Does your psychology play a role in losing weight?
A common mistake people make in their usually futile attempts to losing weight is forgetting the power of their own mind. Let's learn why your psychology plays a key role in healthy weight loss. Why do I say futile? Well let's study the statistics. In America, we are now slam dunking a 70% "overweight" percentage. This is great news for artificial joint replacement companies, diabetes care products, and the like. However, this is terrible news for our health, independence, and livelihoods. Why has this happened?
The usual suspects are sugar, sodas, candies, "carbs are bad," etc. Eat this way and you will lose the weight for good screams every infomercial ever in January. Sales soar alongside the waistlines year after year. It's a wonderful world. I want to challenge this norm and share with you a different approach. Google the word "Dopamine" and take a little study. You'll be glad you did. I want to bring this all together and share with you our thoughts on psychology/spiritual health and the effects of fat gain or loss.
Why do we eat too much?
The easiest way to gain weight is to maintain a Caloric surplus. This is a fact! Prove me wrong. Shovel in yummies day after day and see what happens. The good news is that if this is a fact then we can invert it if we want the opposite result. The easiest way to lose weight is to maintain a Caloric deficit. Why is this so hard to do?
Chew on these questions...
Have you ever eaten food while looking at your phone?
Have you ever eaten food while watching TV?
Have you ever eaten food while listening to music, podcast, or radio?
Have you ever eaten food while reading a newspaper or the BBB blog?
The Bible warns that "a double minded man is unstable in all his ways" (James 1.8). Consider it. Read the whole book of James. In fact, study the whole Bible. You will undoubtably learn a lot and you will start to notice great changes in your life. It will even help you stay the course on your weight loss journey.
When you go to eat a meal turn off all distractions and I mean ALL. Study your food like an engineer would study a bridge. Use all of your senses. Smell the food and focus on the tastes and textures. Pretend every bite is the most important thing in your day. Have you ever eaten this way?
Focusing on your food, instead of nonsense, helps you feel full!
A weird thing will happen when you start eating this way. You won't be mindlessly shoveling way too much food while binging your favorite TV show. Welcome to eating! Your mind and body are working in unison to accomplish a single, focused task. Double minded eating is no more. You will appreciate your food and oddly you will notice satiety, or fullness. You are putting your mind in the right position to win at the task. Your digestion will even improve.
Don't fall for the foolish thought that computers and AI are smarter than the human brain. Sure I will admit there are some seemingly dumb people out there. Dumbass exists as a word for a reason. But think about how quickly and efficiently our eyes work in unison with our ears and smell. In a flash, our brain can deeply assess a situation and make a decision. This decision will be even better if you focus on one task at a time. The ole pat your head and rub your tummy drill comes to mind. Another obvious double minded test is to paint artwork while answering math questions. Good luck with that! As you can see "multi-tasking" is a great buzzword for a resume, but quite stupid in reality. Why not focus 100% on one task and get it done with a higher chance of success and then move to the next task.
Double minded eating is poison
I'd be safe to argue that it's not so much what you eat, but how much you eat that matters. The leanest Nancy and I have ever been was while eating ample carbs and protein while keeping fat lower than normal (for an allotted period of time). This allowed plenty of fuel (think carbs) for intense workouts, but kept Calories in a deficit. You probably already know this but just a refresher on Calories per macronutrient...
Carbohydrates has 4 Calories per gram
Protein has 4 Calories per gram
Fat has 9 Calories per gram
Alcohol (86 proof whiskey) has 71 Calories per ounce
So if you know how to add and multiply you can see that fat has more than double the amount of Calories than carbohydrates and protein. This does not mean to never eat fat. Fat is vital for proper hormone production and much more benefits. The trouble with most faulty unsustainable diets are the absolutes like "no carbs!" or "zero fat!"
In regards to drinking alcohol, we'd say avoid/minimize alcohol anyways, but especially during a focused weight loss period. Alcohol is only metabolized by the liver and the liver is responsible for your fat burning metabolism. This is why people who drink beer and eat cheeseburgers at the same time obtain the infamous "beer gut."
All macronutrients are needed in proper amounts for a healthy weight loss. You will just bias/adjust them for a period of time to reach your goal. Once you reach your weight loss goal then you must adjust your macro percentages again to maintain your goals. You do not want to do a fat burning diet too long as you are sure to destroy precious lean muscle tissue, strength, and lose all definition. You will become skinny fat and softer than a marshmallow.
Applying psychology to your weight loss program
First off, get it in your hard head that weight loss is a simple and easy endeavor. Just invert how you became overweight. The human body is insanely efficient at burning fat if you put in the right codes: Lifting weights (to preserve lean muscle) and proper eating (structured amount). Life is good while burning fat!
For a superb start, I'd encourage you to read my short, easy to read book Lazy Weight Loss to dive in more on getting your mind in tune for healthy weight loss. If you want us to guide you along the way hit us up. We are always happy to help. You can see what all we offer here. These options will surely help you get started the right way. It definitely helps to have a plan in hand and somebody to help you with concerns and questions that will inevitably come up. Going at it alone can work, but it is much more difficult.
Second, begin to understand your mind really matters in weight loss. We strongly recommend feeding your spiritual body by studying the Bible and asking God to help you in your journey. Ask Him to help you stick to your diet and workouts. Avoid double minded eating like the plague. Double minded, or zombie state eating, leads to an extreme Caloric surplus, thus fat gain. Keep negativity at bay and study things that make you feel happy and positive.
Last but not least, be patient and diligent. Burning fat will happen, but don't expect it to happen in a week. Yes there are extreme diets that falsely claim fast results, but if it really worked that quickly and easily would 70% of people in the USA be overweight? I highly doubt it. Attack your plan with a steadfast, focused mind and DO NOT get distracted. Misleading weight loss stories are just like misleading gambling stories.
Fool #1 "I just won $80 on the slots!"
Fool #2 "That's nice but I just won $8,000 bucks playing roulette."
Reality: They are both deeply in the hole and sharing their single win.
Stay away from the big fish stories. Stick to your plan. You got this!
Beau
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