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The following article was published in Your Health Magazine. Our mission is to empower people to live healthier.
Anne M. Rensberger, LICSW
Diet Doldrums? Ten Questions To Ask Yourself
Wondercoach

Diet Doldrums? Ten Questions To Ask Yourself

When weight management goes astray, it is important to look at different aspects of the process of losing weight. When you feel weak-willed and undisciplined, it is important to sort out what is going on. Here are the elements of weight loss to examine.

1. Do you believe it is possible for you to lose weight?

2. Do you believe that you have the ability to make this occur?

3. Do you have the psychological energy to work on your own weight loss goals?

4. Have your weight loss goals changed or been partially met? Are you willing to accept partial success?

5. Do you have competing priorities? If so, are you willing to re-examine your priorities?

6. Have you developed the skill to manage dietary intake at home? What about when you eat out, entertain, and travel?

7. Have you found a way to make movement and exercise fun? Without this, exercise is a matter of will and resolve, which will carry you for only so long.

8. Have you identified your psychological barriers to weight management and if so how are you working on them?

9. Have you identified external barriers to weight management and if so what have you done to deal with these barriers?

10. Have you developed a pattern of consistency?

In an extended weight loss process persistence is more important than perfection. Have you developed resilience and perseverance despite disruptions on your way to your goal?

Here are the things I have the hardest time accepting about my own weight management as I lost weight I had to eat less and/or exercise more to keep losing weight; as I got older I had to eat less and/or exercise more to maintain my weight; as my body aged and some of the joints rebelled I had to substitute lower calorie burning exercises for higher calorie burning exercises (i.e. no more running) and thus had to exercise longer and/or more often; I had to accept that I was not “metabolically gifted” and could not eat as much as a lot of people can and still maintain my weight.

All of us with chronic weight problems have to keep going back to these same questions to see how to fine-tune our weight management process as our circumstances change. Life is never dull.

Adapted from an article by Sheila Ramsey, Ph.D., M.S.W.

Weight Management News Volume 13. Number 1


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