Why Wait to Lose Weight ?

June 29th, 2011 by Lifestyle Therapy - Susan Leigh

Weight is often a difficult issue. Many people know what the healthy foods are, what they should be eating in order to maintain a healthy weight, but putting that knowledge into practice is not so easy. Food has so many connotations. It represents treats, comfort, affluence, quality of life, sociability, and much more. And because we have to eat to survive it can be hard to implement changes to our diet when we have got into bad habits.

Let's look at some ways to dispel the arguments and establish a weight loss regimen today:

• Hypnotherapy is a positive way of focussing the mind on your desired outcome. It enables your mind to really see and experience the image, how you feel, look, and enjoy the reality of being your target size and weight. By utilising the power of the mind it can help you to overcome underlying issues about food and eating. Often there are emotional triggers to eating; eating for comfort, as a way to combat stress, to having to say difficult or unpleasant truths. Hypnotherapy can help to improve your confidence in treating yourself in a more appropriate way.
• The children expect there to be sweets, cakes, biscuits, crisps, buttery toast available. Often this argument does not hold true. If you check who raids the biscuit jar or who eats the sweets and chocolate it is often the parent rather than the child. If children insist on having these things simply give them money every day to buy what they want rather than keep a tempting stock in the house.
• Water is important. Many people think that they are hungry when in reality they are thirsty. Drinking still water thirty minutes before a meal and keeping regularly hydrated throughout the day will help to feel less in need of snacks throughout the day and full sooner. Still water is better than the fizzy kind.
• Don't eat because the clock says it's a meal time or because there's time to eat now when there may not be time later on. Wait till you're hungry before eating and keep washed fruit handy for other times. Apples, bananas, grapes, nuts are easy to carry and are healthy snack foods.
• Sleep properly. Being over tired and stressed can hi-jack your metabolic rate and interfere with weight loss. It can be hard to know if you're hungry when you're tired or stressed and it can be tempting to resort to sugar and caffeine to artificially boost energy levels in order to get through each day.
• Ready meals, processed food and take aways can seem like a quick, easy solution at the end of a busy day or week, but are unhealthy as a regular option. Try cooking ahead, doing a major food preparation and putting home cooked food in the freezer. That way there is something healthy available and ready to cook for dinner each night when you come home. Or salads can often be made quite quickly.
• While the evening meal is cooking why not get your partner, family to go for a walk. It can be a lovely opportunity to spend thirty minutes together before homework, television or the evening proper starts. At weekends it can be fun to organise games like football, cricket, rounders, so that everyone can spend time together whilst exercising. Family walks and bike rides, hunting for shells on the beach are all ways of getting out of doors, exercising and leading less sedentary lives.
• Change to healthier options. Wholegrain or wholemeal bread is more satisfying nutritionally than white bread; parsnips and sweet potatoes are a healthy alternative to potatoes. Still water is considered better than fizzy drinks. Organic food contains less chemicals and additives than other foods. Being more aware of what we are buying and paying a little more attention to our choices can help sustain better health and improve our chances of weight loss.

Introducing better habits can take time and effort initially. Planning ahead requires some organisation until it becomes second nature, but it is worth taking better care of our health, our diet and our weight levels. Then we function better and improve our quality of life.

Losing weight is a concern for many people, but often weight has other issues that come with it. Stress, self esteem, confidence often figure with a person's desire to lose weight. When a person feels better about themselves, copes better with stress and is happier within themselves they often introduce better eating habits and more positive ways to take care of themselves.