Life Skills and Long-Term Weight Loss
Studies have shown that self-compassion can be an important factor when it comes to weight loss. Here are some rules to implement in your day to day life that will help you develop healthy habits and most importantly, self-compassion.
- Schedule your day to allow adequate time for buying, preparing and eating healthy food.
- Stock up on healthy snacks that are enjoyable to consume. Drinking a hot cup of tea with your meal or snack can make it last longer and feel more satisfying.
- Talk to family and friends and ask for their support in improving your health. Working on weight-loss together with a friend or family member means you can encourage and support each other, helping to keep each other on track.
- Stay “in the moment” while eating. Avoid eating at the computer, while driving, watching t.v or multi-tasking while you eat. Tune into the experience of eating, what your food tastes like, what it’s texture is, how satisfying the food is and what it feels like to be hungry or full.
- Remind yourself several times a day of your weight-loss goal and why it is important to you.
- Don’t get caught in negative thinking traps that can derail you from your diet.
- Tell yourself “I can do this”. Research shows that self-efficacy or confidence that you can succeed at reaching your goal is a powerful predictor of future behavior. If you catch yourself thinking negatively, switch to thinking about other situations in which you successfully learned a new behavior. Visualize yourself resisting temptation or throwing the extra weight in the ocean to keep motivated.
