by Lou Belcher

Created on: March 31, 2009

Sabotaging our own weight loss efforts.

Many times when we are trying to lose weight we sabotage our own weight loss efforts. Here are some of the ways we do that:

1. One of the ways we sabotage our own weight loss efforts is by putting the emphasis on weight loss instead of on health. When we think of only weight loss, we do anything necessary to lose weight as fast as possible. This often means that we restrict our eating to ridiculous levels. Two things happen when we do this. First, our bodies think that we are starving and they automatically slow down the metabolism to keep from losing weight, and second we eventually reach a breaking point where we can't keep on with the restrictive regime. Consequently, the weight comes thundering back once we stop the diet.

2. Another way we sabotage our own weight loss efforts is through only concentrating on food. That is only half the issue. It has been shown that we must move to lose weight and to keep it off. Physical activity is an important part of any weight loss effort. It will not only help you lose the weight, but continued physical activity will help keep you motivated about the lifestyle changes you have made.

3. The all-or-nothing mindset often sabotages our own weight loss efforts. Too often we are rolling along and doing well with losing weight. Unfortunately, we have classified our food into "good food" and "bad food." Too often, we allow the consumption of one item from the bad food list to sabotage our efforts. We throw in the towel for that day and proceed to eat anything we want for the rest of the day since we "blew it" anyway. Consequently, we consume countless calories throughout the rest of the day and sabotage our weight loss efforts whereas if we had just shrugged our shoulders at the misstep, we would have just consumed the extra couple hundred calories and kept on with our healthy eating plan. That 200 or 300 extra calories would not have done that much damage and you would have felt better about yourself in the long run.

4. Other mind games often sabotage our weight loss efforts. One is when we promise that we'll eat this piece of cake because we're going to start working on our weight on Monday or we're going to begin working on our weight on the first of the month. There is nothing magical about Monday and there is nothing magical about the first of the month, and we know that there is nothing magical about starting a weight loss regime on the first of the New Year. Rather than starting and stopping, it's better to devise a lifestyle change you can live with and that has built-in mechanisms to help you stop sabotaging yourself.

Learn more about this author, Lou Belcher.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.