Losing weight naturally and quickly requires that you address the physical, psychological and behavioral factors that are putting weight on. Addressing them all will produce the quickest weight loss.
The reason we can't just lose the weight and keep it off is that the problem has several causes, and each must be dealt with. To simply "diet" -- to cut back on calories alone will be a struggle, and even if the target weight is achieved, the pounds will return.
A simple plan for natural and permanent weight loss:
- Create and maintain a good self-image: A person who has been overweight for a while needs to develop a vision of herself as a healthy and vibrant person. Improving the self image is a spiritual process that can take many forms; meditation, yoga, dance, or sports may have a role. Counseling may even be necessary to correct a poor self-image that relates to relationship problems with others. If depression is an issue, it must be dealt with and not medicated with food.
- Eat a healthy diet: The Standard American Diet (SAD) produces obesity. The large portions in most restaurants produce obesity. Most people should eat a Mediterranean Diet or the South Beach Diet.
- Eat slowly and enjoy each bite: Don't use liquids to flush huge meals down your gullet. Chew eat bite completely into mush before you swallow. You may have to force yourself at first. You'll end up eating less. You'll get more nutrition from your food. If you can't eat slowly, counseling can help with unresolved psychological problems.
- Don't be fooled by advertisements for diet pills. Loosing weight has more to do with what you remove from your diet than what you add to it. Pills can only make small and temporary adjustments to your weight.
- Don't eat before bedtime: Stop eating five hours before you lie down to sleep. Stop drinking two hours before. Digestion systems need down time to recover. Eating throughout the evening while watching TV is a recipe for diet disaster.
- Exercise more: You already know this. Yes, it takes discipline. The energy output through exercise must always be greater than the energy that is taken in through food and drink. There's no way to have quick and sustainable weight loss without sufficient exercise. A doctor should approve changes in an exercise routine, especially if one is obese.
- Find a positive way to relieve stress: Stress has become epidemic. The poor and middle class who have had their jobs evaporate are more likely to be obese than the wealthy. Don't be one of the people who are turning to food as an escape from the fear that unmanaged change creates.
- Talk to your physician about underlying diseases: Hypothyroidism and other diseases can lower the metabolism and contribute to stored fat.
- Stop blaming genetics: There is only a slim chance that there could be genetic factors that keep people from losing weight. A few people have genes that lead to extra pounds, but mostly we inherit a poor self-image and the habits of overeating and under-exercising from our parents.
Eating correctly is something loving that you can do for yourself. Your resistance to eating moderately and exercising more has more to do with psychology than with fad diets or commercial diet plans. If you have trouble maintaining weight loss, see a counselor to identify the obstacles that you're putting in your own path. Find the vibrant, energetic you inside and then it will manifest outside.
