Dieters Psychological Advantage

If you are in the pursuit of losing fat there is an endless array of diets, from the high carb low fat to the low fat high carb and every variation in between. Most of these diets will work to a certain degree as long as they put you in a hypocaloric state and provide enough protein for muscle maintenance.
You can argue the pros and cons of different diets till your blue in the face, but one fact remains – unless you stick to your diet they are not going to work. Most successful diets have the individuals losing no more than between one to three pounds a week, depending on how much you have to lose it can be an awful long time on a diet to reach your target.
Considering this here are twelve tips that will aid in your commitment to a diet as well as aid in the fat busting conquest.

1. Don’t have junk food in the house.

The saying goes ‘ out of sight out of mind’ and it fits perfectly with the dieter. If you havenet got junk food in the cupboards or fridge you are less likely to be tempted.
Sure there are other opportunities and you could just get your coat on and go out when the siren of sugar and fat calls, but believe me  if its not in easy reach you will be less inclined to go off the rails.
Like wise ensuring your cupboards are stocked with diet friendly foods will make sticking with the diet a whole lot easier. No doubt you have seen this piece of advise before, but that’s because it works – don’t forget the simple things which will make your dieting easier.

2. Shop when full

This relates to point number one. When out shopping you want to stock up on diet friendly foods, if your intestines are twisting themselves in a knot because your hungry you’ll be more inclined to choose off limit foods. Ensuring you have eaten before you go shopping will aid in making rationale food choices that enable you to stick with you diet, rather than grabbing armfuls of junk food fuelled by a hypoglycaemic altered mindstate.
It should be becoming clear that simple steps and adequate preparation is key, things don’t happen by chance. Remember the saying ‘failure to prepare ensures your preparation for failure’.

3. Calorie dilution

There’s a myriad of factors that control satiety, but one of these is probably the most simplest to control. Basically the rate at which food digest will effect satiety as fast digesting foods enter the system quickly and lead to a rebound in blood sugars as insulin levels soar and blood sugar levels drop- signalling hunger.
To decrease the rate the food absorbs you want to increase the amount of non starch polysaccharides (NSP or fibre) within your diet.
NSP rich foods are generally less energy dense, more bulky and lead to greater satiety than NSP free foods. Foods rich in NSP include unprocessed oats, barley, rye and wheat as well as most fruits and vegetables.
Increasing water intake will aid in the process, as not only will water fill the stomach itself it can work synergistically with fibre as a bulking agent.

4. Optical illusions

I know it sounds crazy but visual cues can have a large impact on satiety. The use of smaller plates bowls and cups will make the restricted portion of food appear bigger.
Many restaurants use this trick to make a mediocre sized portion seem more value which enables them to cut costs and maintain customer satisfaction.
Just stop and think about it, what would look better a half full large cup or a full smaller one. Considering that sticking to a diet is psychological any psychological trick is invaluable.

5. Maintain NEAT

Your body has a varity of homeostatic mechanisms which it can use to ensure you don’t continue to lose weight (hey your body loves being soft and podgy, it’s better for survival). One way your body decreases your daily total energy expenditure (TEE) is through cutting out all the energy wasting fidgeting termed non essential activity thermogenosis (NEAT).
Whilst fidgeting is a subconscious activity you can replace it with small repetitious movements that don’t require much effort. Example includes chewing gum, performing finger extensions with and elastic band, squeezing a squash or stress ball and various other ‘fidgeting’ type activities. Whilst you want notice dramatic shifts in weight from this it should help avoiding any plateaus in weight loss associated with decreased NEAT.

6. Cold drinks and environment.
The normal temperature of a human is tightly controlled and the body pretty much likes it to stay that way. By introducing cold you have to create heat to bring the temperature back to within the normal range so as to avoid damage to the body and ensure metabolic processes occur in the preferred range.
To produce heat  your body needs to liberate energy, which heat is a by product of and it can do this by through shivering which is basically involuntary muscle contractions and sympathetic nervous system activation (increased epinephrine and norepinephrine) as well as increasing thyroid hormones. It has been shown that decreasing ambient temperature from twenty degrees Celsius to ten degrees Celsius increased resting metabolic rate by eight percent or around 200kcals a day.
By drinking cold iced water, exercising in an air conditioned environment and taking cool (not ice cold) baths frequently throughout the day you should be able to raise your energy expenditure.
Whilst this is not directly helping you to stick with your diet, coupled with artificial increases in NEAT should allow you to see more fat loss for the same effort which is always motivating.

7. CCK control

Trying to regulate your feel full hormone cholecystokinin (CCK) will ensure you are less likely to over eat and blow all your hard work.
CCK is a digestive hormone secreted from the duodenal enteroendocrine cells. It has a wide variety of roles relating to intestinal function, but also works upon the central nervous system and effects satiety by reducing hunger.
CCK is released when chyme, which is a mix of ingested foods and acids, arrives in the duodenum. CCK seems to be more heavily secreted when the chyme contains lipids (meaning fats) and proteins. Considering this one tactic to use during periods of the day when hunger strikes is to consume a meal of fibrous (hence large volumes of chyme) foods, healthy essential fats and proteins.
Typically most peoples ‘problem time’ when dieting is in the evening so a mix of fibrous vegetables and something along the lines of an oily portion of fish or eggs (preferably organic so as to be richer in omega threes) will provide a meal with considerable effect on satiety. This should provide you from binge eating for a fairly small calorie load. The added benefit is this kind of meal is optimal when trying to shed fat anyway, the proteins will aid in keeping a positive nitrogen balance, the essential fats (specifically omega threes) will aid in glucose sensitivity and lean body composition and the fibrous foods slow digestion which will again aid in glucose metabolism by reducing the glycemic indice of any meal.
Other suggested nutrients that may have a positive effect on CCK include L-phenyalanine, glycomacropeptide and phaseolus vulgaris which is found in kidney beans.

8 Calorie free treats

Sometimes it doesn’t matter how hard you try you need something to satisfy cravings. Rather than give in and fully scoff a large cake you could find calorie free (or near enough) treats that you allow yourself.
Examples include pickled onions, beetroot and gherkins or something like sugar free Jelly
Another thing is the use of spices and herbs to help make regular diet food (chicken and broccoli) actually enjoyable. The only caveat about this type of activity is ensuring the pre-packaged seasonings don’t have too much salt or that any sauces are low in sugar and fat.

9. Small bites at the cherry.

For some of you reaching your target may seem like along way off, especially if you have thirty or more pounds of fat to strip. Rather than look at the overall goal try to focus on smaller goals; whether it be losing one to two pounds  weekly or even just ensuring that you stick to your diet that day in the end these small accomplishments add up until you eventually reach your overall target.
One thing that also aids in creating goals is to use performance goals rather than outcome goals, for example an outcome goal would be to lose two pounds a week were as a performance goals would be to exercise for half an hour each day. In order to complete an outcome goal you would have to do the necessary performances to reach the goal, so keeping your focus upon the steps towards the outcome will ensure you get there.
Far too often it’s easy to look at the bigger picture (especially when the diet seems hard) and just think ‘sod it, I can’t do this’. With smaller goals you will be more likely to win in your dietary battles which will help build confidence and momentum in your diet. Remember each little goal is one step closer to the body you want.

 

10. Reminder of your goals

Dieting is hard and sometimes it’s easy to forget why you’re doing all this self torture. To ensure you stick with your diet put photos or sayings around your home or work place to reinforce why your working towards losing weight. It helps to have sayings and pictures in strategic places to ensure you remember why your not going to eat the chocolate cake in the fridge (you should have listened to step one!!!).
For the competitive bodybuilder a picture of last year’s winner in top condition helps. For those of you who are just looking to get in shape  either a picture of the body you want or even find a picture of yourself that shows you looking out of shape – nothing better than a harsh dose of truth to steel your inner strength.

 

11. Do’s Vs don’ts

When you speak to a dieter you hear the common phrase ‘I can’t have that, it’s not on my diet’. It’s these kinds of phrases and thoughts which make a diet hard as the thought of denying yourself something causes you to miss what you’re not having. In order to overcome this you must view diets differently and focus on the things you should have rather than on what you’re not allowed. I call these Do’s Vs don’ts.
Lets take a stereotypical low fat, low glycemic diet plan, when you go in to a shop to by some food most will be actively trying to not by a high fat sugary food. This will create a situation where you thinking about the food and battling not to give in which often ends up in losing out due to the food being in your mind (the mind doesn’t handle negatives well, if I say don’t think of pink elephants what are you doing? Thinking of pink elephants no doubt).
Instead what is preferable is rather than trying to resist certain foods we do the opposite and seek out certain foods which enable you to stay on your diet. Quite often I have my clients have set amount of nutritional checklist they must complete everyday such as drinking a certain amount of pure water, eating a minimum number of fruits and vegetables and ensuring they eat a fibrous breakfast. These are active positive steps the person is taking rather than negative steps such as avoiding sugary and fatty nutrient sparse food.
The results end up the same as anyone who is seeking to eat and drink a certain amount of foods will naturally avoid eating or drinking off limit foods and drink as a by product of their actions. When I ask most clients to drink three or more litres of pure water a day they just don’t seem to find room for their regular sugary drinks as they are quite full already.
Taking positive steps rather than negative will always be easier and help you keep on the diet.

12.  Flavour control for feeling fuller.

Every food we eat contains a distinct flavour; usually these can be broken down into five tastes termed gustatory discrimination. These five tastes are sweet, salt, sour, bitter and lastly umami or the distinctive taste of glutamate found in many meats.
These tastes are sensed by gustatory cells, or tastes buds to you and me on the tongue as we eat our food. This has a primary role in satiety, due to the body trying to eat a wide variety of foods to ensure that it gets the eclectic array of nutrients it needs to function properly.
These natural phenomenons were your body will become full on one food but is quite able to consume more quantities of a differing tasting food is termed sensory specific satiety. You have probably experienced it yourself at a restaurant when you stuff yourself to bursting point with you main dish (typically a bitter, salty, sour or umami flavoured dish) and you cannot face another spoonful of this food for fear of exploding and covering nearby dinners, yet as soon as the desert menu is presented you could probably consume a sweet flavoured food.
There are two ways of using this phenomenon to your advantage, the first is to ensure your meal contains a mixture of tastes so you don’t crave another flavour shortly after eating and start consuming more calories. The other way is for those of you who never feel full during your diet and that is to ensure all the ingredients of your meal have similar tasting chemical structures so you become full quickly due to sensory specific satiety.
Sensory specific satiety is one of the ways that most people over consume junk food as the sugar and preservatives tend to present a mixture of tastes and therefore it takes longer to feel full and you consume a large quantity of energy dense nutrient sparse foods.

 

So there you have it twelve ways to help you keep on the pathway of fat loss, but these only work if you implement them, so take the ideas and work them into your diet plan, then the next real worry is getting a new set of clothes to fit your new svelte self.