Wanna Lose Weight? Go on a Word Diet!
I hate to wait. When I want something, I want it now. This also applies to my weight. When I want to lose weight, I want to lose it now.
But how?
In my book Enough Dammit , I offer up psychological techniques to break bad addictive patterns for good. One of my personal tricks is to make word trades. When I began changing the words I allowed to exit my mouth when discussing food, the kinds of food I allowed to enter my mouth began to change too.
Using a new vocabulary for talking about food, I was able to fit into my favorite jeans and feel like my favorite self. See how this vocabulary menu works for you.
1. I banned the word "diet" completely and renamed my actions as "do-it."
2. I "appreci-eat" my food. This word is all about slowing down how you eat, which allows you to taste food more, which leads you to eating less.
3. I now label foods as "forward" and "backward." Every food I choose to eat helps me become more conscious of how it either moves me forward to my fab weight or backward to my flab weight.
4. I've relabeled my eating habits as "the old me" and "the new me." All your habits in life come from your identity. If you think, "I always overeat late at night," guess what? You do! If you think, "I'm the type of person who can resist pigging out on chocolate," guess what? The new you will be very much going forward to fab, instead of backward to flab.
5. I swapped mere tiny "willpower" for "wall-power!" Nothing is able to break through my wall of commitment!
More tips for lasting weight loss
But how?
In my book Enough Dammit , I offer up psychological techniques to break bad addictive patterns for good. One of my personal tricks is to make word trades. When I began changing the words I allowed to exit my mouth when discussing food, the kinds of food I allowed to enter my mouth began to change too.
Using a new vocabulary for talking about food, I was able to fit into my favorite jeans and feel like my favorite self. See how this vocabulary menu works for you.
1. I banned the word "diet" completely and renamed my actions as "do-it."
2. I "appreci-eat" my food. This word is all about slowing down how you eat, which allows you to taste food more, which leads you to eating less.
3. I now label foods as "forward" and "backward." Every food I choose to eat helps me become more conscious of how it either moves me forward to my fab weight or backward to my flab weight.
4. I've relabeled my eating habits as "the old me" and "the new me." All your habits in life come from your identity. If you think, "I always overeat late at night," guess what? You do! If you think, "I'm the type of person who can resist pigging out on chocolate," guess what? The new you will be very much going forward to fab, instead of backward to flab.
5. I swapped mere tiny "willpower" for "wall-power!" Nothing is able to break through my wall of commitment!
More tips for lasting weight loss
6. I now talk about ways to "increase my appetite for life." If you want to be a slim, healthy person, it's essential you swap the pleasure of food with life's multitudinous other delights. If you want to lose weight, you must make sure your appetite for life is far bigger than your appetite for mere food.
How do you increase your appetite for life? Stop allowing yourself to focus on depressing life circumstances, which only leads you to feeling bummed and wanting to pig out. Instead, consciously focus on happy life circumstances you enjoy doing, and create more of them! Swap chips and salsa for salsa classes! Stop eating cake, and start painting fruit baskets! Recognize how the joy of taking photos lasts longer than the joy of ice cream!
7. I recognize when I'm "do-it-ing" to become my slimmest, I'm not merely looking to create "a better number on my scale." I'm looking to permanently adjust my "masochistic equilibrium level." Each of us grew up feeling comfy with a certain level of happiness. When this happiness concentration shifts, even if it's upward to feeling incredible gargantuan happiness, then a lot of us feel twitchy and overeat, thereby raising our weight upward so as to lower our self-love, so as to lower our happiness, which reverts us to our familiar "masochistic equilibrium level" leftover from childhood.
If you want to get and stay at your slimmest weight, you must be ready to throw out these old childhood leftovers. When you're truly ready to be happy in life, then you're truly ready to be happy about your weight.
Do you think changing the way you talk about food and dieting can change your weight? Have you ever tried positive, personal affirmation as a way to lose weight? Share your tips!
Karen Salmansohn is a best-selling author known for creating self-help for people who wouldn't be caught dead reading self-help. Get more information on finding a loving happier-ever-after relationship in her book Prince Harming Syndrome .
How do you increase your appetite for life? Stop allowing yourself to focus on depressing life circumstances, which only leads you to feeling bummed and wanting to pig out. Instead, consciously focus on happy life circumstances you enjoy doing, and create more of them! Swap chips and salsa for salsa classes! Stop eating cake, and start painting fruit baskets! Recognize how the joy of taking photos lasts longer than the joy of ice cream!
7. I recognize when I'm "do-it-ing" to become my slimmest, I'm not merely looking to create "a better number on my scale." I'm looking to permanently adjust my "masochistic equilibrium level." Each of us grew up feeling comfy with a certain level of happiness. When this happiness concentration shifts, even if it's upward to feeling incredible gargantuan happiness, then a lot of us feel twitchy and overeat, thereby raising our weight upward so as to lower our self-love, so as to lower our happiness, which reverts us to our familiar "masochistic equilibrium level" leftover from childhood.
If you want to get and stay at your slimmest weight, you must be ready to throw out these old childhood leftovers. When you're truly ready to be happy in life, then you're truly ready to be happy about your weight.
Do you think changing the way you talk about food and dieting can change your weight? Have you ever tried positive, personal affirmation as a way to lose weight? Share your tips!
Karen Salmansohn is a best-selling author known for creating self-help for people who wouldn't be caught dead reading self-help. Get more information on finding a loving happier-ever-after relationship in her book Prince Harming Syndrome .
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