“I want to lose weight and I can’t, what do I do?” This is a common query from patients looking to increase their willpower to lose weight. Willpower is the ability to control one’s thoughts, emotions and attention in order to achieve objectives or goals. This faculty is necessary to make multiple changes in our lives, including losing weight.
Losing weight not only involves the adoption of healthy habits, but rather a change in lifestyle, which is why it is usually difficult to maintain the necessary willpower and motivation. If you want to know more about how to maintain willpower when losing weight, keep reading this article from : I want to lose weight but I don’t have willpower: what do I do? In which you will find 12 psychological tips to lose weight.
I need to lose weight
If you have said the phrase “I want to lose weight and I can’t” or “I want to lose weight but I don’t have the willpower”, you should start by asking yourself why you think you need to lose weight. There are basically two types of motivations for considering weight loss: aesthetics and health. If the reason is solely aesthetic, it should be noted that first of all a , since if this is undermined it is very likely that the objectives set are not realistic nor do they respond to health issues.
Subsequently, and from a balanced self-esteem, it is possible to learn self-care. This self-care, among other areas, includes healthy habits as a form of physical and mental care. In the event that the reasons for weight loss are health, losing weight is a consequence of adopting health habits, but the main objective is taking care of both the body and the mind. However, you may have once thought I want to go on a diet and I have no willpower Or I want to lose weight and I’m not able to.
You’re probably wondering “how to start taking care of myself to lose weight?” As with any important change, advice from professional areas is also recommended in the transformation and variation of diet and other behaviors, where you will receive advice to lose weight healthily. He professional follow-up It allows personalized adaptation and adjustment of the guidelines, monitoring of health status and the introduction of adjustments and alternatives if necessary. All of this allows an optimization of the process and ensures adherence to an effective methodology, based on evidence and healthy for the body.
Psychology to lose weight
As explained in the previous section, professional advice and monitoring of changes in lifestyle and eating patterns is recommended and important. But, Do I need a psychologist to lose weight? Western culture has made a dissociation between mind and body, but the reality is that they maintain a very close relationship and influence each other. That is why psychology also plays a vital role in physical changes, and the psychological support to lose weight.
Both thoughts and behaviors are involved in the process of losing weight and adopting new habits and routines, so a professional psychologist facilitates the identification and proper management of these. A professional will be able to provide you with psychological advice to lose weight.
Get psyched to lose weight
Introducing changes in lifestyle and diet involves raising awareness about them. Mentalizing is a predisposing factor in adopting healthy habits at the beginning, as well as maintaining them throughout the entire process. How to mentally prepare for dieting? To know how to become aware to lose weight, it is necessary to know and work on the processes of discipline, self-control and motivation, since these have a vital role in weight loss and health care in general. Therefore, psychological factors must be taken into account and addressed in the change towards a healthier life.
How to have willpower to lose weight: 14 tips
The psychological processes involved in adopting changes in our daily routines, attitudes and behaviors are difficult to control and maintain over time. Therefore, in addition to recommending professional help to address these, below we show you a series of tips to increase willpower to lose weight:
- Inform: The first step towards a true commitment to change is to have truthful information about diet and healthy habits, since without objective and well-founded knowledge it is difficult for us to introduce cognitive and behavioral variations that require effort, because we can feel like it’s not really worth it to us.
- Become aware: The adoption of healthy habits and new eating patterns are not specific behaviors that, once carried out, do not need to be repeated over time. To increase willpower to lose weight, it is necessary to become aware and aware that it is a permanent change in habits and in a certain way in lifestyle with the aim of living better.
- Evaluate your own habits: To identify those behaviors or attitudes that need to be modified, it is necessary to analyze current behaviors and habits and their consequences. Willpower can be affected by the prospect of absolute changes, but it is very likely that it is not necessary to completely change your routine, but rather those aspects that are making proper health care difficult. Once what is the object of improvement has been determined, the goals can be established.
- To establish objectives: How to motivate yourself to lose weight? One of the drivers of motivation and willpower is the setting of plausible and achievable goals. Determination to lose weight is important, as well as establishing not only realistic goalsbut also defined or specific and short term. Furthermore, specificity in goals helps to center and focus behavior. Therefore, objectives must be specific, measurable, achievable and time-limited.
- Measure changes: These types of objectives allow changes to be monitored from the beginning, as well as the appreciation of these early. How to have willpower to lose weight? Observing positive changes in a short time is a factor that contributes to the increase and increase in motivation, which helps maintain willpower.
- Focus on the process: How to have willpower to lose weight? It is much more effective for weight loss to focus on the process and not the result. The result or what is intended to be achieved in the end is to lose weight, but it does not provide information on how it will be achieved. On the other hand, process goals are those steps or means necessary to obtain the result, such as eating five pieces of fruit or vegetables a day or walking a total of half an hour a day. Focusing on the process means change habits and behaviors that are necessary to lose weight.
- To plan: Planning and organizing your routine is a fundamental aspect for achieving your goals. This structuring avoids improvisation and setbacks, as well as promotes behavioral focus. For example, it is very useful to plan in advance the meals for the week, the foods you need to buy, as well as manage time and establish a schedule for this and for doing sports based on temporary availability.
- Reward: Setting rewards in advance is also recommended; What they will consist of and the reason why the prize will be available. Rewards serve to celebrate and reinforce the behaviors that we want to be repeated.
- Stimulus control: The environment in which the person is found greatly influences the behaviors that are carried out. Stimulus control is the alteration of the stimulus to reduce the probability of the appearance of behaviors contrary to the set objectives. For this, for example, it is necessary not having unhealthy foods at home, since these increase temptation, which is contrary to willpower. It is also important to raise awareness in the immediate environment, so that it contributes to stimulating control.
- Monitor the process: It is advisable to keep records of food, thoughts and emotions before and after. Activity monitoring is also recommended as a way to supervise progress and identify any difficulties encountered. It can be useful and motivational to capture the process and achievements in a graphic and visual way.
- To anticipate: How to have willpower to lose weight? Determine those factors or situations that hinder the achievement of your objectives based on the records and supervision carried out. Once recognized, analyze the approach so far and think about a series of alternatives or solutions that could be implemented. You can prepare, visualize or rehearse the reactions you will carry out. This way, you reduce the surprise factor and setbacks.
- Be flexible: losing weight and adopting healthy habits requires discipline and effort, but it is advisable not to put excessive pressure on one’s own behaviors, as it is counterproductive. For example, there are many healthy foods but this does not mean that you have to consume absolutely all of them in a forced way, you can have a healthy and balanced diet with the part of them that you like or are less unpleasant. Reducing the level of aversion and the amount of negative stimuli favors the maintenance of motivation and willpower. It is also necessary not to blame oneself and relativize failures and relapses.
- Emotional health: Emotions and mood play a very important role in the weight loss processes and in the . Therefore, it is important to pay attention to the psychological and emotional state in general, carry out activities that are rewarding, and have social support in the process.
- Reevaluate the plan: It is essential to re-evaluate what is planned on a monthly basis. The planning of objectives and the established tasks and methodology are not invariable, in fact it is necessary to adjust them based on progress and difficulties for greater effectiveness of the long-term plan.
If you want to know more, in the following article you will find more information about .
This article is merely informative, at Psychology-Online we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.
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Bibliography
- Lafuente, MD (2012)….