Many women over 40 are chronically strained. The family, the job, keeping in touch with friends and relatives, it’s easily becoming too much to endure.
Stress has been connected to acquiring weight and there are many reasons for that. A study involving 225 overweight women has shown that the opposite is true as well: If you want to lose weight permanently, you need to learn to relax.
One third of the women participating in the study learned relaxation techniques like meditation, deep breathing, yoga and positive visualization. “Positive visualization” stands for creating mental images or movies of positive events to occur in the future.
Another third concentrated on workout as well as safe eating based on a Social Cognitive Theory plan. The last group got this information in the mail.
All groups have been at risk in acquiring weight, and could hold their weight applying the techniques above mentioned.
The first group recorded the best permanent improvement: After two years, they’ve maintained the psychological and physical improvements. The leader of the work comments: “The positive results are exciting, given the limited long term success of traditional dieting approaches. By learning and practicing relaxation techniques as part of a wider lifestyle change program, women have effective tools to manage stress and emotions without resorting to unhealthy eating.”
And this is the important fact. Too many dieters go on diets, and, after finishing the diet, the weight comes back... And all the efforts are wasted. This is another finding supporting the importance of psychological support for successful weight loss programs.
Unfortunately, exactly this psychological support component is missing in traditional weight loss programs. Traditional weight loss programs focus on nutrition (fewer calories) and exercise (usually more). This is certainly the basis for weight loss, but to be able to stick with a program psychological guidance is needed. In addition, the success rate of traditional weight loss programs is very low. Usually 95 98 of all dieters gain their weight back often with some additional pounds.
This means: Traditional dieting and weight loss does not work long term; it does not give a permanent result. To get a permanent result in losing weight, a lifestyle change is often necessary. This can only achieved if attitudes change: attitudes towards healthy food choices and supporting physical activities.
An attitude change is a mental process what means, that successful, long term, permanent weight loss needs a psychological component. Unfortunately most dieters think of their weight as something having only to do with their bodies. This is not true: The role of the mind is crucial for success. There is no successful weight loss without personal growth.
Generally: Weight loss programs are oftentimes focused on eating (dieting) and working out. Yet, you will need more than only nutrition and exercise if you want to be successful in losing weight permanently. Relaxation and stress reduction are essential too.
As always, you need to find out what works best for you and to include this in your stress management approach. Without sufficient stress control, you will have a hard to lose weight permanently though.
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