Because of our societys obsession with thinness, losing weight is a primary concern for many individuals, particularly women. Sometimes its an obsession that goes too far. Many women with perfectly normal body weight consider themselves overweight, and this applies to young girls as well. Its very sad to see girls as young as eleven or twelve anxiously watching their weight. Over time, for many of us, its just too much pressure.
Geneen Roth, an author who has written many books about self-regulated eating, says for every diet there is an equal and opposite binge. That is, over time dieting and obsessing about your weight can actually create a weight problem. Nobody can deal with the pressure of deprivation forever sooner or later, somethings got to give. When it does, the result may be that you lose control of your eating or, as the tragic stories of many anorexic girls will attest to, you lose control of your dieting. Geneen Roth isnt alone in this way of thinking, either. Many experts are coming to believe that dieting just doesnt work.
But if not dieting, then what? Self-regulated eating is one alternative that Roth and others recommend. If, like many women in our society, you have spent literally years of your life on a diet, you have probably lost track of what it feels like to eat for the most natural reason of all because you happen to be hungry. This approach to weight loss aims at making eating natural again. Its very simple: if youre hungry, eat. If youre not hungry, dont eat. And when youre eating, as soon as you feel full, stop.
Thats all there is to it. For many of us, accustomed to restrictive diets, this may sound like the most unlikely way in the world to lose weight. As a matter of fact, it isnt. It may not make you lose weight quickly in fact, some people even gain a little before they start to lose. But over the long term, because this is a natural way of eating, it will get your body back to its natural healthy weight.
Of course, the weight thats natural and healthy for you may not bear any resemblance to the fashion models we see in magazines. In fact, studies have shown that less than 1% of women naturally have bodies that are proportioned like a fashion models, so maybe its time for us all to make peace with the bodies that we do have.
And thats exactly what the natural approach to eating can help you achieve. Its not a diet in fact, its even been called an anti-diet. You may assume, that if you eat whatever you want whenever youre hungry, that youll end up eating only unhealthy, high-fat foods. That may be true at first, but those who have gone through this process will attest to the fact that over time, your eating habits naturally become healthier. The first week or so, you may end up eating a lot of cookies or chips. Chances are that, after that, youll crave vegetables or protein. It will all even out over time.
In fact, scientific studies done with children have proven this very thing. The children in the study were allowed to select the foods they wanted to eat from a wide selection. At first, they all gravitated toward cake, chips and candy, probably because these were the foods that their parents restricted at home. After a day or so, however, they naturally switched to healthier foods. Over the span of a week, even though they were never told what to eat and what not to eat, virtually all the children ended up eating a nutritious, balanced diet.
Thats why the self-regulated eating plan does not have any forbidden foods. The thinking goes like this: if a food is forbidden, that will make you want it even more. When you finally get hold of it, you wont be able to stop. But if all foods are allowed, theres no need to obsess about any of them. You can just give your body whatever you feel it needs, and over time, this will lead to easy, natural weight loss. |
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