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Diets vs. the GHF Approach
Many people associate good health with physical appearance. Hundreds of thousands of Americans appear healthy because they aren't overweight. Yet because they don't exercise and don't eat a low-fat, nutritious diet, they are good candidates for the heart disease and cancers that kill three out of four, diseases that are primarily linked to lifestyle and behaviors. For most, the very first sign of heart disease is not being overweight or even having chest pains, it's having a heart attack, too often a fatal one. All people, including you, can develop heart disease, if they don't take care of their bodies.
America spends billions of dollars on different ways to fix people. If we focused more on prevention and on improving our day-to-day behaviors, we could cut health care costs in half. Contrary to popular belief, leading a healthy lifestyle doesn't have to be difficult; it doesn't have to painful or time-consuming. Making gradual, simple changes in your diet and physical activity will make great improvements in your health and well-being, and they can drastically reduce your risk of disease.
Most people who decide to lead a healthier lifestyle go on traditional diets. The truth is, however, that 95 percent of those who go on diets fail; what's worse, they often end up in worse shape than when they started. Diets are both ineffective and potentially harmful; they should be replaced by long-term health-oriented programs. Most people, though, do not know how to make the behavioral changes that promote optimum health.
GHF will teach you how to break out of the diet mentality and change your lifestyle in simple, yet very effective ways so you can not only add years to your life, but life to your years. Our program is not another 60-day prison sentence sure to fail; it is the beginning of an improved, more beneficial way to live.
How do you break out of the diet mentality? How do you shift your thinking from impractical or impossible quick weight-loss schemes? GHF can help you change your daily routine gradually and easily.
Our approach promotes self-reliance to maximize your potential for health and wellness. GHF emphasizes leaving behind the use of disordered eating patterns for the sole purpose of losing weight. We focus on optimizing nutrition and physical activity to promote total health and with it, a strong sense of well-being.
GHF offers a much healthier approach to eating and exercise. We will help you learn to successfully adopt new habits without guilt, without unrealistic rules, and without deprivation. You'll learn to make all your choices based on a reasonable and realistic course of pleasurable action that will gradually lead you to better health and improved physical performance.
Our weight management program has no strict rules to follow; it doesn't deprive you of the foods you love. GHF will teach you how to make smart choices when shopping, cooking, and eating out; it will teach you how to make healthy decisions about exercise. It will help you learn how to think in ways that will make an amazing difference in how you look, act, and feel. As these new habits become permanent, you will have mastered the healthy lifestyle everyone deserves to enjoy.
Our weight management approach will help you take the focus off your weight and counting calories and put that focus on to other goals such as healthier eating, enjoyable physical activity, and a positive self-image. We will provide you with the tools to be successful in developing a healthier way of living regardless of your weight. We'll encourage you to eat well and be active, to take charge of feeling good about yourself.
It is very important that you recognize "diet thinking" and consider an alternative approach. Those trapped in the diet paradigm use exercise solely for weight loss instead of for all the many other great benefits that result from a healthy level of activity. Sadly, dieters often terminate their healthy pattern of exercise and eating altogether if they can't follow it rigidly.
The GHF approach encourages you to enjoy fitness for its many contributions: improved energy, improved performance, an improved sense of general well-being. In order to forget past failures and move into a positive future, you must first accept yourself as you are; and as you develop into your full potential, you must be absolutely convinced that diets do not work!
By now, we hope you have a good understanding of why traditional diet programs are the wrong approach to take for losing or managing weight and for achieving total, optimal health and fitness. What follows is a discussion of our non-diet weight-management approach. If followed correctly, it will not only help you manage a healthy body composition, it will also, and perhaps most importantly, drastically reduce your risk of disease.
The Ten Certainties of Successful Weight Management
GHF's philosophy of safe and effective weight management rests on what we call the Ten Certainties. You must grasp and incorporate these ten ideas firmly in order to implement a successful weight management program. Once you are able to make these beliefs your own, you will enjoy integrating healthy eating habits into your life.
1. Accept Your Body and Learn to Have a Positive Self Image
Because thin females and muscular males are seen as the ideal in our society and because we have come to believe that body size and shape are totally under a person's control, most people enter diet and exercise programs with unrealistic goals and expectations. If you continually strive to achieve a socially imposed ideal, you will never be free of your insecurities or your self-consciousness. You must truly realize and then learn to accept that we are not all meant to be fashion-model size.
Our body size and structure reflects not only our eating and exercise habits but also our genetics. The role this latter factor plays in determining weight seems to vary greatly between individuals. We are all born with a certain body type inherited from our parents. Although hardly anyone is a pure body type, there are three different applicable categories: ectomorphs, mesomorphs, and endomorphs.
Characteristically, ectomorphs have a light build with slight muscular development. They are usually tall and thin with small frames and narrow hips and shoulders.
Mesomorphs have a husky, muscular build. They often have broad shoulders, and their weight is concentrated in the upper body, making them look compact or stocky.
Endomorphs are characterized by a heavy, rounded build with shoulders usually narrower than their hips. They have a round, soft appearance and are more often overweight or obese.
When we understand and appreciate our bodies, we are able to work with them, not against them. Although many of us are a combination of two body types, we cannot become what we are not. However, everyone can improve their appearance and their health and performance levels by implementing the principles of GHF.
Even if you have a genetic predisposition to being overweight, the way you live is what ultimately determines whether you become fat. Genes clearly play a role, but they certainly don't determine what you're going to have for dinner or how often you exercise. Chances are if you're living an unhealthy lifestyle, you'll become fat and unhealthy.
All of us can't be thin. But every single one of us can be healthy. By focusing on what you're eating and how much you're exercising, you'll be able to achieve optimum health and fitness, even though you may not achieve society's ideal of thinness. Accepting yourself does not mean that you're hopeless and that it's okay to do nothing. It means that you feel good and care about yourself, and that you want to be the very best you can be, regardless of your genetics, regardless of society's standards.
To achieve this level of optimum wellness, you must have a positive self image. This means that your feelings about your body are not influenced by events in your daily life. For many people, life's problems are projected onto their body. "If only I were thinner--or more muscular, I would have made the team, gotten the job, been chosen. . . . If only I were thinner--or more muscular, I could meet more people, find the right guy/girl, be happy." This self-defeating habit is reinforced by the images we see in advertising; your body becomes an easy target for everything wrong in your life.
When you have a positive self-image, you value and respect your body; you are also more likely to feel good about living a healthy lifestyle.
No matter how much genetics predetermines how you store and lose fat, the body you've been given will still respond positively to being appreciated and treated well. Focusing on fun physical activity and eating healthy foods will help you feel good whatever your size. Developing a healthy, positive image of yourself is the first critical factor in your fitness success. Having a strong sense of self-worth provides the basis for making rational and affirming decisions about your health.
2. Avoid the Negative; Choose the Positive
Negative self-talk is a destructive habit and part of an essential defense mechanism that we often develop to protect ourselves. Many people end up talking themselves out of actions that may be scary or uncomfortable. "I can't do this" is really just a way of saying "I don't want to deal with the experience of doing this." We are all strongly influenced by our feelings, often determining how and what action we ultimately take. If the feeling is uncomfortable, negative self-talk results; then we often decide not to take any action at all.
Many people assume that if a past experience produced a certain result, there is nothing they can do to change that experience in order to produce a different result. "I've tried every diet there is. I know what I should do; I just can't do it."
Please understand that you can make the choice not to repeat old patterns of eating, non-exercise, and negative thinking. You have the ability to choose the emotions you have. If you don't like feeling guilty, frustrated, or doubtful, you can choose not to. You, and no one else, must decide what is comfortable for you. In order to become successful at making healthy choices, you must avoid negative self-talk and start practicing positive thinking.
Positive or negative self-talk plays a big part in your decisions. Be on the "look-out for negative self-talk and notice how it influences your choices; notice how it can negatively affect your efforts to change. For example, perhaps you've just returned from a week's vacation where you took a break from exercise and low-fat eating. You tell yourself, "I feel so fat. I'm back where I started." You feel guilty and frustrated. "I don't have enough will-power to start all over again. Maybe I'm just meant to be overweight." Feeling overwhelmed and discouraged, you give up.
First, reflect on the feelings you had before you decided to give up. You basically told yourself that the healthy habits you learned before your vacation were all for nothing and that you have to start over. Ask yourself if these feelings are reasonable. Are you really back to ground zero? Of course not. You accepted change and developed a new way of living; these skills are yours forever. The vacation might even have done you some good: everyone needs a break sometimes. Otherwise, you might have felt deprived and not really enjoyed yourself. It's time now to tell yourself: "It felt good eating whatever I wanted and taking a break from exercising; I had a great time. But now I'm going to focus back on the low-fat, active lifestyle I was enjoying before vacation. There is no reason to beat myself up; I'll just take it one day at a time." Now you can rethink your previous decision and take action that will move you forward towards more positive change.
As you begin to understand your reasons for negative self-talk, you'll find yourself recognizing it more and more quickly after it occurs. Eventually, as you practice, you'll be able to recognize and stop negative self-talk before it interferes with your decisions.
It is very important to practice positive thinking and to remind yourself that you're a worthwhile person whatever you do. Try to consistently acknowledge that you are making positive changes to improve your health. You should be proud of yourself. Visualize yourself as capable, happy, and confident. These positive feelings will help the process of change.
Remember, there are bound to be times when you're feeling frustrated or depressed. Positive thinkers know that these feelings are valid, and they don't try to ignore them. Positive thinkers acknowledge and try to understand them, but they don't blame themselves for the conditions that lead to these feelings.
3. Accept Change as a Positive Force in Your Life
In order to be successful at leading a healthier lifestyle, you need to have knowledge and a good understanding of the best, most effective ways to do that. GHF will give you that. But we also want you to know that it's okay to be afraid and uncomfortable with this lifestyle change; that's natural. Changing old habits isn't easy. In general, people have a hard time adjusting to change. Change is made even more difficult when we're not certain we want the goals we have set out to achieve. Change is impossible when we set ourselves unrealistic goals.
But it truly is possible when we set realistic goals and when we make those changes gradually. If you have a willingness to work through the initial emotional discomfort as you move step-by-step into this new lifestyle, you'll find the confidence, commitment, determination, and belief in your own self-worth that will ease the way.
Healthy living means making important lifestyle changes, changes in the way you eat and exercise and, we hope you're coming to see, in the way you think. It may sound overwhelming at first, but it's really quite simple. Remember, these changes will be gradual. They'll also never be painful or hard to stick with. Many Americans have already successfully made the change to a healthy lifestyle. You can too, once you understand how easy it is.
Making the change to a healthier lifestyle is a process you will enjoy and can be proud of. The easiest way to go about it is to take it one step at a time. If you try to hurry change, chances are that it won't be permanent. It's important to understand that once you put into effect the lifestyle habits we are going to teach you, they are yours forever and will make a substantial impact on your life.
Once you truly believe that you have the ability to find a comfortable balance of food, activity and life attitudes, you can break free from diets forever. Action creates motivation. Once you understand and implement the non-diet approach of GHF, you will become successful. Once you start achieving great results, the excitement and fun you experience will make the change well worth the effort. Enjoying the many great benefits of a healthy lifestyle will help provide the impetus to stay on the healthy road you've taken.
4. There's No Such Thing as Cheating.
There's no right or wrong way to eat. Healthy eating is all about motivation, balance, and flexibility. To achieve a healthy balance, GHF's weight management program offers easy-to-understand and easy-to-follow recommendations. However, it will be up to you to adapt these recommendations to your life. There will be times when you eat a high-fat meal or eat beyond fullness, or when your schedule gets so busy that you miss a workout. This happens. It's normal. But it's very important that you don't get down on yourself and abandon your new healthy lifestyle when this happens.
If you're like most people, your reaction to these diet/fitness obstacles is guilt. You feel as if all your hard work has been for nothing. "I blew it; I was doing so well. Oh well, I might as well enjoy this weekend and start over on Monday." Or even worse: "I just don't have the motivation or will power to start over and be successful. I quit." Feeling defeated, many people discontinue the healthy living and return to their old routine until some mythical time in the future: "Maybe this spring will be a better time to start over again." This kind of scenario is a perfect example of the diet mentality at work.
An all-or-nothing attitude is why so many people have so little success; we choose structured programs because they relieve us from making choices for ourselves. A properly designed program makes sense, but expecting to stick to a structured eating and exercise plan for an extended period of time without ever deviating makes no sense at all. In fact, this is so unrealistic as to be a set-up for failure. If you begin to change your habits with the assumption that any deviation from your plan will ruin it, you might as well not even begin. Life is full of unplanned obstacles, distractions, and temptations. Your best approach is to prepare for them, keeping an open mind and maintaining a positive attitude.
It's very important that you begin your healthier lifestyle with an understanding that there will be days when you will stray from healthy eating and exercising. Before you begin, tell yourself that no matter what happens, rather than abandoning your new lifestyle, you'll resume your healthy habits as soon as you can; it is equally important that you feel confident, not guilty, about doing so. Whatever the temptation or obstacle is, keep in mind that it's not wrong or bad to eat fattening foods once in a while or to miss a workout. Just remember to resume your healthy lifestyle. If you keep moving forward and you don't let guilt and discouragement stop your program all together, you'll eventually have improved eating and exercise habits.
With this approach, there is no such thing as cheating. When we feel we are cheating, we often punish ourselves; we make ourselves feel guilty, frustrated and defeated. Replacing the negative concept of "cheating" with the idea of "straying from healthy habits" takes away the all-or-nothing emphasis on right and wrong. If you treat every deviation from your plan as a failure, you won't get very far.
Substituting the idea of a brief straying away from your plan instead of feeling guilty, and learning to return more and more quickly to healthier habits, is more realistic. It's also easier and more enjoyable.
5. There are No "Good" or "Bad" Foods.
In the GHF non-diet approach, all foods are legal. There are no "good" foods or "bad" foods. You must believe this. Sudden changes and/or drastic restrictions of high-fat foods when you have a preference or craving for fat will result in feelings of deprivation. No one can or should go through life depriving themselves of foods they really enjoy. You must learn how to make gradual healthy changes to the foods you love while experimenting with and learning to appreciate new flavors and textures.
A recent survey showed that more than 75 percent of people feel guilty about eating so-called "bad" foods. The greatest obstacle to adopting healthy eating habits is guilt. Attaching a value to foods only makes you feel bad for eating them. When you do decide to eat a high-fat food, enjoy it. Don't beat yourself up over it. Just make a special effort to eat low-fat the rest of the day. Remember, there is nothing wrong with splurging now and then. It can even be good for you if the satisfaction of a higher-fat meal that you've been craving helps you stick with a low-fat lifestyle the rest of the time.
6. Avoid Short-term Thinking: Successful Programs are for Life.
The GHF program is not a plan that you go on and start over when you've been "bad." You must become flexible enough to allow it to become a comfortable, enjoyable way of life. Then these healthier habits will work with you and for you rather than against you. As you experiment, you will discover what works best for you.
Diets teach us that changing our exercise and eating habits are short-term projects rather an improved lifestyle. Headlines and advertisements everywhere read "Lose 30 pounds in 30 days," and most people believe them. They go on and off diets, start and stop exercise programs, and their weight--and self-esteem--go up and down. Unfortunately, most people don't realize that there is a real alternative to diets, so they jump back on the diet roller coaster when their weight goes back up or a new miracle diet comes on the market. Fortunately, you've found the GHF Weight Management program, which will allow you to be successful despite the many obstacles that life throws your way.
In order to break free from the diet mentality, you need to view these healthier changes you're making as part of a permanent lifestyle transformation. To gain the lasting benefits of this program, it is important to re-orient short-term thinking towards realistic goals.
Goal setting is a great way to stay motivated and achieve the results you deserve. Unfortunately, many people set goals simply to look better in the short run and not for the other many benefits a healthy lifestyle offers us in the long run. For example, setting a short-term goal of losing 10 pounds for a class reunion isn't helpful. Once the reunion is over, most people will either revert to their previous habits because the special event is over or simply quit all together because the goal they set was unrealistic.
Living a low-fat lifestyle and decreasing your body fat takes a long-term commitment. Trying to do it all at once, however, only makes you frustrated and discouraged. Instead, set a realistic long-term goal; then achieve it by reaching smaller, short-term goals. For example, if your goal is to decrease your body fat by 10 percent, shoot for modest goals, such as decreasing your body fat by one percent each month. Decreasing body fat slowly is not only the safest and most effective way, it is also the most realistic. Every goal, short-term or long-term, should be one that is truly attainable.
Every goal should also be one that you are in charge of. Setting a short-term goal where you are in charge, such as exercising four times a week, will help you achieve your long-term goal. Remember--and remind yourself: each time you reach a short-term goal, you are one step closer to achieving what you really want: a healthier, more attractive body.
7. Live Your Program One Day at a Time.
Focusing on how you're going to look and feel at some time in the future prevents you from enjoying the way you look and feel today. Focusing instead on the day-to-day process rather than the end result paradoxically brings about a better end result. Thinking only about the future reminds you of how far you still have to go rather than focusing on what you should do today.
If you happen to overeat, or eat a high-fat meal, or skip a workout, enjoy it; don't worry about it ruining your program or your future. Shift instead to living low-fat and healthy the rest of the day. By taking it one day at a time, you can do a better job of concentrating on what's working for you and what's not, how you're feeling and what you're thinking.
For example, perhaps you've just enjoyed a low-fat version of your favorite pizza, using healthy cooking techniques you recently discovered. You can't believe how great it tasted and how easy it was to prepare. Focusing on this present moment, when you're feeling satisfied, energized, and confident, helps you stay more balanced in your decision-making about food and exercise. On the other hand, reflecting on this scenario from a future focus might leave you feeling overwhelmed: "Boy, do I have a lot still to learn about healthy cooking. I'll have to experiment with my favorite foods for the rest of my life!"
Setting small goals and acknowledging all the small achievements on your path are essential to successful change. Remember to take it one day at a time.
8. Eating Should Always be a Pleasurable Experience.
If you're having a special diet meal that's different from what the rest of your family or friends are eating, you'll feel as though you're being punished. In order to be successful in changing your eating habits, you must look forward to and enjoy each meal you eat. This doesn't mean that you have to learn to like rice cakes and celery. It means you must learn how to make simple changes in the foods you love.
Perhaps one of your favorite meals is fried chicken, a baked potato, and salad. Small changes in how the food is prepared can turn this traditionally high-fat meal into a low-fat well-balanced one. Simply marinating a skinless chicken breast in sweet and sour sauce, rolling it in bread crumbs, and baking it makes the chicken a lot less fattening than if it's fried. Instead of butter or regular sour cream on your potato, try low-fat or nonfat sour cream or a reduced fat ranch dressing. Try using a non-fat or low-fat salad dressing rather than a regular dressing and adding as many vegetables to your salad as possible for their additional flavor, texture and nutrients. Any or all of these changes drastically reduce the amount of fat in the meal without sacrificing flavor or feelings of satisfaction.
We will discuss how to make other small, yet very effective, changes later; for now, just realize that healthy eating patterns can only occur when you're enjoying all the foods you eat. If you're eating low-fat foods just to be healthy but without enjoying the flavors and textures or how they make you feel, this most likely won't be a permanent change. However, if you begin enjoying healthy foods, you're far more likely to stick with healthy eating for life.
Many people also enjoy eating out but associate this with being "bad" or eating "illegal" foods. Fortunately, it is very possible to eat a healthy, low-fat meal in a restaurant. You don't need to forego your favorite foods or eat before you go out with friends or family. The same decision-making process that we teach occurs whether you eat at home or go out to a restaurant. Many people think that they have two options when eating: eating for taste and pleasure or eating for health. As you learn and practice the healthy eating techniques of the GHF program, these two options will become one and the same.
9. Avoid Getting Stuck in the Weight Loss Obsession.
For many people, the primary motivation for adopting healthy eating and activity habits is to lose weight. They think that first they'll lose weight, then they'll feel better about themselves.
Please understand that these are two separate issues. One is body image: how we feel about our bodies. The other is weight loss. Many people start exercising and eating healthier for the sole purpose of looking better; if they don't see immediate improvements in their appearance, they decide it's not worth the trouble and quit. They ignore all the other great benefits of adopting a healthier lifestyle and forget that success takes time and commitment.
Remember, we are not all meant to be slim, trim, or beautiful. If you implement the health and fitness principles of GHF, you will see definite improvements in appearance, but exactly how much will be determined in part by your genetics. Pay attention to all the other improvements you are making: increasing your levels of confidence and energy, bettering your physical and psychological performance, and drastically reducing your risks for injury and disease. Our approach teaches you to revamp your goals of weight loss into goals of enjoying physical activity and healthy eating for their contributions to increased performance, energy, and well-being.
10. Take Time to Measure Your Progress.
Success can be measured on a number of levels. It's important to measure your progress by the new healthy habits you're adopting as well as by your appearance. Long-term decreases in medical problems, injury, and other health risks and an improved quality of life, with or without weight loss, are the most important measures of success.
Short- and medium-term changes can also be measured regularly during the process. These include obvious changes in health-related behavior patterns such as a decreased reliance on medications, increased ability to perform physical activity, a reduced intake of fat, and the increased intake of dietary fiber, vitamins, and minerals in your diet.
If you've started making slight changes in how your food is cooked or prepared, or if you're reading labels at the grocery store and are discovering new tastes and textures, you're making great improvements towards a healthier lifestyle. When you feel good about yourself and acknowledge the changes you're making along the way, you're more likely to keep moving forward on your path.
Physical indicators of progress towards a healthier body fat distribution include the waist circumference and waist-hip ration (WHR). Because abdominal obesity has consistently been associated with risk factors for diabetes and heart disease, any reduction in the waist circumference or in the WHR is a positive step towards a healthier body fat distribution, regardless of weight loss.
Another good way of determining physical progress is having your body fat measured by either hydrostatic weighing, electrical impedance, or simply by using body fat calipers. This latter is by far the cheapest and most accessible. Although it is not as accurate as the other two methods, it can at the very least give you a beginning point from which you can easily measure decreases in body fat. Please refer to the GHF Personal Trainer directory to find a certified personal trainer in your area that can measure your body fat percentage.
However you decide to measure your physical progress, never use the scale as an indicator. Your weight does not reflect how healthy you are or the progress you've made. When you step on the scale, your weight reflects the combined total of both your lean body weight (muscle, bone, organs, fluids) and body fat weight. Two people with identical body weights do not have the same body composition; they could, indeed, have entirely different body types. For example a 170-pound man might have 60 pounds of body fat and 110 pounds of lean body mass. A healthier, more muscular man might only have 25 pounds of body fat and 145 pounds of lean body mass. Even though these two individuals weigh the same, one is in much better shape than the other.
Using the scale to measure your progress gives you no information about the body composition (fat vs. muscle) changes that are actually occurring. The scale may show that you've lost seven pounds, but it can't tell you that half of the weight was muscle and water, not fat. Similarly, people become discouraged when they haven't lost any weight, even though they have actually lost pounds of fat and replaced them with pounds of firm, fat-burning muscle.
Developing healthier eating and physical activity habits will most likely result in a loss of body fat even though the scale may indicate that you weigh the same. Learn to use other methods of determining body composition and pay more attention to improvements in how you feel, in your self-esteem, and in your physical appearance.
Height/weight charts and other tables such as the BMI (Body Mass Index: weight in kilograms divided by height in meters, squared) have similar limitations when used as an indicator of progress towards a healthier lifestyle for several reasons. First, these formulas are not always related to how fat you are since they don't take into account body composition/fat distribution. Many people who are muscular or short and stocky have a high BMI, even though they are not necessarily fat or at high risk for disease. Second, the BMI is only appropriate for adults 20-65 years of age. It cannot account for patterns of growth in adolescents or in the elderly, who may decrease in height with age. Third, the focus is still on changing one's weight to produce a lower BMI (since it's not possible to increase one's height). This continues to promote weight change as the ideal way to improve health.
Don't forget to notice and acknowledge improvements in energy, performance, self-esteem, and the many other benefits you'll gain from this healthier lifestyle: improvements in health risk factors and medical conditions, improved quality of life and psychological functioning, healthier eating, and more enjoyable physical activity.
Now that we've discussed the important beliefs you must hold in order to be successful on the GHF program, we hope that you've forgotten about past failures--or rather, diets failing you. We hope too that you've accepted yourself, that you're willing to use positive thinking, and that you're looking forward to the many benefits that a healthy lifestyle has to offer you. We'll now expand on these non-diet principles by discussing psychological eating and how to learn to pay attention to internal signals of both hunger and fullness. We will also discuss normal/healthy eating and diet versus the non-diet approach to reducing fat intake, and to reducing food intake in general.
But it truly is possible when we set realistic goals and when we make those changes gradually. If you have a willingness to work through the initial emotional discomfort as you move step by step into this new lifestyle, you'll find the confidence, commitment, determination, and belief in your own self-worth that will ease the way.
Healthy living means making important lifestyle changes, changes in the way you eat and exercise and, we hope you're coming to see, in the way you think. It may sound overwhelming at first, but it's really quite simple. Remember, these changes will be gradual. They'll also never be painful or hard to stick with. Many Americans have already successfully made the change to a healthy lifestyle. You can too, once you understand how easy it is.
Making the change to a healthier lifestyle is a process you will enjoy and can be proud of. The easiest way to go about it is to take it one step at a time. If you try to hurry change, chances are that it won't be permanent. It's important to understand that once you put into effect the lifestyle habits we are going to teach you, they are yours forever and will make a substantial impact on your life.
Once you truly believe that you have the ability to find a comfortable balance of food, activity and life attitudes, you can break free from diets forever. Action creates motivation. Once you understand and implement the non-diet approach of GHF, you will become successful. Once you start achieving great results, the excitement and fun you experience will make the change well worth the effort. Enjoying the many great benefits of a healthy lifestyle will help provide the impetus to stay on the healthy road you've taken.
Mastering Psychological Hunger
Note: Much of the following section is adapted from Omichinski and Harris's Nondiet Weight Management: A Lifestyle Approach to Health and Fitness (Nutrition Dimensions, 1995)
Many diet plans tell you what to eat, how much to eat, and when to eat it. This does not teach you how to attend to your own cravings, desires, or hunger. This is, once again, symptomatic of the diet mentality, which teaches you nothing about living and feeling healthier and happier.
Everyone has different strengths, weaknesses, and eating patterns. You will only become successful when you learn to respond to your own feelings and not to what someone else says is right for you. It is critical that you learn how to be aware of and attend to both feelings of hunger and fullness, and learn what will satisfy you both physically and psychologically.
Many people have lost the skill of knowing how much they need to eat in order to feel energized and satisfied. This is simply because they have spent so much of their life following regimented eating programs. Your own body, not someone else's plan, is the very best guide for how much you need to eat.
Try to get in the habit of tuning in to your internal cues of hunger, and not just eating the amount of food you think you should, or tuning in to external cues like the sight or smell of food. It's okay to eat any amount of food to feel both physically and psychologically satisfied. But you must learn to stop when you feel comfortably full, not stuffed.
In addition to learning how it feels to be hungry, full, and uncomfortably full, you must learn from your mistakes. If you eat past comfortable fullness, don't beat yourself up about it. There are bound to be times when you eat too much for your body's comfort. Try to remember how eating too much feels, and remind yourself of this feeling the next time you are tempted to overeat. With practice, you will change your eating patterns and start eating when your body tells you you're hungry, and stop eating after you're gained a satisfied, energized feeling.
To implement a successful weight management program and a healthier lifestyle, you need to be flexible and to learn from your mistakes. You need to learn how to listen to your body and find out what is really causing you to eat. Only you can uncover the reasons for your eating habits and learn new techniques to deal with them more positively.
Many people are "cue-sensitive" to food: if there are food reminders, they are likely to eat. For example, if they often eat dinner on the couch in front of the television, they are sending themselves messages to eat each time they sit there, whether they're hungry or not. If this is true for you, try eating only at the dining table.
Many dieters who are cue-sensitive tend to have "all-or nothing" thinking: "I blew my diet today anyway so I might as well just have another piece of cake. Since I'll have to start over tomorrow, I might as well have fun today." Dieters also often refrain from eating "bad" foods simply because their "all-or-nothing" response is "I'm on a diet so I can't eat those illegal potato chips." After being deprived for a while, they give in and are unable to control themselves. This "all-or-nothing" thinking leads to frustration and doesn't allow enjoyment of life's many pleasures.
In addition to cue sensitivity, many people have problems with "automatic eating," eating that occurs unconsciously. For example, suddenly, the bag of candy is empty without their even realizing it. Studies show that the most satisfaction comes from the first and last few bites of what we eat and that the bites in between are automatic. In other words, we eat the bites in the middle just because they are there, not because we are actually enjoying them; the middle bites give us very little satisfaction. Often we eat them because of the external cue of seeing the food. Using the GHF approach, you will become more selective and eat only what you really want. The following scenario will help illustrate this.
Two friends go to a movie theater snack bar. John is hungry and really craves a candy bar, so he gets one. Jack yearns for a candy bar but since he is on a diet, he orders a diet soda instead. John tastes and savors the candy bar, and a third of the way through it, he's satisfied and doesn't eat the rest. He isn't hungry anymore and he knows he can have another any time he wants; there is no need to eat after he's satisfied. On the other hand, when Jack gets home from the movie, he eats a bunch of cookies, and he eats beyond fullness. He really wanted a candy bar at the movies, but it was an illegal food on his diet. So when he gets home, he tries to find something to satisfy his craving.
Usually these dieters eat more calories in replacement foods than if they had eaten the desired food in the first place. In addition, calories "don't count" for many dieters if no one else sees them eat. Or a dieter will decide to eat the "bad" food because they've been deprived of it for so long. They eat it guiltily, in secret, or they eat it too fast. They don't feel totally satisfied so they end up bingeing on even more "forbidden" foods. All these aspects of the diet mentality contribute to eating more, not less.
On the other hand, people using the GHF approach are selective, eating only what they really want to eat. They learn to eat a candy bar if they're hungry and that would satisfy their hunger or to have just a diet soda if that would satisfy them. Recognizing and adhering to feelings of satiety and fullness will help you learn to eat what you need, whether it's the whole candy bar or just a piece.
The GHF approach encourages other good habits. Try to eat slowly and attentively, and only when physically hungry rather than completely starved. This helps prevent both cue-sensitivity and automatic eating. Eating slowly also gives you time to enjoy your food and to find an internal stopping place where you start to feel full. The most wonderful and delicious food in the world won't be enjoyable if you eat so fast that you don't appreciate its quality.
Before going back for seconds, take a breather. Give your body 10-20 minutes to decide if you really are still hungry or if you are already physically or psychologically satisfied. Eating more slowly, pausing throughout the meal, and waiting before taking a second helping are not tricks to get you to eat less but rather ways for you to develop sensitivity in detecting hunger and fullness. They are strategies to encourage attentive eating that is more likely to be satisfying.
It is very important to confront your true desire and learn to meet your needs. Most dieters feel that they shouldn't have a candy bar because it's "illegal"; it's not on the diet list of allowed foods. Dieters think that restraint from having a candy bar and not responding to the external cue will make it easier to remain in control. Dieters use denial to deal with the situation.
Those who use our approach learn to cue into their body's signals to check for actual hunger. If their blood glucose level is low or if they are really hungry, they will choose to have a healthy snack first, knowing that they can still have the candy bar later on. Eating a candy bar on an empty stomach when blood glucose is low may lower it even further after the initial high. This can make it very tough to stop at just one candy bar. If you eat the candy bar after a healthy snack, it will have less effect on the blood glucose level because it will take longer to get into your bloodstream. And you will most likely eat much less than if you eat the candy bar when you are very hungry.
Also, GHF clients eat foods they like, not just the food that's there. If the candy bar available is a Kit Kat® but they prefer a Snickers®, they may choose not to eat one at all because they simply don't like Kit Kats®. Ask yourself: Do I really want this food or do I think I want it simply because it's there? Or because eating one (or two or three) is a habit? Repeatedly confronting the urge to eat the food will give you the confidence to turn into your natural body signals. You must believe in yourself. Listen to your body with regard to physical and psychological hunger. This will help you distinguish between what you really want and what you think you want due to habit.
Confronting the urge to eat doesn't mean total denial. It means that you will be satisfied with a few cookies rather than the whole batch, if you allow yourself to taste and savor them without feeling guilty. Confronting the urge to eat also means tuning into your needs. Confrontation applies to any aspect of life, not just food. People often eat for other, non-food-related reasons.
If you find yourself eating for reasons other than physical hunger, you are probably eating to satisfy psychological hunger--you may be upset, frustrated, or lonely. This will cause you to not focus on the food but rather only to use the food as a crutch to help with a certain situation. People often experience automatic eating at these times because in this state, they often eat a lot--a whole carton of ice cream, for example-without realizing it or paying attention to signals of fullness. They are preoccupied with their psychological problem.
You must become aware of your hunger and fullness and only eat the foods you enjoy. This allows you to be selective with your eating and tune into what you really want. You will become more conscious of the reasons behind your eating.
Once you've mastered the information presented in this section, you will greatly empower yourself. Mastery will allow you to make the choices and be in charge of your life and your eating. These skills will last a lifetime and can be applied to every aspect of your life.
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