time.com/3502683/weight-loss-mindset/

How to Get the Right Mindset to Lose Weight - How to Recondition your Thoughts to Lose Weight Fast

If you want to lose weight, you should watch this video. Weight loss isn't just about exercise, it's also about how you see yourself. The unconscious secret beliefs you have about yourself will influence your ability to lose weight. If you feel yourself unworthy of what you deserve to look and feel like; your body will be a mirror of your thoughts and feelings towards yourself.