5-No-Fail Strategies for Permanent Weight Loss

Source:

Gullo, Stephen, Phd Psychologist and president of Institute for Health and Weight Sciences’ Center for Healthful Living in New York City: BottomLine, June 1, 2005.

•What has surprised me most as a weight-loss expert is the discovery that success at weight control is not about willpower. Indeed, after 25 years and almost 15,000 clients, I have learned that those who succeed at weight control do not have greater willpower than those who fail. They just have better strategies. Here, the five best strategies...

1. Banish trigger foods.Many nutritionists say there are no "bad" foods, but this isn't true in the real world. People with weight problems almost always have one or more "trigger" foods that sabotage their diets.Example: Cookies. Some people can't eat just a few—instead, they finish the entire box.People who are predisposed to indulge in certain foods experience neurological changes when they eat them —changes in their brain chemistry that trigger food cravings and overpower the body's natural appetite-control mechanism. The more of these foods they eat, the more their bodies demand them.Determine your trigger foods—candy, ice cream, potato chips, etc.—and don't keep them in the house.

2. Focus on a negative image

Associating a particular food with a negative visual image makes that foodless appealing and easier to resist.Example: Suppose your personal food trap is chocolate cake. Before you go to a dinner party, a restaurant, etc., repeat a negative message to yourself 10 times— "Chocolate is just brown fat" or "I don't want to wear chocolate cake on my stomach."Also helpful: Put a mouthwash breathstrip in your mouth after your maincourse. The strong taste temporarilyoverwhelms the senses of smell andtaste, suppressing appetite.

3.Keep your stomach satisfied

Blood sugar levels fall if you go more than a few hours without eating. Low blood sugar causes food cravings. Also, eating such trigger foods as sweets on an empty stomach makes them taste particularly delicious and stimulates the brain's craving center. A British study showed that people given chocolate on an empty stomach for 14 days started craving it—even those who hadn't been chocolate lovers to begin with.Eat small meals or healthful snacks at least every few hours. Examples: A handful of nuts, a bowl of whole-grain cereal, a small container of yogurt or a few slices of low-fat cheese.Bonus: Protein has a thermogenic effect—about 30% of the calories are burned during digestion rather than stored as fat.

4. Learn "calorienomics."

Your body has a calorie budget. If you exceed that budget, you will gain weight. You can maximize your calorie budget by eating foods that provide a lot of satisfaction for relatively few calories.Example: A half-pound serving of mussels has about 250 calories, compared with 400 calories in a large bagel. A serving of flounder has one-third to one-quarter the number of calories as a comparable serving of sirloin steak.

5. Get enough calcium A University of Tennessee study found that dieters who got adequate calcium—1,200 mg to 1,600 mg from dairy foods—lost 11 % of total body weight over six months. The study's researchers concluded that dieters who eat high-calcium foods can lose up to 70% more weight than dieters who don't get adequate calcium. When you don't get enough calcium in your diet, a hormone called calcitrol is released. Calcitrol makes fat cells fatter, so you gain more weight.Calcium supplements don't work as well as dairy foods when it comes to weight loss. Dairy products contain a number of compounds that exert a much stronger effect on fat cells than supplements do. Yogurt is an excellent calcium-rich food—one cup of plain or vanilla yogurt has 490 mg of calcium. Other good sources of calcium include milk (390 mg per cup) and cottage cheese (150 mg per cup).