Slim = healthy: a psychologist told how to find the right motivation for losing weight

A beautiful, fit body today is one of the main indicators of success. Ideal people in tight outfits look at us from TV screens and social media pages. It would seem, what is not a reason to force yourself to go on a diet and finally start losing weight, so that in a few months you can see an improved version of yourself in the mirror and wear the clothes that you like, and not those that fit? And so, inspired by self-confidence, a woman begins to try different diets or even exhaust herself with hunger strikes, but every time she breaks down, gorges herself on buns and hates herself for it more than ever. Why is this happening? How to break the vicious circle and tune in to the desired result? How to find the right motivation to lose weight? Elena Gamayun answered these and other questions in an interview with our publication .

Psychological causes of excess weight

We all know that poor nutrition and lack of physical activity are the main causes of obesity. They are followed by hormonal disorders and diseases of the musculoskeletal system.

But not many people think about the psychological aspects that lead to excess weight. These include:

1. Lack of love and warmth. Endorphins are produced when falling in love, contact with people dear and important to us. A person experiences a lack of attention, he lacks security, a sense of significance - he begins to abuse sweets. Cakes, chocolate, and sweets stimulate the production of happiness hormones.
2. Overeating can be caused by dissatisfaction with life. You are not satisfied with your career or family relationships. All this leads to the subconscious consumption of large amounts of sweet, fatty or spicy foods. Some people compensate for “failures” this way; others punish them, considering themselves unworthy and worthless.
3. An eating disorder can stem from childhood. Many parents force their children to eat by force. Eternal fights for a clean plate teach a person to overeat. And if the requirement to eat all the soup is accompanied by the phrases “You will be strong and beautiful,” children begin to associate strength or beauty with more food.
4. Sometimes sweets or fast food serve as a reward for a successfully completed task. People prone to procrastination are looking for an incentive so as not to put everything off until later. This often leads to the abuse of “sweets.” And the reward and its frequency exceed the value of what was done.
5. People who are in conflict with themselves and their environment use excess weight as a protest. Society demands that women be attractive and slim, without seeing them as individuals, specialists, or talent. To draw attention to their professional or other abilities, girls choose to be overweight and reject generally accepted beauty standards.
6. Sometimes the reason for being overweight is due to trying to please a man. Abusers seek to suppress their partner. Through jealousy, men force a woman to give up cosmetics and stop taking care of her body. To then begin to convince her that she is unworthy of love.
7. Low self-esteem and a constant mindset of failure are also projected onto the body. A person overeats, does not try to lose weight, considers himself unworthy, and does not believe in his own strength.

From the personal archive of Elena Gamayun / Why you can’t lose weight

— Elena, please tell us what, in your opinion, is the reason for unsuccessful attempts to lose weight? Why do girls and women who verbally dream of a slim body fall for harmful “goodies” again and again?

— You see, every person, if we talk about, say, losing weight, has certain benefits, but we are not always able to find them on our own. Suppose a person seriously decides to take care of his figure and become slim. To achieve this undoubtedly noble goal, he goes to a specialized clinic to see a professional nutritionist. A new patient spends money, time and nerve cells, but no miracle happens - the weight stays the same.

“Why do all the efforts go in vain?” - you ask. The answer is simple: a person really cannot lose excess weight, because he has a subconscious benefit from overeating (and perhaps more than one), which can only be discovered by a professional psychologist, who must work in a team with a doctor.

The most common story: a woman is used to eating stress with flour, sweets, fatty foods, etc. - whoever likes what. She simply does not know how to deal with nervous tension in other ways. And if she has this very way of taking and taking away, then it is unknown how it will all end. Therefore, the main rule for successful weight loss is this: before eliminating bad eating habits, you must first figure out where they came from, what caused them, and work primarily with the root cause. As soon as the cause of poor eating behavior is eliminated, a woman will stop eating her negative emotions and it will be much easier for her to follow the advice of a nutritionist and, accordingly, put her figure in order.

— Please give examples of incorrect motivation for losing weight. What phrases or actions will almost certainly give the opposite result to the desired one?

— The wrong motivation for losing weight every day, to my great regret, is found not only among ordinary people, but is also used in many clinics.

The most ineffective, traumatic and even harmful way to force a person to start losing weight is to create disgust for one’s own body. When a woman is told that she is fat, ugly and generally unattractive, instead of being helped, she is inflicted with another deep psychological trauma, which, out of old habit, she will continue to “treat” by burying the problem.

Of course, there are people with different types of psyche, but such techniques extremely rarely have the right effect on anyone.

I will give a few more examples of incorrect motivation for losing weight, which causes great harm and absolutely does not help in achieving the goal. These are phrases like the following:

1. I want to lose weight for someone.
2. I want to become slim so I can get married.
3. I dream of men looking at me.
4. The main goal of my weight loss is to attract attention and please Vasya / Petya / Dima.
5. I'm terribly unattractive, fat, etc.

If a person is constantly instilled with the idea that he should lose weight because he is disgusting, ugly and because of this he cannot be liked by anyone, then this approach is called negative.

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Psychosomatics of excess weight

Dissatisfaction with your body, the desire to lose weight and at the same time the unpreparedness for active actions, the reluctance to change situations provoke stress. A person begins to look for the advantages of being overweight.

From obese women you can hear, I don’t want to lose weight, otherwise my breasts will shrink. They cover their lack of will and fears with a kind of shield.

Sometimes a person is happy to lose weight, but he is afraid of changes and self-restraints. Due to uncertainty, he looks for reasons not to go to the gym or swimming pool. Hiding behind work, family, lack of free time.

In some cases, a person uses excess weight as a protective cocoon from reality:

1. Failures in career or personal life are fully justified.
2. Some, constantly complaining about being overweight, manipulate, demanding more attention and emotional support from loved ones.
3. It is common for men to use excess weight as confirmation of their status. For them, a fat person is successful, significant, and holds a high position.

In psychology, there are several rules for increasing awareness of the need to lose weight:

• accept the fact of excess weight;
• understand the main reason;
• find a way out of the situation;
• act.

You must learn to be responsible, because no one but you can change the current situation. Before you start on the path to your desired figure, you need to find motivation that will help you stay on your chosen path.

Weight loss techniques

Losing weight , based on psychological techniques, allows you to radically change your attitude towards life and yourself. There are several methods from different authors that you can rely on when getting rid of excess weight.

Allen Carr Method

In the book “The Easy Way to Lose Weight” the author proposes to radically change your attitude towards nutrition. Carr believes that eating natural, unprocessed food is the key to weight loss and health. He advises eating fresh vegetables, fruits, nuts, and berries.

Zermati technique

It is based on conscious food consumption. Listen to your body. If you want something sweet, spicy or salty, this indicates a lack of nutrients.

The nutritionist suggests not denying yourself the satisfaction of your needs. If you want to eat a burger, eat it, but it should be conscious consumption.

Zermati suggests eating your favorite treat for breakfast for four days - berry pie or a piece of biscuit, chocolate.

For the next four days, replace lunch with a treat. As a result, you will not gain extra pounds, and your body will need to replenish its supply of nutrients from vegetables or fruits.

It is important to concentrate on the process, chew each piece thoroughly. Avoid watching TV, movies, and surfing the Internet while eating.

NLP for weight loss

This is a self-hypnosis technique combined with the transference of the experience of people who have already achieved success in achieving your desired goal. Special literature, training videos, trainings and seminars will come to your aid.

NLP specialists suggest visualizing what you want. But you don’t need to imagine yourself slim when standing in front of the mirror. This way you give the brain a command that it has already happened. And you won’t be able to set yourself up to lose weight. It is also not recommended to imagine yourself from the outside, as if watching a film with yourself in the lead role.

Proper visualization techniques focus on sensations. Remember how you felt when you wore smaller jeans. Look at your favorite dress that no longer fits you. Return yourself to those feelings of lightness and harmony.

According to the principles of NLP, you must be completely sure that you want to lose weight, you want to diet.

Other techniques

Often in the psychology of weight loss, auto-training is used to ensure results. They are necessary to increase self-confidence.

Some specialists offer hypnosis. Thanks to him, it is possible to instill in a person the principles of proper nutrition and a healthy lifestyle.

Yoga is also effective for weight loss. The exercises are selected specifically for overweight people, which will help you lose weight without harming the body.

Psychology and weight loss: what is the connection?

Anyone who understands even a little psychology knows that our actions and thoughts are guided by the conscious and unconscious. Moreover, much more falls to the share of the unconscious. Psychologists believe that about 80% of our motives and desires, one way or another, are dictated by the subconscious and the attitudes, instincts, psychological traumas, prejudices, stereotypes, etc. embedded in it.

While it seems to us that we are in control of our behavior, the subconscious quietly talks to us in its language of anxiety, intuition, sensations, guesses, fantasies, dreams. Under its influence, we imperceptibly change our strategy of action, make certain decisions, and allow or do not allow ourselves to do something.

It happens that a person tries with all his might to lose weight: he has changed his diet, adjusted his food intake, given up night meals, and taken up fitness, but the excess weight stubbornly stays in place or constantly jumps, not allowing you to relax. Some irresistible force keeps him in his usual weight category.

If you look in detail, it turns out that the opposition is caused by certain beliefs and stereotypes of this person, his attitudes and habits coming from childhood, the traumas of his youth and the imposed line of behavior. He cannot overcome his excess weight because he has not worked through destructive attitudes in his head, has not brought order to his thoughts and feelings, and has not achieved inner harmony.

Psychological tricks for successful weight loss

Often, after losing weight, a woman returns to her usual eating behavior and gains extra pounds again. This is due to the fact that her psychological problem, which leads to overeating, has not been resolved.

Determine the root of evil

Follow the principles of weight loss psychology - determine what exactly pushes you to gluttony. If necessary, consult a psychologist.

Look for incentive

Motivation is equally important for successful weight loss. Determine your ultimate goal - why you need to lose excess weight. Examples:

1. It perfectly stimulates the desire to be healthy and look younger. After all, obesity is the cause of a large number of diseases.
2. The desire to attract the attention of the opposite sex. Bring back the old passion into your current relationship.
3. Love for yourself and your body, the desire to be in harmony with yourself.
4. Career advancement.

Preparation

Having decided on the motive, begin the proper preparation for losing weight. You must clearly understand that this is your desire, and not something imposed from the outside. Do not consider diet and exercise as torture. Enjoy food and exercise.

Make an action plan - decide on a new diet. Choose a set of simple physical exercises.

Take action

Don’t put off changes until the beginning of the week, month, or year. This is a dead end path. If you are ready, immediately begin active actions.

Maintain your motivation - read books, communicate on thematic forums or groups on social networks. If you're inspired, check out the before and after photos. They give understanding that achieving results is possible.

Learn to distinguish the feeling of hunger from thirst or the desire to binge experience. If you want to eat, drink water or green tea.

Keep yourself busy with pleasant things, fill your life with positive emotions. Then you will be less and less likely to feel the desire to eat away boredom or anxiety.

Don't beat yourself up over breakdowns. Everyone can make a mistake. Try to find a reason why you did this. Refuse for a while to communicate with those who do not believe in your success or insist that you do not need changes.

To help you get started, set small goals for yourself. For example, three days without sweets or fast food, and do morning exercises for a week.

Who needs to correct excess weight by working on the psychology of thinking?

There are a certain number of cases when, without working with the subconscious, it will be virtually impossible to achieve positive dynamics in weight correction and stabilization. We will present situations in which, in order to lose weight, it is necessary to involve a psychologist, psychotherapist, coach or an experienced nutritionist consultant who understands the basics of the psychology of weight loss.

Be sure to carefully think about each of them, honestly answer yourself whether this statement is relevant to you, whether you fit the description given. So, you need a psychologist if:

• You often eat to calm down when you feel that you are very worried about someone or something. You also watch scary films and programs only with a tasty snack. Dietary restrictions imposed by a nutritionist only increase your anxiety and lead to breakdowns.
• You have a hard time dealing with stress, you don’t know how to get rid of it correctly, you are depressed by conflicts at work, you take a long time to recover from quarrels, and you often get offended. Your main facts of overeating occur in the evening, after the end of the working day. On weekends, you visit restaurants to relieve the stress of the past week. You prefer to conduct all important negotiations or conflict resolution at a set table.
• You love to treat yourself to treats for your successes and good deeds. All important events for you end at the table, you love to celebrate something.
• You are not used to refusing people dear to you; you cannot help but go on a visit, even if you know that you will not be able to follow the advice of a nutrition consultant. You often eat for company or for a dare. You prefer to hide the fact that you have decided to lose weight, so in public you allow yourself to eat what they expect from you.
• Once upon a time you already lost weight, but you began to feel strange and unusual, as if it was not your body, difficulties arose in communicating with friends and relatives, a feeling of loneliness began to occur, the desired changes in life did not happen.
• You cannot quickly name at least 5 specific reasons why you need to lose weight. All that comes to mind is “getting into old jeans”, “rubbing your girlfriends’ noses”, “making your ex regret leaving”.
• You gained excess weight after some important changes in your life (got married, gave birth to a child, left your favorite job, got a promotion up the career ladder, moved to live in another city, lost a loved one, etc.).
• You don’t like it when a lot of attention is paid to you, you don’t like to be in the center of events, you communicate only with trusted people, you have a hard time trusting strangers, you take a long time to get close to new acquaintances, you make contact with caution, you talk little, you like to be alone.
• You have successfully lost weight more than once, but the excess weight quickly returned for some unknown reason (this has nothing to do with health problems or taking certain medications).
• You don't allow yourself to update your wardrobe or start a new romance until you lose weight. You have many plans for the moment when your figure becomes ideal, but they will all be waiting for this very moment.
• Any changes in life are difficult for you, you don’t like to change your way of life, you don’t care what other people think about you, you don’t care about their feelings and views.
• You believe that successful people should look respectable and weighty. Thin young men do not inspire confidence in you because they are unlikely to be effective. You choose people to contact and do business with based on their appearance.
• You often shift responsibility for your actions onto other people, try to have life’s most difficult issues solved for you, often ask family and friends for help, constantly consult, prefer to sit back so as not to take the necessary actions, and let problems take their course in order to resolve them independently. .
• It was unpleasant for you to read some of the above points; you mentally argued with the content of the article, convincing yourself that this did not apply to you.

If you still find yourself in one of these descriptions, then it’s really time for you to involve a psychologist in correcting your weight and lifestyle. But we have a more advantageous offer for you: it will not only solve all your problems with losing weight, but will also help you earn money from the experience gained...

Useful tips

Basic expert advice for successful weight loss:

1. Eliminate temptations, refuse to go to cafes, guests for the next two, three weeks. Do not buy cookies, candies or other sweets or ask loved ones to remove them from a visible place.
2. Before you eat candy or cake, ask yourself if you need it. Learn to listen to the desires of the body, separating them from emotions.
3. Eat from a small plate and always leave some food on it.
4. Choose blue, emerald dishes and tablecloths to match. These colors reduce appetite.
5. Remember the well-known phrase - “We are what we eat.” If you want to eat junk food, imagine how it fills you up, deprives you of lightness and mobility, and moves you away from your desired goal.
6. Divide the harmful “yummy” into portions. Leave some for tomorrow, the day after tomorrow.
7. Do you want to go to grocery stores on a full stomach?

Psychologists advise keeping a diary. Write down your achievements in it - how many kilograms you lost, how much you lasted without sweet or fatty foods. Look in the full-length mirror more often and notice the changes.

The photo trick works great. Take one photo of your reflection once a week. Re-read your diary, look through pictures to increase motivation.

If you don't have enough will

You may want to quit losing weight. Often, this is attributed to a lack of will.

But to a greater extent, behind this is the fear of change and uncertainty. Remember - you deserve a new healthy and beautiful body. If millions of people have succeeded in losing weight, so can you.

Experts advise that if there is a lack of will, monitor attacks of apathy and laziness, try to understand the cause, and eradicate it. It will also help:

1. Meals in small portions, 5-6 times a day.
2. Get healthy sleep and minimize stress if possible.
3. Walks in the fresh air, new hobbies - embroidery, knitting

Remember, you are losing weight for yourself, to be healthy, happy. Find a role model, a successful person or a friend who was able to lose weight and has authority and a beautiful figure. View photos of the property to get inspired for success.

How to find motivation to lose weight? Expert advises

The program “About the Most Important Thing” often analyzes viewers’ stories and helps them solve health problems. So, Marina Butyrskaya addressed the presenters. The 59-year-old woman has always loved sports, and her husband admired her success and slim figure. But after the birth of children, Marina gained 15 extra pounds. On the air of the Russia 1 channel, expert Natalya Davydova gave the heroine and the audience some advice that will allow them to find motivation and start losing weight without harm to their health.

Marina brought her wedding dress, which no longer fits her. She admitted that she dreams of wearing a festive outfit again. Therefore, she is trying to lose a few kilos, but her attempts have not yet been successful. Marina is an excellent baker, loves buns and believes that she will not fall asleep if she does not eat at least one bun at night. At the same time, the woman suggested that she had diabetes. Sergey Agapkin said that a person who suffers from type 2 diabetes and arterial hypertension needs to lose excess weight.

Natalya Davydova, the creator of a sports app, TV presenter and author of motivational books, appeared in the studio. By her example, she shows people how to stay healthy, beautiful and happy. She recently led a project in which she helped participants get rid of a total of tons of extra pounds! “You can lose weight under any circumstances. But only if you really want it yourself,” said Natalya. She explained what motivation is and how to find it.

• Dissatisfaction. Determine what specifically you are unhappy with.
• For what? Need to imagine what will happen if you lose those extra pounds? What benefits await you?
• How? Here we will talk about specific actions that will need to be taken to achieve the goal.

According to Natalya, you should start with your diet. First of all, you need to get rid of bread, pastries, sweets - everything that contains flour. The expert recommended replacing sausage with meat. “Food should bring joy and health, not illness and disappointment,” Natalya emphasized.

How can we get rid of the constant desire to eat something sweet that we often have? Davydova advises remembering our motivation. Every time before you eat something tasty and unhealthy, ask yourself the question: what will it increase? Dissatisfaction or our positive changes and movement forward?

Sergei Agapkin frightened the spectator, “adding to her dissatisfaction.” He spoke about the terrible consequences of diabetes: as a result of the disease, some patients became blind and had to have their legs amputated.

“These are two magic staffs: with one the wizard scares you with what threatens you in this life if you do not switch to a new course, and with the other staff he talks about the prospects that you will gain by starting to eat healthy and tasty food,” – the expert noted.

Strawberries will replace our usual cakes and pastries; the berries contain less sugar than our favorite desserts. An excellent source of carbohydrates is buckwheat, millet porridge, and rice. Eggs are rich in fats, meat is rich in proteins.

You will also need to add exercise to your life. Natalia showed several simple but very effective exercises. If you do cardio every day on an empty stomach, your weight will begin to drop quickly. In addition, Natalia advised paying attention to strength training. Exercises with dumbbells will strengthen your joints and ligaments. “The most important thing is regularity. Nothing will work without her!” – the expert concluded.

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