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In my last post, the topic was weight—specifically weight control, not weight loss. I make the distinction because losing weight for many can be easy and we have all sorts of assistance provided by better living through chemistry, the pharmaceutical industry, and the special foods and special diets industry. But as I argued last time, I think the key to weight control is the learning process. We may or may not have time for that, but if we want to really control our weight and maintain any weight loss, we need to learn the tricks of losing weight and not regaining it. Many of these are psychological and the Noom program contains many of them.
As I argued last time, the skills and attitudes of resilience can be a major asset in controlling your weight. Weight control for most of us involves changing old habits. And we all know that old habits die hard. Many of us have learned to not pay attention to our bodies and to not focus on what we are eating or how we are consuming the food that we have. Changing these old habits may be hard. Exercise may be another habit that we really haven't developed or practiced.
Weight control involves problem-solving. We have to pay attention to our bodies and the food that we are consuming in order to exercise control over either. Flexibility is also required, as is persistence. If one thing doesn't work maybe we need to try another. But we need to stay with whatever we're trying to long enough to know whether or not it works. Persistence is often a skill that many of us find lacking. We have a lot in this world to distract us and capture our attention.
For many of us to be able to focus our attention on what we are eating or on our bodies requires that we deal with some pretty strong feelings that we may have about both. Many of us feel ashamed of our bodies and embarrassed by them. We also may feel angry with our bodies for not behaving as we feel they should. We need to deal with these strong feelings if are going to be able to control our weight.
One of the best ways of dealing with these feelings is to be willing to share them with others, either with a coach or a weight control group. Talking about how we feel and venting and discharging our feelings is an important part of this process and you will notice that most effective weight control programs involve coaching and support groups.
In my next post, we will talk more about weight control and the issue of acceptance. This means accepting that our bodies are not perfect and will probably never be. It also means accepting that we may never achieve and maintain the perfect weight, that is, the one that we've been told, taught, or believe we should have.
