The Essential Ingredient for Lasting Weight Management
October 10, 2016To be successful in your weight loss journey you must know the essential ingredient for lasting weight management. Have you ever felt like my client Tom?
"I knew it, it’s over. I’ve blown my weight loss."
Tom is more upset and frustrated than I ever seen him before. Formerly 380 pounds, Tom is 18 months post-op gastric sleeve surgery and down 140 lbs.
“The surgery did its thing, I lost the weight but now I’m back to all my old ways. I’m a food addict and no matter how hard I try; I know I’m going to regain all my weight.”
Tom is convinced, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that he is done losing weight and now, doomed to regain it. Tom is doing many things to maintain his weight loss—regularly seeing his dietitian every month, being mindful about what he eats, and when, working on his food triggers and taking his vitamins and minerals every day. But right now, he cannot see or appreciate a single one. He has given his surgery all the credit for his weight loss and not his own actions. He feels confident he’ll fail. And he will.
Unless….
Unless he embraces the absolutely essential ingredient for lasting weight loss--he must BELIEVE that he can.
The Essential Ingredient For Lasting Weight Management
Now before you think I’m going to get all “Little Engine that Could’ on you, stay with me. I’ve got research here, people. And lots of it. Granted, wishful thinking or even believing isn’t all it takes. The National Weight Loss Registry keeps a running database of study subjects who have lost more than 30 pounds and kept it off for more than one year. This is weight loss from a wide variety of methods, not just surgical.
Several cardinal behaviors or habits the ‘successful losers’ have in common have been identified including:
- They weigh themselves regularly, most do it daily
- They monitor their food intake
- They monitor how much they exercise
- They exercise an hour every day
- They eat the same way on weekdays and weekends
- They pay attention to what they eat, all the time.
None of this is new or shocking. What is curious is that if you incorporate all of these behaviors but still don’t believe you can do it, you won’t. That’s the mighty power of belief.
Dr. Brian Wansink, a world renowned food psychologist from Cornell University, conducted one study demonstrating the influences our beliefs have on our perception or how we see the world. In Wansink’s study, graduate students sat at a table with two open containers of strawberry yogurt on the table. They were given tastes from two new containers and asked which had a better strawberry flavor. Each student was able to easily choose the yogurt they felt was the most strawberry-ish.
The kicker? Neither sample given to the students contained any strawberry at all. Both samples were a mix of banana and vanilla yogurt with different amounts of chocolate sauce. The students could not believe it. They were shocked. Some felt sure THEY had had the strawberry yogurt. But there was no strawberry sample, only the two open containers of yogurt on the test table.
Was it the sight of them or the smell or the suggestion of strawberry that made them BELIEVE they were eating strawberry yogurt? Some had to be shown the chocolate sauce and yogurt to be convinced. The power of the mind’s belief system is immense. Hoover Dam huge.
How Our Brains Are Set To Work
Behavior experts say our brains are set up to work like this:
We have beliefs, shaped over the course of our lives. Those beliefs shape our thoughts. Our thoughts trigger our emotions. Our emotions drive our behavior.
Short story? Our beliefs affect our behavior. Believe you can or can’t do something and your actions will support that, 100%.
Researchers have studied the differences in thought patterns between people with obesity compared to those with BMIs less than 25. The differences are very telling. Here are some thoughts the researchers noted in those with obesity:
- ”Why do I have to work so hard at this when other people get to eat whatever they want and not gain weight?”
- ”I guess I’m just meant to be fat.”
- ”I shouldn’t feel angry."
- “If I don’t do it, no one else will.”
Researchers found that those not unsuccessful at long-term weight loss tended to…”not want to set limits, doubt their ability to change, reject the right to speak up for their needs, avoid interpersonal conflict, set up unrealistic expectations for themselves and judge themselves and others harshly.”
The researchers concluded that weight loss plans cannot have a long-term effect if such beliefs exist because they totally undermine success.
You Must Decide That Something Is Different This Time
But how in the world can someone change a lifetime of self-defeatist thoughts? Here’s what psychologist and author Joyce Nash writes in her book, “Now That You’ve Lost It. How to Maintain Your Best Weight.”
“[The client]…must decide that something is different this time, something has changed. Whereas in the past something was missing, now that ingredient is present. [The client] now understands she must THINK differently and DO things differently to succeed. She must take charge, not only of her behavior but of her thinking.”
Dr. Holly Wyatt from the Anschutz Health and Wellness Center in Colorado and participant in ABC television’s “Extreme Weight Loss” talked about this at a recent convention. Wyatt says the body follows the mind so you’ve got to get your mind right. She says it’s not so much what you do but why you do it, what drives you, what beliefs guide your behavior.
If we don’t address these sometimes hidden beliefs, if we don’t visit great counselors to help us dig them up, expose them to air and consider their current usefulness—we might not uncover what’s blocking our ability to change.
Here’s Wyatt’s list of weight loss wisdom:
- Same thinking = same results
- The old way was, ‘If I see it, THEN I’ll believe it.” Now it must be, “I believe it SO, I will see it.”
- We must believe we have the power to change vs. having a victim mindset
- We must expect success vs failure
- We must BE it, in order to DO it, in order to HAVE it.
In other words, we must embrace or believe we are living a life supporting our weight so that we will do the things we need to do to make that happen and then, only then will we have what we want.
I’ve shared these ideas with Tom and he’s trying to keep an open mind. He is skeptical but willing to consider that he has been his own worst enemy in his weight loss battle.
I BElieve in Tom and I’ll keep doing what I have to DO to help him HAVE his weight under control.
 | ABOUT THE AUTHOR Elizabeth Anderson, MA, RD, LD is a bariatric dietitian working with WLS clients online and from her office in New Hampshire providing services through Crackerjack Nutrition. Elizabeth works with clients that want to stop their regain and feel proud of their body. Her pledge is to help clients with both the essentials of bariatric nutrition and the support to help them peacefully manage their weight...forever.Read more articles from Elizabeth! |
