How can I lose weight quickly?
I’m gonna tell you a secret: you can't.
Sure…you can always resort to restrictive diets and holy, miraculus milkshakes. But in the long term they are not going to work and they will do more harm than good.
This is because there's just something about a chocolate biscuit that’s so much harder to resist when you’re telling yourself you can’t have it. Restriction is a common trigger for binge eating and can also set yourself up for what psychologists call the ‘what the hell effect’. Remember the time you were on a diet and finally craved for a chocolate biscuit, and then went on to eat the whole packet because the diet was already blown – that’s the ‘what the hell effect’.
Restrict, binge, restrict, binge, the cycle goes on. In both instances here you’ve ended up eating more than you would have done if you hadn’t self-imposed biscuit restrictions on yourself in the first place.
Losing weight is a journey - not always easy and not always quick, who am I kidding?! Never easy and never quick- where you just change your mindset and lifestyle.
A restrictive diet doesn’t teach us how to eat a balanced, healthy diet, the kind of diet which will genuinely impact our mood and well-being in a positive way. We also know that positive body image is a key factor in successful weight loss, because feeling good about ourselves helps us to lead a healthier life. Not restricting ourselves into misery.
Ever noticed that you don’t tire as easily when you’re out dancing with friends? It’s because you’re having fun (probably, or at least after a few glasses of wine). The same principle applies to our diet. The chances of sticking to something boring and misery-inducing are minimal, whereas the chances of sticking to something you enjoy are much higher. So unless you enjoy a relentless diet of chicken and rice, you’re better off with a balanced diet for longer-term weight loss.
Food is just one factor involved in losing weight and keeping weight off. If all you’re thinking about is eating less, you’re fighting a losing battle. Our jobs have made us more sedentary and our exercise has taken a hit. Convenience food has become cheaper. Our education around what makes a balanced diet is limited and from questionable sources. The media shouts about whatever makes the best headline, regardless of the science. We sleep less and we sleep less well, messing with our hormones which relate to hunger and appetite.
Healthy eating has been wrongly aligned with restriction and this message has been exaggerated by the media and food industry businesses. It’s time to change that.
