Last week we were talking about what causes overeating and it was pretty obvious that there is no single cause. We know it has something to do with your genetic make up as well as your social environment, your psychology and many other factors.
It seems that the social situational eating is a factor that many of us cannot avoid and is the demise of many weight loss systems.
This is definitely on my “Can’t do without” listOn a daily and weekly basis you will be faced with multiple social situations that don’t fit with many of the popular weight loss dieting programs.
Most of the common dieting dogma is incompatible with the social structure of modern society.
I challenge you to take any 3 common weight loss ‘rules’ like:
eat breakfast every day
eat every 3 hours
have protein at every meal
do cardio in the morning before you eat
avoid sugar and ‘simple’ carbs…
…blah blah, pick whatever you like.
Now try to apply just 3 of them for two weeks in a row…Odds are you’ll likely have to break all of them at some point, OR you’ll have to skip out on social situations in order to stick to these rules.
You’re basically put in a position of choosing between following the ‘rules’ of weight loss or living a normal life. This is what leads many people to believe that weight loss isn’t possible because they simply cannot follow the ‘rules’ they’ve been told are necessary.
The truth is there aren’t as many rules as you think, and weight loss is entirely possible while still living a normal feeling social life. As soon as you learn how to fit weight loss into your life it becomes a much easier path to follow.
The first step is realizing that most of the ‘rules’ of weight loss that you’ve heard about are nothing more than marketing tactics designed to get you to buy a product or service.
Effective and lasting weight loss is entirely within your reach, the key is finding a way to fit the weight loss into your lifestyle instead of overhauling your life to lose some weight.
Yes you have to make some changes, no you don’t have to retool everything and carry around a tupperware container full of steam veggies and plain chicken breast everywhere you go.
The key is eating less total calories but in a way that fits your lifestyle. The simpler the program the higher chance of success.
I suggest starting with the things you can’t do without and work back from there.
This list can include foods you like to eat and you don’t want to give up, social events you don’t want to give up and daily comfort items (like a morning coffee) that you don’t want to give up.
The items that don’t end up on this list are the things you can work on changing to get your weight loss on track.
For now the first step is the ‘can’t do without list’.
We’ll talk about the “can do without list next’.
John
