How To Lose Weight and Keep It Off

To make a huge change in the area of losing weight, each person will have to develop coping skills. There is no “one size fits all,” but we can learn and grow from sharing ideas. Visualize a castle—like in Game of Thrones. In the olden days, in order to remain secure, rich folks built castles including fortresses. They chose a mountain or the highest section of land available. They cleared all trees and shrubs from the land for miles around so they could see the enemies approaching. They posted guards to constantly watch for enemies. They also surrounded their fortresses with moats and placed snakes and sharp instruments in the water just in case enemies did get that far, this provided another barrier. They used a draw bridge and posted soldiers and guards in towers all around their property. They built their castles in levels and had massive doors that could be locked from the inside on all levels. They had fake walls and hidden exits. I think you get the metaphor. In order to be successful, we must develop our own fortresses. All weight loss begins with THOUGHTS. All overeating or poor food choices begin with THOUGHTS. Therefore, our first line of defense must be our thoughts. It will come as no shock to you that researchers will tell us folks who are successful at weight loss have mastered their thoughts and the best time to stop a poor food choice is at the level of when we first are tempted or think about eating some items we know we do not need or want to eat. I tell people that I have trained myself to even yell out loudly; “STOP!” when I am tempted or even begin to think about cherry pie or blackberry cobbler. STOP…because the more I allow myself to think about it, the nearer I will come to giving in. We are not strong enough to let ourselves continually get tempted…IF we go the next step and keep thinking about cherry pie (or pick a food), next thing we know, we will be at the store looking in the pie case. We have another opportunity at that point to stop, but if we keep doing this to ourselves, we might finally give in and each time we give in, we are more likely to give in. It only takes a few days and we are off the plan and headed for disaster. So, I made up a list of my defenses---I created my own fortress as I recommend each person can do for him/herself. 1. Yell “Stop” at the first thought of a food not allowed on the Keto Food Plan. 2. Ask myself if I am truly hungry. If I have eaten within the last 3 to 4 hours, I am not truly hungry. 3. Wait to eat. I make myself wait an hour or until I have completed some project like crocheting to the end of the next row or mopping a room. We often put off going to the bathroom, so we can put off eating. 4. Using slogans and sayings can be helpful. “I am stronger than a cookie,” “Food is not the boss of me,” “Stay calm and keto on,” “Food is not the answer to this question,” and “Nothing tastes as good as being slim feels.” 5. Watching YouTube and viewing the success of others. 6. Weighing myself every day first thing in the morning and writing the weight in my journal. 7. Reviewing/reading literature. 8. Trying different recipes. 9. Trying on garments and thinking about the sizes. I used to be a 16-18 headed to a 20-22. Now I am a 6. I do not want to go back to the big girl sizes. Food is not worth the joy of wearing size 6s. 10. Dressing in various fashion trends and looking at self in the mirror. 11. Get busy with a craft like sewing, gardening, painting, playing piano, or thrift shopping. 12. Be kind to yourself. Buy the best foods you can eat and enjoy. Never think about the foods you can eat, but rejoice in all the choices you can enjoy. Well, obviously, I can go on and on. The point is that I use all these techniques to REPLACE food. We have to replace the time we used to spend with food with new activities. **********************************************