Bad News About Belly Fat

Recent research has linked fat around the abdomen with cardiovascular disease, diabetes and cancer. More specifically, it is not the fat that you can grab that poses the highest health risk but rather the deepest layer of fat which produces hormones and other substances that negatively affects your health. This fat is located next to and in between other organs in the abdominal cavity.

Want to know if you are setting the stage for type 2 diabetes in your own life? Take a tape measure and measure around your waist at the level of your bellybutton. A measurement that is greater than 35 inches in the women and 40 inches in men is considered unhealthy.

Why BMI Can Be Misleading

Until most recently the body mass index, a measurement of weight in relationship to height, has been used as a key factor in determining whether or not a person is at risk for diabetes, heart disease and certain types of cancer. Researchers are now discovering that this number may be inaccurate and misleading.

The problem is that body mass index relies on total weight and does not take into account muscle mass or fat deposits. And, because muscle is denser and weighs more than fat, two individuals who weigh the same and are the same height can have the same body mass index but one will have a significantly higher percentage of body fat.

If most of the fat is in the abdominal area your health risks are greater than if it is in the hips, thighs or rear end. Researchers have discovered that belly fat is metabolically active and can increase the risk of colon cancer by raising certain hormones that affect cell growth. Today, scientists and physicians use a waist to hip ratio which is a measurement of waist size divided by hip size as a more reliable gauge of risk factors. A ratio above 0.85 for women or 0.90 for men is higher than average and typically indicates a greater risk.

The way to get your ratio is to use a tape measure to measure the distance around your waist at your belly button and around your hips at the widest part. If your waist is 28 inches and your hips are 38 inches the equation would look like: 28/38 = .73. This falls below the 0.85 for women.

Good News About Belly Fat

The good news is that losing that belly fat spare tire is possible.  There is no secret formula, no magic bullet, and no special diet plan and no specific food that especially targets belly fat. The question now becomes how do you get rid of this belly fat, whether it is the kind you see or the kind you don’t?

One of the primary ways is to begin to lose overall weight because belly fat is one of the first places that most individuals lose weight. Weight loss is an equation between calories burned and calories eaten. When we eat more calories than we burn we gain weight and when we burn more calories than we eat we lose weight.

When you are already on a negative calorie intake (burning more than you are eating) studies show that a diet with a higher ratio of monounsaturated fats contained in avocados, nuts, seeds and chocolate, can prevent the accumulation of body fat. It is not likely that someone eating a high calorie diet and eating these monounsaturated fats will lose belly fat but those who are eating a low calorie diet and eating these types of foods will not gain belly fat.

Trans fats, such as in margarines, crackers and cookies, will also result in the addition of more belly fat deposited so they should be avoided as much as possible. Soluble fiber such as in apples and oats will lower belly fat levels that can reduce the presence of cortisol and thus reduce the amount of belly fat.

The way that fat is distributed on the body is often genetically programmed or a result of a life events, such as menopause. What is within our control is the level of overall fat. So when we keep that amount low it does not really matter where it goes because there isn’t much to begin with.

Unfortunately, spot reduction is not really possible. So while some fad diets promise that if you eat a certain type of food every day you will lose the fat in your belly, this just is not the case. What is happening is that with a reduced calorie diet you will lose fat over your abdomen faster and first than you do anywhere else. By increasing the amount of exercise you receive and doing core muscle exercises you will not only reduce belly fat and you will now begin to see the fruits of your labor as your muscle tone improves and those six pack abs begin to emerge.

RESOURCES

MayoClinic: Belly Fat in Men: Why Weight Loss matters

MedlinePlus: Belly Fat May Hit Your Heart the Hardest

Washington University: Belly Fat May Drive Inflammatory Processes Associated with Disease

University of Michigan: Missing Link Between Belly Fat and Heart Disease

Harvard Health Publications: Belly Fat and What to Do About it

Why A Lifestyle Change Beats a Diet

Which do you think is more effective – a short term diet, or a long term lifestyle change? Most people don’t even consider the possibility. All they’re interested in is a plummeting weight loss or squeezing into a smaller bathing suit or dress. The problem with this short term attitude is when you ‘diet’ you only commit to changing your nutritional intake for as long as it takes to lose weight.

Once that weight finally comes off you return to your old habits. The thing is – it was your old habits that brought you to the point where you needed to lose weight in the first place! Do you need any more proof that short term ‘diets’ don’t provide sustained, long term weight loss?

Welcome To The World Of Yo-yo Dieting

Many people get hooked by fad diet promises of quick weight loss. Nearly all of these fad diets fail to provide enough nutrition to support a health body and almost always rely on depriving you of foods you love and appreciate.

More often than not, it’s this deprivation which causes you to end the diet and return to your old, bad eating habits. This also often leads to an increase in weight above what the individual lost in the first place! This ‘rebound effect’ happens because you’ve been depriving your body of fuel it needs to survive. You try to make up for lost nutritional intake and end up gaining weight, and it’s often more than you originally lost.

For many this knowledge comes as an epiphany. After years of dieting and traveling on the yo-yo train they finally come to realize that a “diet” brings nothing more than fatigue, frustration and aggravation. Instead, they turn to a knowledge that they have held for years but were often unwilling to acknowledge because they think it means they must deprive themselves forever of the foods and activities they once loved.

Lifestyle Change For Long Term Weight Loss – You Know It Makes Sense

We all know it, even if we prefer not to acknowledge it – what does work for long term weight loss is making permanent lifestyle changes that will result in healthy eating, long term weight loss, overall improved health and no rebound weight gain.

But, that doesn’t mean you have to totally deprive yourself of all your favourite foods forever! Changing your habits is always best done over the long term. This means that totally depriving yourself of chocolate ice cream, pizza or bread and butter is NOT the way to go. We’ve already seen that doing this will only lead to the same roller coaster ride as fad diets. Instead, it is important to accomplish changes in nutrition slowly, methodically and deliberately.

But first you need to acknowledge that your previous dietary habits have led you to where you are now – a place where it has become necessary to consider really losing weight and keeping it off. You also need to accept that slow, steady weight loss is the way to go. Forget about those empty, fast weight loss promises – you know they don’t work.

Now you can start to make small changes in your diet that will lead to a successful end goal. For instance, you may start by eliminating regular soda from your diet and replacing it with diet soda. Then slowly, over time, you can also eliminate diet soda, full of empty calories and no nutrition. Or you may start by decreasing the amount of ice cream or candy you the each day. You can also replace that morning doughnut with a cup of yogurt.

By making small changes and sticking to them, you will find you will slowly change your eating habits. These small changes will allow you to make the slow steady weight loss you seek. Your weight will not rebound (because you won’t feel deprived) and you will not have difficulty when you go out with your friends.

Why The Healthy Eating Lifestyle Change Works

Always remember we are what we eat and that the old adage “garbage in, garbage out” holds just as true for our nutritional intake as it does for the data we input into our computer. When you make the decision to make a lifestyle change to healthy eating you will ultimately lose weight and gain a healthy lifestyle.

But you can only accomplish this through diligent work. Ignore those fad diet promises of quick weight loss and think about caring for the only body you have which has been built to last your lifetime.

I looked up the definition of the word ‘fad’ in several online dictionaries. They all agree that a fad is  ”a fashion that is taken up with great enthusiasm for a brief period of time; a craze”.

If you apply that to fad diets it would be fair to say fad diets are diets that don’t last – and neither does any weight loss made using them.

Fad Diets Come Around Again and Again

Just like most fads, fad diets come in and out of favor over the years. In fact, if you look closely you can see that many of them seem to be on a cycle. They’ve actually been around for decades in one form or another and every so often they show up with yet another makeover so they have a new name and new face, but they’re still the same old fad underneath all that makeup!

For instance, how about the high protein fad diet which has been around and around under several different names over recent decades. In it’s most recent guise it was known as the South Beach diet.

The Common Format For Fad Diets

It’s common for fad diets to focus on a particular food or food group – the grapefruit diet is a great example which focuses on eating many grapefruits each day. The problem with these fad diets which focus on one type of food is that they lack the majority of nutrients that the body requires in order to function properly. In many cases there is a deficiency in vitamins, minerals, dietary fiber, carbohydrates, proteins, etc. Over the long term anyone sticking to fad diets like this is likely to develop serious health problems.

The American Heart Association, the American Dietetic Association, The Surgeon General and the US Department of Agriculture all have specific recommendations about diets and food groups that do or do not provide adequate nutrition based on the knowledge and research that we have today.

Fad Diets Often Deny The Basic Facts

In almost every case weight loss is a simple equation based upon calories consumed and calories burned every day yet fad diets frequently ignore this and blame anything and everything else to explain weight gain. For instance some diets blame particular hormones, viruses or believe that certain foods can change an entire body chemistry. These diets often offer a temporary solution to a lifelong and chronic condition. They do this because their solution then appears more enticing because it makes weight loss look easy and simple.

And it’s true that for some people the short term results can be impressive, but once these fad diets have been stopped the weight loss is usually quickly regained.  This is because when weight is lost quickly it is more often water weight and muscle that’s been lost. But there is another negative effect to that quick weight loss and rebound – when an individual loses weight quickly and then gains it back they often gain back more weight than they lost, and it’s usually regained as fat!

Spotting Fad Diets

Fad diets can usually easily be identified because they usually promise a quick fix with claims that often sound too good to be true. They may even quote studies to back up their claims but they take complex information and boil it down to simplistic conclusions that fit their claims. These fad diets often have a list of “good” or “bad” foods which individuals are either made to eat all day or not allowed to eat at all.

In some cases the recommendations made by the fad diets are made in order for the company to sell a product, such as a book, weight loss pills or supplemental powders. But the biggest indicator that you are dealing with fad diets is the promise of a quick fix backed up by a warning of the dangers when you use something other than their specific product or regimen.

Forget The Fad Diets

No-one is saying achieving weight loss is going to be easy but the formula for success is very simple. Weight is lost when an individual eats less calories than they burn on a consistent basis. To lose weight you have to make sure you burn more calories during the day and eat less.

The best way to do this is by following a healthy eating plan and getting some regular exercise. A regular 30 -40 minutes of cardiovascular exercise and some strength training to increase the amount of lean muscle mass will ensure your metabolism is working at it’s optimum even when you’re at rest (lean muscle burns more calories, both at rest and work, than does fat).

By following a plan like this you will increase the amount of calories you burn, even at rest, and this will increase your chances of successfully losing weight and keeping it off permanently. There is no quick fix whatever the fad diets might tell you!

Metabolism and Losing Weight In Middle Age

Your metabolism is the process by which calories are burned in your body to do a specific task. For instance, the basal metabolic rate is the number of calories required in order for you to live each day, if you did nothing but lay in bed. Any additional exercise that you may get are just additional calories that you may eat in order to keep your body weight at the same way it is now.

Calories are the unit of measure for energy which expresses how much energy is expended in order to achieve the specific activity. For instance, there are exercise calculators which allow you to input a specific activity and determine how many calories are required for you to complete it. The number of calories will be based on your age, height and weight – all of which are necessary factors to determine the number of calories burned during a specific activity.

Using both of these criteria – the number of calories required in order to live in the number of calories you burn with additional exercise – you can now determine how many calories you require on a daily basis just to survive.

To simplify this as much as possible, look at weight loss like this: 1 pound of body weight is equal to 3500 calories. So in order to lose 1 pound of body weight a week you must eat 500 less calories than you normally do over a seven-day period. In other words, seven times 500 is 3500 calories and 1 pound of body weight.

Slower Metabolism Hinders Losing Weight In Middle Age

This simplified weight loss formula is the same whether you are 20 years old or 40 years old, whether you are on a specific diet plan or you are just watching what you eat. It’s really that simple – weight loss is nothing more than eating less calories each day than you burn.

The added challenge for anyone losing weight in middle age is that as you grow older your metabolism slows down. This means the basic number of calories you require in order to maintain your body weight drops significantly. So, losing weight in middle age is going to take a bit more effort than it did when you were in your twenties.

Metabolism Boosters For Losing Weight In Middle Age

However, all is not lost. There are two simple things you can do to boost your metabolism to help speed it up throughout the day, thus allowing you to burn more calories.

1) Start by adding some exercise to your daily routine.

This doesn’t mean spending all day at the gym! It’s surprising what returns you will get for your efforts. Research has shown that 30 minutes of moderate activity five days a week will not only help your heart, lungs and entire respiratory system work more effectively and efficiently but it will also boost your metabolism for at least 15 hours after you have stopped exercising. (1)

Researchers recommend strength training and weight lifting, which increases the amount of lean muscle mass that the body carries. This is important because lean muscle uses more calories to maintain than fat does. One pound of fat will burn approximately 5 to 10 calories per day while 1 pound of lean muscle mass will burn up between 35 and 50 calories per day.

So simply increasing the amount of lean muscle mass you carry in your body automatically makes our body more efficient at losing weight by increasing the number of calories you use just to maintain your existing weight. Of course there is also the added benefit especially for women, that exercise decreases the risk of osteoporosis.

2) Carefully watch your caloric intake.

Have you ever tried using a weight loss journal to keep note of the calories you eat each day? I know it sounds seriously boring but I bet you’ll be surprised by the number of calories you eat each day. It’s really easy for a couple of  hundred calories to sneak into your diet without you realizing it and in no time your weight loss efforts will be sabotaged.

A weight loss journal will also help keep you focused on your weight loss goal. Personal development experts attest to the fact that we only accomplish what we stay focused on. When you lose sight of your goal or allow other parts of your life to push your weight loss goal into the background before it’s become habit you will not achieve success.

There’s no denying losing weight in middle age is challenging, but it’s certainly not impossible. By taking these two simple steps and adding some emotional support from friends and family, you’ll be well on your way to achieving your goal of losing weight in middle age.

(1) University of New Mexico: Exercise After-Burn; Research Update 

Is There A Male Menopause?

However, men do undergo physical and emotional changes during their midlife, just as women do. However, there is not a definable moment, such as a menstrual period. Men find that as they age fertility decreases as does the level of testosterone after the age of 40. In terms of sexuality the greatest change occurs between the ages of 45 and 60. They find there is a decline in desire and the ability to get and maintain erections. (1)

Health issues can play a part, as will stress, lifestyle choices, the types of food eaten and the amount of exercise received. During midlife men may make decisions which seem to have less than stellar consequences. They eat poorly, often fail to get enough sleep and exercise only sporadically. For all of these reasons weight gain appears to be just as common in middle-aged men as it is in middle-aged women.

Men appear to have more weight gain in their mid-50s to early 60s where women appeared to gain weight from their 50s all the way through their late 60s. The American Geriatrics Society has noted that individuals living in the lower tax brackets do not display this pattern of weight change which may not be a result of aging as much as changes in eating or activity levels.

What Causes Male Mid-life Weight Gain?

According to Tufts University both the men and women gradually lose muscle mass at an average of one half a pound a year and gain that much back in body fat. This loss in muscle mass is even more pronounced in men than it is in women but it is also a result of a loss in strength that may lead to becoming less active. (2)

At this point the question becomes which came first, the chicken or the egg? In other words was it the loss of muscle mass that caused a person to become less active or was it the loss of activity that didn’t stop the loss of muscle mass. At this point researchers do know that to keep excess weight at bay it is important for middle-aged men to maintain a healthy diet and get plenty of exercise that includes strength training in order to increase lean body mass.

Men are also cautioned not to slash their calories or manipulate an appropriately balanced diet of protein and carbohydrates in order to shed pounds. Cutting calories drastically often means that your body metabolism slows and you lose weight less efficiently, more slowly and gain back even more when you stop dieting.

Instead, the solution is to make sure that your diet contains only very small amounts of any saturated fats and is high in raw fruits and vegetables, whole grains and lean protein. It is also not too late to start a strength training routine. Remember that the body requires 48 hours between each workout in order to recover fully and build muscle mass. This means that you should allow at least 48 hours between weight training, which equates to workouts two to three times a week.

Weight training will boost metabolism and reverse the natural loss of muscle mass. This muscle mass burns calories at a greater rate at rest and burns body fat. For instance, 1 pound of muscle mass will burn between 35 and 50 calories per day while 1 pound of body fat will burn between seven and 10 calories per day.

Men can also boost their metabolism and basal metabolic rate by eating small balanced meals or snacks every three to four hours. Instead of eating three large meals each day spread the calories out every three hours in order to keep the metabolism running. The body actually requires energy in order to digest food and while eating small meals every three hours will keep the metabolism running smoothly eating three large meals during the day will actually cause more problems with metabolism than it helps.

During this midlife process men also notice an increase in the amount of fatigue, depression, stiffness in the joints and muscles, night sweats, dry skin and hair loss. Combining all of these symptoms with weight gain and a loss of sex drive it is no wonder that some men who were emotional eaters to begin with turn to food in order to soothe themselves.

With the knowledge that they are not alone most men are able to get through this process with the help and the support of a good friend or relative. Do not discount how much help others can be at this time in your life.
(1) Cleveland Clinic: Male Menopause

(2) Tufts University: Refining the Exercise Prescription to Maintain Muscle Power

While women in the past had to accept these changes to their body, current technology and medical knowledge has enabled physicians and holistic practitioners to more clearly establish the imbalances in the body and help the woman to determine specific methodologies she can use in order to reverse the process.

Perimenopause Effects

Prior to perimenopause and menopause levels of estrogen in the body can often mask symptoms of difficulty in other bodily systems. During her lifetime, a woman will have been exposed to many years of toxins, environmental changes and hormonal imbalances, the result of which are now being felt by the rest of the body.

The weight gain that happens during perimenopause can be seriously detrimental to self-esteem, especially when not given the necessary attention. Unfortunately, despite their best attempts to diet or maintain their weight, weight gain appears to be inevitable. But this does not have to be the case. By first investigating what the common causes of weight gain appear to be and then determining which ones seem to be affecting their bodies, many women are able to reverse this weight gain process or stabilize it so that the weight they gain is significantly less.

The changing hormone levels associated with menopause are not always the cause of the weight gain because menopause also seems to come at a time in life when other emotional stressors and physical destabilizers also occur. For instance, women who are entering menopause tend to exercise less than other women and also seem to have less time during their day in order to accomplish that exercise. It becomes more of a challenge to find the time to exercise and the motivation than it once did.

Stress levels during menopause and perimenopause can also alter a hormonal imbalance that is already there, to a point where the woman will feel uncontrollably hungry. By eating more, and taking in more calories, they gain weight. Thankfully this hunger actually decreases as the stress level decreases.

As we saw in the first article in this series, as we age, our metabolism slows. In fact, it slows by 2 to 4% each decade so that by the time we are 50 years old our basal metabolic rate can be as much as 12% slower than it was when we were 25. That’s a significantly lower number of calories we require in order to maintain our weight. Couple that with decreased exercise, lower percentage of lean body mass and a higher level of fat, many perimenopausal women find that gaining between one and 2 pounds a year is not uncommon.

There are some genetic factors that can also play a role in this event. When parents or other close relatives carry extra weight around their middle you also may be predisposed to this condition. As in any other time of life, this excess weight increases your risk of high cholesterol, high blood pressure, insulin resistant diabetes and cardiac events. There is also some evidence that any weight gain during or after menopause can increase the risk of breast cancer. (1)

Perimenopause Weight Gain Precautions

There are a few things that you can do to decrease your risk of weight gain in perimenopause by changing just a few of your lifestyle choices. For instance, it is important to incorporate both aerobic and strength training exercises into your daily routine in order to obtain both cardiac benefits and the benefits of developing greater lean body mass that burns more calories.

It is also a good idea to keep track of everything you eat. It is amazing how many calories you can eat without thinking as you are cooking dinner or making lunch for the kids.

Have your thyroid function tested because it can be affected by about hormonal imbalances and estrogen loss during perimenopause and menopause. (2)

Try to eat as many raw fruits and vegetables as possible in your diet and stay away from processed foods. Foods such as bread, pasta and other high carbohydrate processed foods lead to insulin resistance, especially during the latter years. While it may not lead directly to diabetes it will lead to an increased weight gain around the waist and hips.

Do not accept weight gain as in an evitable part of midlife. Instead, take charge of the body you’ve been given, make wise lifestyle choices, get rid of those poor decisions such as alcohol, tobacco and recreational drugs, get plenty of sleep and drink plenty of water.

This is a stressful time in a woman’s life and she should get together with other women who are experiencing the same phenomenon so that they can gain support and receive ideas to help them cope and maintain their weight.

(1) Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention: Association of Gain and Loss of Weight before and after Menopause with Risk of Postmenopausal Breast Cancer in the Iowa Women’s Health Study

(2) Journal of the American College of Nutrition: Thyroid function and energy intake during weight gain following treatment of hyperthyroidism.

Christmas Weight Loss Tip #1 – Always Eat Breakfast

If you don’t eat all day and then attend a party or dinner, you’re much more likely to overdo it on calories as you try to eat everything in sight. Instead, start each day with a healthy, low-calorie breakfast. A small bowl of oatmeal with a serving of fruit and low fat milk is a great choice, or half of a whole grain bagel with an egg and a side of fruit. Think two things for staying satisfied longer: protein and fiber.

Christmas Weight Loss Tip #2 – Fill Up On Fiber

Fiber plays a big role in helping your digestive system work efficiently, and it can also help you avoid big spikes in your blood glucose levels. When you attend Christmas dinners and parties, go for the vegetables and whole grains before eating any simple carbohydrates (sugar, white flour, potatoes). The fiber content will help reduce the impact on your blood sugar and help you control hunger better. Add some lean protein to your fiber foods and you’ve got a winning combination that can help you easily keep your eating under control.

Christmas Weight Loss Tip #3 – Water Down Alcohol

Make a commitment that you will drink one glass of water for every alcoholic drink you consume at a party. This will help you avoid drinking too much, consuming too many liquid calories, and dealing with the dehydration hangover the next day.

Christmas Weight Loss Tip #4 – No Pigging Out

Keep reminding yourself that the holidays do not come with a license to pig out and eat vast quantities of food. It’s okay to indulge in a few treats throughout the season, but make a promise to yourself that you’ll keep it within reason.

Christmas Weight Loss Tip #5 – Big Eyes, Little Stomach

Avoid creating a Mt. Everest model with the food on your plate. More often than not, your eyes are much bigger than your stomach and if you eat a plateful of rich food you’ll be unhappy about it later. Instead, take only half as much food as you think you’ll be able to eat. Or take just one small spoonful of each dish you want to try.

Christmas Weight Loss Tip #6 – Skip Second Helpings

Whether you are eating at home, in a restaurant, or at a party, make a commitment that you will not go back for seconds at any time. People rarely take second helpings because they are still hungry. More often than not it’s because the food tastes so good that they don’t want to stop eating yet. Needless to say, this practice is a good way to ingest many more calories than you actually need.

Christmas Weight Loss Tip #7 – Treat Yourself

Don’t try to be “perfect” with your eating habits during the holidays – that always backfires and leads to a binge! Instead, strive to do your best by eating healthy but also allow yourself a few treats here and there. Eating one small slice of pie is not going to ruin your weight loss goals. Be responsible about the choices you make, but don’t expect yourself to shun all of the goodies, either.

Christmas Weight Loss Tip #8 – Work It Off

When you do indulge a little bit, do what you can to minimize the impact of the extra calories. Spend a little extra time in the gym or working out at home for the next several days. Either extend the length of your workout or the level of intensity, or both. It’s an easy way to help burn off the extra calories. You can even do this in advance – for example, if you have a company Christmas party on Friday night and you know you’ll want to enjoy some of your favorite holiday foods, ramp up your workout routine during the preceding week, as well as the week after the party.

Christmas Weight Loss Tip #9 – Healthy Potluck

Rather than relying on others to prepare healthier holiday meals, why not contribute your own? Whip up some low calorie, low fat dishes and bring them to family dinners, parties, and other gatherings. When it’s time to eat, be sure to have a generous helping of your own dish, and then sample small amounts of the others with more calories.

Christmas Weight Loss Tip #10 – Be in High Spirits

Do the holidays often get you down? If you have a tendency to be depressed or irritable during the Christmas season, you’ll be much more likely to overeat to try and comfort yourself. Instead, make time for self-care as often as possible. Nurture yourself from within and you’ll find that you are much less interested in self-medicating with food.

Need some help with your weight loss journey? Click this link to see how Amanda could help you!

Psychologists tell us that most of our difficulties and problems in life, including weight loss, come from our subconscious mind, and specifically in the case of weight loss, how we think about food. You may think it unlikely, but how we are brought up and our relationship to food can severely impact our ability to successfully lose weight. (1)

The goal of hypnosis for weight loss is to reprogram the mind so that a person can ‘effortlessly’ lose weight without hunger pangs and cravings. Hypnotists are capitalizing on the very thing that defeats our weight loss efforts – our minds. (2)

Using Hypnosis For Weight Loss

Some children are brought up in the ‘clean plate club’ where you have to eat every single scrap on your plate whether you are hungry or not. This is a dangerous habit to instill in children because it follows them through adulthood, when cleaning up a plate that was over filled at the start will only encourage weight gain.

People have relationships with the food they eat and crave. Hypnotists work under the theory that hypnosis will break the pattern of this emotional eating which results when we are stressed out, happy, celebrating, sad or other emotions that can trigger eating. It is one reason we call it ‘comfort food’.

Hypnosis for weight loss claims that hypnotists can help to reprogram your brain so that the impossible is more possible and you no longer have attachments to food. It’s not claimed to be the final answer in the battle for weight loss, but hypnotists believe that it can be a huge tool in the fight.

It is used in the same manner as positive affirmations to make you more self-confident and in control of your food choices.

Is Hypnosis for Weight Loss Expensive?

A hypnotist can be expensive but there are many CD’s available that claim the same effectiveness and are much more convenient.

The basis behind using hypnosis for weight loss is to open up the mind of the client so it is more receptive to suggestions. The suggestions are made to a person when they are in an altered state of consciousness. The scientific community also believes that people are able to achieve weight loss through hypnosis.

Hypnosis for weight loss is based on two basic tenets:

• To help clients understand that permanent weight loss is based on a change eating habits. They stress that with a change you should feel less deprived than if you are strictly “dieting”.
• To think of food less. When people are dieting they can obsess on their potential weight loss and their next meal. If, instead, people are concentrating on one simple change to their nutritional habits, one change at a time, they are more likely to make the change and less likely to feel deprived.

Hypnosis has been shown to have success with people who have a willingness to open their minds and relinquish control to practitioners. Although most people can be hypnotized if they wish, not all people want this experience. (3)

And, it is important to note that hypnosis will not be able to make a person do something they would not ordinarily morally and ethically consider. For instance, a person who would not ordinarily commit murder or embezzlement would not be able to be made to under hypnosis. However, since weight loss and eating habit changes are the goals, hypnosis is often the added boost that helps the program to be successful.

Use hypnosis for weight loss with nutritional changes and added exercise and you could be well on your way to weight loss success!

(1) Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology: Hypnosis as an adjunct to cognitive-behavioral psychotherapy: a meta-analysis. 

(2) Mayo Clinic: Is Weight-Loss Hypnosis Effective?

(3) Centre for Reviews and Dissemination: Hypnosis as an adjunct to cognitive-behavioural psychotherapy: a meta-analysis

Take them one at a time, and  make sure that each change has become permanent, like a habit, before you move on to add another change to your lifestyle. By changing one or two things every couple of weeks or over the course of a month you’ll effect a change in your life that will have benefits for years to come.

Weight Loss Tip One

Get rid of all the junk food in your home and in your diet. You know what they are; snacks loaded with fats, sugars and carbohydrates. Potato chips, ice cream, cookies, processed foods, and crackers. I appreciate you may not be keen on this idea, but I promise you it does work! Just replace these junk items with snacks that are healthier choices.

If you feel you can’t do it all in one go, start by eliminating only the potato chips or ice cream and once that has been accomplished over 2 or 3 weeks begin to discard the rest of the junk food in your diet.

Replace those snack foods with healthier choices that include fruits and vegetables. Processed foods may seem more convenient, but pulling a banana off of the shelf or an apple out of the fridge is actually just as convenient. And, fruits and vegetables have more of the essential vitamins and nutrients than the cooked versions. Your body needs those things, plus the fiber, to function properly.

Weight Loss Tip Two

Eliminate carbonated beverages and alcohol from your diet. The amount of soda consumed in the US and UK increases each year – along with the waistline of consumers. What was once an 8-oz drink is now a 48-oz Big Gulp. The sugars and carbohydrates in these drinks will add many pounds, and when they are removed from your diet you will soon see an easy weight loss!

Weight Loss Tip Three

Another important weight loss tip is to add water to your diet to improve the condition of your skin, help eliminate wastes and toxins from your body and help you to feel full longer. Drink at least one half your weight in ounces each day. For instance, if you weigh 180 pounds, you should drink 90 ounces of water each day. That may feel like a lot at first, but it will help to improve the function and health of your body.

Weight Loss Tip Four

Eat breakfast! People skip breakfast for many reasons – they say they are too busy, or they aren’t hungry or they think it will help with weight loss. However, skipping breakfast will actually increase your hunger and your cravings throughout the entire day. Then, when your resistance is low, you will snack on that donut at the office. Weight loss tip – don’t skip breakfast!

Weight Loss Tip Five

Include exercise in your daily routine to help burn calories and give you more energy every day. Exercise can be a 30-minute walk around the neighborhood. You don’t have to be a sweat busting exercise fanatic to meet your body’s needs in order to lose weight.

These five weight loss tips can be incorporated with most, if not all, weight loss plans and programs. Weight loss comes from eating less calories than you burn each day. No matter how you choose to accomplish that goal, the equation is the same. Use these weight loss tips to get you started down the right road!

Motivation to lose weight often starts out in high gear but then very quickly goes downhill, but why does this happen?

We are now being bombarded with messages telling us our present day diet includes too much fat, too much sugar, and too many processed foods, and as a result of this bad press, more people are becoming worried about their weight.

Now there’s no denying all this stuff about our diet is true, and it’s good news that people are looking to lose weight. But the problem is we live in a ‘quick-fix, I don’t wanna have to work at it’ society which means people are looking to weight loss pills and supplements, or the latest fad diets, that they think are going to solve all their problems in a few days.

Instead, after was is often an initial fast weight loss, people are left tired, hungry and either at a plateau of weight loss or losing minimal amounts of weight each week. The result is almost always a rapid dive in the level of motivation and the person is left high and dry. (1)

Failure often happens when we ‘diet’ because so many people think the basic definition of a ‘diet’ is to deprive yourself of specific foods you believe keep you from losing weight. It’s usually those feelings of deprivation that lead to decreased weight loss motivation and ultimate failure.

In essence, ‘diets’ have come to be associated with hunger, fatigue, and deprivation. Maybe that’s how you see it. If so, you’re not alone! Many people are on that very same roller coaster ride.

How To Maintain The Motivation To Lose Weight

Psychologists will tell you that to maintain a high level of motivation you need positive feedback and some sort of support system, and it’s been proven that weight loss success is higher with both positive feedback and a strong support mechanism.

The best positive feedback comes from knowing you are making positive movement toward your goal. Your support people/person also become a motivating force to keep you on track and help to keep your motivation high. (Now, I know it’s not for everyone, but just take a look at the success of Weight Watchers if you don’t believe me!)

Stop The Weight Loss Motivation Roller Coaster

To stop this weight loss motivation cycle and fix the problem, you should first change the way you think about ‘dieting’.

Instead of looking for a ‘diet’, understand that you achieve long term, lasting weight loss by changing your eating habits for life, not by turning to some quick fix fad diet or by popping pills. You don’t need to go on a ‘diet’, you just need to learn how to put your body into calorie burning mode as opposed to starvation mode.

When your body feels deprived and starved your metabolism actually slows down to stop you wasting energy, and when this happens weight loss is close to impossible! This in turn stops your positive feedback and decreases your motivation. In no time at all you end up going back to eating the way you did before the ‘diet’ and this often means you put on more weight than you had before the diet.

Learn which foods will help your metabolism to operate most efficiently. Learn which ones offer the best nutrition per portion. Change your habits so you use a little more energy. Park as far away as you can and walk. Use stairs not elevators. Little things like this can add up to a huge difference.

Learn good eating habits. We’ve been taught that bigger is better, (and we can all see the results of that!) but portions really could be much smaller than you might think. The amount that makes one portion is considerably smaller than the standard size portions at restaurants or fast food places. In fact, an adequate serving of beef is about the size of a deck of cards! By learning good eating habits you will find you improve your rate of success without feeling hungry, and that in turn will keep your weight loss motivation high.

Successful weight loss is directly related to the motivation behind it, and your ability to maintain a high level of motivation will make it so much easier to achieve the dietary changes necessary. Focus on ways to improve your positive feedback and find a support mechanism that works for your personality.

Click here to see how we did it!

(1) Elsevier: What’s Motivation Got to do with Weight Loss?