Quick Weight Loss!

Quick Weight Loss - Not Fun!

Quick Weight Loss!

The media bombard us with many quick fix weight loss programmes, which for many, work in the short term, but what we require is long term, sustainable weight loss and then future weight management so we can live a long and healthy life.

Who only wants it for a short amount of time? Yes, you may say I want to look good in my bikini for the summer but let’s be honest you probably want to feel slim and have confidence all year round!

The old – ‘Eat Less Move More’ Mantra!

When the media bombard us with the idea that losing weight is simple, eat less and move more, we internalise this message, it becomes familiar to us. Our ego’s job is to keep us safe and to enable us to feel stable, so when we offer ourselves new challenges, such as going on a weight loss programme, our ego persuades us away from the idea, ‘this programme can’t be what we are looking for, it is probably not going to work, the programme is too demanding’ etc. Does this sound familiar? It is familiar to us all, when thinking about making a change our psyche often disagrees as a safety mechanism.

Operant conditioning

When the infamous Skinner did his experiments with rats, he found that the rats responded when they were given positive reinforcements (like food), and didn’t perform when they were given negative reinforcements, (the food was taken away).

Historically diets ask us to deprive ourselves, we have all learnt that in order to follow a diet programme successfully you must go through a state of deprivation, to be a successful dieter you would focus on consuming fewer calories and depriving yourself of ‘treat’ foods such as cake, biscuits and sweats (less in more out).

It makes sense, that if we feel we’re going to be punished in some way (such as food we like being taken away), we rebel and stop doing the required behaviour. A diet or weight loss plan should not make you feel punished, you shouldn’t feel that you’re being punished, you need to feel empowered and educated and even feel surprisingly simple. This will give you a much better chance of being successful at reaching your goals of becoming healthier slimmer and fitter.

There are many elements to successfully losing weight, but one of them is you need to have positive reinforcements, such as feeling healthier, feeling you look better and having more energy. These continuous positive reinforcements will mean that you continue getting emotionally stronger and will be successful at in your quest for good long-term weight management.

---

Charlotte Mottram is a Psychologist and Weight Loss Consultant. Charlotte lectures at Bournemouth and Poole College in the uk and has been helping people lose weight for over 20 years.

Try our online WHY DIET programme which is money back Guaranteed!!

Charlotte Designed and runs the WHY DIET programme at bhlive in Bournemouth.