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As someone who loves food and cooking, I find it helpful to think of weight loss in terms of a “recipe.”
There’s no shortage of diets and weight loss plans to choose from. Have you strolled the “diet and weight loss” of your favorite bookstore lately?
There are hundreds of diet books all claiming to have the secret to solving your weight loss woes. No wonder weight loss is a $60+ billion industry! It’s enough to make your head spin.
After decades of trial and error and contributing more than my fair share to the diet and weight loss industry, I’ve discovered that with most things in life, including weight loss, simpler is better.
Life is complicated enough without adding a bunch of unnecessary rules, regulations, requirements and restrictions.
That’s why I’ve come up with what I consider The Best Recipe for Losing Weight.
It’s a simple approach with just three main ingredients – food, fitness, and feeling good.
The Best Recipe for Losing Weight
Most every diet on the market today focuses on the first two ingredients – food and fitness, but few include feeling good, which just might be the absolute essential ingredient for successful lasting weight loss. (At least is has been for me.)
It’s the magical missing ingredient and once you discover its power your life and weight loss efforts will be so much easier and more enjoyable.
When you begin to focus on feeling good, having fun and adding pleasure to your life instead of dieting, deprivation, restrictions, food charts and working out, your mind and body begin to shift. It’s almost immediate.
Try it right now.
Say to yourself, “I need to lose weight” and notice how you feel. If you’re like me you will probably feel sad, depressed, frustrated, tired, and/or overwhelmed – not great emotions from which to create lasting change.
Now say, “I need to find a way to feel good and have some fun.” Notice a difference? When I say this, I feel a smile creep across my face and I feel light, warm, happy, excited and interested.
These are much better emotions for making something positive happen.
Why Feeling Good is Essential for Weight Loss
When you shift your focus from losing weight to feeling good you set yourself up for success because you move to a happier, less stressful, calm, relaxed state, where weight loss can begin to happen in a way that seems effortless.
When you feel good, you are much more likely to engage in behaviors that make you feel better like eating better, getting enough sleep and moving your body more in ways that feel good.
And when you feel good, you are not producing all those stress hormones that can cause you to eat for comfort and gain weight. Focusing on feeling good becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy.
So, always remember to include ways to feel good about yourself, your body, your life, your career, and/or your relationships in whatever recipe for weight loss you choose because it is a magical, essential ingredient for success.
Related Content: Positive Affirmations for Weight Loss (affiliate link)
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ok, Just notices how old the other comments are, is this site no longer working?
bb
Hi Boni,
This site works fine! I wrote that post a while back so most of the comments are older. Glad you found it and hope it helps!!
I would just like to add to the above comment that I am also always extremely hungry!
b.b.
I used to be hungry too. One thing I did was finally notice a connection between diet soda and my hunger. By keeping a food diary I noticed that within 30 minutes of drinking a diet soda, I was ravenous and raiding the pantry. So I stopped drinking diet soda and now I drink tons of water. I’m also a lot less hungry! I’m not sure why diet soda was connected with my hunger, but it was! I think you have to keep trying new and different things to see what works best for you!
I have managed to lose 2 stone on a “healthy eating plan” it is not called a “diet” because you can eat everything but have to count certain obvious things like fat and sugar and refined foods.
I have been happy on this plan but for the past few months I have suffered with extreme tiredness, hair loss, weak nails and very dry skin. I do have a thyroid problem but the tests show that my medication is correct. I cannot seem to work this out, I get plenty of fresh fruit and veg. Wholemeal bread, pasta and rice. A lot of water and fish and meat. However, fat is restricted to fry light only, no avocados even and low cal drinks such as diet cola are allowed as well as sweeteners. I find I am filling up on 0% Greek Yogurt and fruit and in the hot weather diet colas. I am still extremely tired and still have a hair, skin and nail problem.
Boni Bromley
Hi Boni,
Thanks for stopping by. I appreciate you taking the time and I’m sorry for your struggles. Everyone is different and so are our nutritional needs. So I can only really tell you what has worked for me. I do much better when I get more healthy fats in my diet and lean proteins and watch my starches and sugars. I also don’t use artificial sweeteners. Splenda gives me a headache and I learned several years ago that there was a correlation between drinking diet soda and increased hunger so I don’t drink the stuff. I mostly drink lots and lots of water and a small glass or wine or two with dinner. I limit my starches to about 3-5 servings a day. And I eat a moderate amount of fat in the form of olive oil, nuts, nut butters and avocados. I have learned to eat when I am hungry and stop as soon as I am no longer hungry. So I eat much smaller portions than I used to. It’s working. At 50 I’m slimmer than I have ever been. I have thick healthy hair, strong nails and my skin isn’t dry. (I live in the desert.) I also take high quality vitamins and minerals including fish oil and Vitamin D every morning.
I think the key is to experiment. If what you are doing, isn’t working, try something else. Keep a food diary to determine what helps and what doesn’t.
I recently read about one man who improved his energy by beginning his day with a tablespoon of coconut oil!
There’s no one way!! Just the way that will be best for you!!
Cut out aspartame., No diet Coke. Hope this helps.
What a wonderful post! I just put the link on our WW group page so others can read! Thank you!!
Thanks, Gail. Your comment and link mean a lot to me. Have a Happy Thanksgiving!