Using Your Brain to Lose Weight

Weight loss is a struggle for many of us. We tend to lose sight that losing weight, like anything in life, requires work, dedication, consistency, and time for the changes in our diet and exercising habits to manifest.

However, all too often we succumb to feeling overwhelmed with what needs to be done or confused about how to go about making a change to develop better habits, so our natural inclination is to throw common sense out the window and start searching for the infamous weight loss gimmicks - the lose 20 pounds in a week variety.

Since a big battle in our weight loss goals is getting past ourselves and the bad habits we developed over time, I am merely applying a practical and common sense approach to weight loss to get you to start thinking about it in a different way. If you put in as much effort trying to understand your current habits and things that you're doing that might be sabotaging your weight loss goals, rather than searching miracle weight loss cure, you can and will find success, too!

If you have a medical condition or similar circumstance, my thoughts won't directly apply to you either as odds are that basic common sense and practicality won't be the only tools needed to overcome your extenuating circumstances.

Duh. You may think that my assertion is an oversimplification, but it's not. In fact, it's the cornerstone to most of our weight loss problems. Stick with me here.

When you eat, why are you eating? I mean that sincerely! Needless to say, we all eat to sustain living. However, what happens after we get past eating enough to support our body functioning? I'll tell you!

When I like a certain food (pizza being high on the list), I overeat because I like the taste, so I want more. When I do this, is the real struggle about weight or is it about impulse control?

Sound familiar?

We tend to overeat because we are stressed out. We overeat because we are being social. We overeat because we are bored. We overeat to treat ourselves. We overeat .... you fill in the blank.

If this description fits you, finding your trigger (we all have them!) will help you achieve your weight loss goals. Is it difficult? Yes! Challenging? For sure. Obtainable? Without question!

Fortunately for me, I learned this by accident after, as I am sure many of you have done, researching and experimenting with different weight loss ideas.

A long time ago, I was introduced to the Atkins diet by a co-worker. I had success with the Atkins diet, lost a lot of weight (over 30lbs), and kept it off. Yes, real weight, not just the initial water weight loss phenomenon. When I deviated from the Atkins diet, I resumed effortlessly gaining weight again.

Fast forwarding many years, I tried another diet called the Anabolic diet. In basic principle, this weight loss diet is similar to the Atkins diet, but is geared more towards those who lift weights.

The Anabolic diet calls for a carbohydrate loading (aka: carb loading / carb re-feed) period, typically 1 - 2 days a week. Meals consisting of higher fat / protein and lower carbs are the basis of your dietary intake 5 - 6 days a week, and then lower fat with higher carbs makeup your meals for the 1 - 2 day carb re-feed.

Being Italian and loving breads, pasta, homemade raviolis, and the likes, the carb re-feed aspect of the Anabolic diet enables me to enjoy what I love without laying on the pounds. With my schedule, I practice the carb loading on the weekend and look forward to indulging in some of my soul foods.

Who cares, right?

I'm giving you my personal background because these two diets are similar in using higher fats as the main dietary intake diet intake while nearly eliminating all refined and processed carbohydrates.

When I put two and two together, the light bulb finally went after years of trying different "canned" weight loss protocols. Because these diets are similar in their nutritional foundation I realized that this nutritional mixture worked for me and was founded in a diet I could turn into a lifestyle. To maintain consistency, this is a must.

Reducing carbohydrates was the key to my weight loss!

Eliminating carbs may be the key for you. It may not be. Regardless, you have to find the types of food that your body responds best to. Once you do, you will have found a major component that will help you achieve your weight loss success.

Like our personalities, our bodies are very different. Even though there are many sound nutritional and weight loss ideas from which most of us can benefit from, it is of the utmost importance that you realize that our weight loss strategies must be tweaked to suit our bodies. Again, what works for you, may not work for me and figuring out what works for you will unlock your secrets to losing weight.

So the question becomes, what do we do? Start by stopping!

Stop looking for quick and easy diet solutions and start paying attention to the answers our bodies are giving us. Diesel trucks don't run off of leaded fuel and leaded fuel cars don't run off of diesel. Give your body the food it needs and wants!

As I noted earlier, practice some self control! In doing so, your discipline will help you to change your behavior. Changing your behavior, if practiced with consistency, will ultimately turn into positive weight loss habits. This is a good formula for life, too!

Now, for the more challenging part of your weight loss endeavor and the real secret behind weight loss - listen to your body and use your brain to figure out what your body is telling you!

When the light bulb finally went on that my body responds well to reducing my carbohydrate intake, I set out to seek advice on implementing different methods and strategies in consuming this type of diet. What are the health benefits of eating this way? Are there any potential health risks in eating this way? You get the point. Head over to Google, search, and get educated.

Believe it or not, figuring out your optimal nutritional fuel is not as hard as it may seem. Start by asking yourself a few simple questions.

When I eat blank, do you feel sluggish and tired or do you have great energy? Does a particular food make you feel gassy, bloated, and in need of unbuttoning your belt buckle or do you feel satiated and full of life?

In short, make notes of what types of food make you feel good and those that don't. Once you've generated a substantial list of different foods, try to determine the nutritional makeup of these foods to discern an noticeable patterns. Are you like me and removing carbs are the key or are you better suited to eating higher carbs with a lower dietary fat intake?

If you still can't tell what's right for you. Try one dietary approach for at least two weeks (preferably longer) and then try the other.

Experiment. Don't be feared into not experimenting!

After all, if you already had the weight loss mystery figured out, you wouldn't be reading this right now. Remember, big corporations make big money off of selling weight loss ideas and food that fits their agenda. Be aware of this and pay close attention to it. Cereal, chips, and other well known refined carbohydrates are big business and when big business is involved, be careful of their selling motives and suspicious of potentially unhealthy weight loss myths intended solely for the purpose of pushing their financial agenda!

Entenmanns anyone? Eat all the cookies and sweets that you want. You can't gain any weight because there's no fat in their ingredients!

Taking it one step further, I am sure many of you haven't tried a higher fat diet because you have been told it is unhealthy. Can't have all the fat! Don't be fooled by this nonsense, eating a higher fat diet does not mean you are eating hamburgers and bacon all day long.

A simple and healthy example of a higher fat, low carb, meal would be a dinner consisting of the following:

1. Baked chicken (unfortunately costly, but organic free-range is the way to go)!
2. Broccoli and asparagus for your vegetables (steamed or stir-fried in a nice olive oil).
3. A mixed greens salad consisting of avacado, cherry tomatoes, and topped off with a nice olive oil and vinegar dressing. Don't forget to add some cheese for added flavoring. Perhaps Roquefort cheese, Blue cheese, or Parmesan cheese!
4. Sorry to disappoint, no french bread! Here is where the discipline really counts!

There are endless choices for healthy higher fat, lower carb, meals. But, remember, it is not whether you should eat a high fat diet or consume a high carb diet, it is important to listen to your body and let you body tell you.

You will be able to do this by experimenting with your meal combinations. Again, it is also extremely important to give each new eating style some time so your body can show you the results (good or bad). If you don't give it time, it will be impossible to determine any trends in what's working and what's not.

Be realistic and smart about your discoveries. Ice cream, sweets, and all those other coveted goodies are not going to fit the bill for your base nutritional supplementation and should be left out of your experimentation as it will simply taint your results and take you longer to figure things out. You can still enjoy these delights, but after you figure out what works and what doesn't.

Eating healthy, losing weight, and maintaining your weight loss is a lifestyle. Practice discipline in working to achieve your weight loss goals and be smart about understanding your body. Take the time that you spend searching for the next miracle diet and simply pay attention to what your body is telling you.

As good rule of thumb, stick with natural foods (the type that man doesn't engineer). Find what works and makes you feel good, and stick with it!