Obesity in the United States continues to increase every year. Many people are looking for opportunities to stick to a diet and to achieve a healthy weight for all times. The problem is that weight problems are not easy. There are many reasons why people have difficulty losing weight, and there are many reasons why people have difficulty sticking to a diet. Here is the reason:

Why it is difficult to stick to a diet

So often people (especially women) come to themselves because they have additional weight and are unable to stick to a diet. Many people believe that additional weight is a product if it does not have enough self -control. As you can imagine, this belief can lead to problems with self -esteem if you cannot adhere to a diet or lose weight.

Traditional diet plans are also based on calorie restrictions, which means that people have to decide between overweight or hunger. But the lack of control over the food and overeating are not the only (or even the main) things that contribute to weight problems.

Excessive food does not make sense biologically. The body is designed in such a way that it feels hunger when he needs fuel and feel the feeling of satiety when he doesn’t. If everything works well, this is the case. But sometimes this cycle is out of the way.

What is the problem?

The reason why this hunger/satiety cyclical disorders is often leptin resistance. Leptin is a hormone that monitors the energy intake and expenses and, if necessary, creates hunger to recharge tank. But leptin resistance in the body can make it impossible that this function as it should. The body does not recognize the emitted leptin and therefore does not get the signal that we have eaten enough. If you have to struggle with weight problems, you probably have leptin resistance.

A factor for leptin resistance is the standard American Diet (SAD). The food that most Americans eat are low in nutrients, but rich in calories. This type of nutrition leads too much energy intake (sugar), but only very few nutrients such as vitamins, minerals, fatty acids, amino acids, etc. In other words, you get enough (or too many) calories, but essentially hunger in terms of nutrients . This triggers the body to stick to fat instead of burning it and other mechanisms that cause weight gain.

As Dr. David Ludwig, author of Always hungryPresent Explained, obesity is not a problem of excess, but really a problem of hunger in the cells of the body. The calorie restriction, like most traditional diets, only worsens the problem.

The conclusion is, if you have difficulty sticking to a diet, it’s not your fault! Most weight loss programs or diets do not deal with the problems mentioned above.

How to stick to a diet (forever)

However, there are simple ways to adhere to a diet and finally lose weight that corresponds to the underlying cause of weight gain. Here are some ways to finally achieve a healthy weight:

Recognize that weight is a symptom for a bigger problem

As already mentioned, the weight is often a symptom for other health problems. This means that the repair of the underlying problem often fixes the weight problem. Leptin resistance (as already mentioned), insulin resistance, thyroid disease, etc. can influence the weight. The attempt to improve weight if one of these underlying causes is not treated is fruitless. My best advice is to see a doctor for functional medicine who can tell you whether an underlying problem for weight problems and what you can do about it.

Fortunately, however, they do not have to be diagnosed with leptin resistance to take steps to help. Everything you do to support proper leptin can only benefit the body. Some of these things are:

Some of these things can help to reset the body so that weight loss is not that difficult.

Make health part of your lifestyle

You would like to think about your new healthy eating habits as a change in lifestyle. The diets from the 70s and 80s will not cut it. These traditional diets are something that they “do” to lose weight and then “dismantle” when they are fed up with creating the privation.

This type of nutrition damages more than instead we have to take sustainable healthy eating habits. Healthy food should never let you hungry! Here are some ways to do this:

• Find new favorite recipes that only use healthy ingredients (and remember that healthy fats are important and are not avoided!).
• Make goodies with healthy ingredients at home (think of ice cream, cheesecake and cookies). Real meals are so much better than packaged or even with the take-out meals.
• Create a routine that includes the time for the preparation and nutrition of healthy meals as well as a lot of time outside, movement and stress reduction.

If you make healthy habits a normal part of your life, you can be both healthy and enjoy life (no restrictions!). I eat about 95% of healthy food and can honestly say that I never feel withdrawn.

Eat real food

One way to make health part of your lifestyle is to make healthy food a priority. One of the most important aspects in the diet is what kind of food you eat. Nutrient-poor foods such as packaged convenience foods contribute to leptin resistance and insulin resistance and do not help you lose weight.

On the other hand, real foods can help support the body and improve all imbalances that may lead to weight problems. It is important to concentrate on it:

• Healthy protein pasture chicken, grass-lined beef and lamb and wild fish are what we are looking for.
• Healthy fats – this includes avocado, real olive oil, coconut oil, pasture butter or other fats of healthy animals and fat fish.
• Many vegetable-in the ideal case we only consume pesticide-free, biological vegetables, but the most important thing is to simply eat many of them!
• Healthy sweeteners – instead of sugar, sweet food with fruit, maple syrup, raw honey or other natural sweeteners. It is also important not to rely too much on sweet foods. We usually stay with fruits and use sweeteners for occasional treats.
• Healthy carbohydrates – fruit and other sweeteners are carbohydrates, but it is important to obtain many other forms of carbohydrates. My favorites are winter pumpkins and sweet potatoes. For some people, it helps with weight that it helps with the weight of weight, but this is a higher goal that you can concentrate on real foods after switching.

If you only make the change to real food, you have to get your body back on the track. In any case, it is a great first step and can have a great positive impact on the body. Take a look at my best tips to make a real food kitchen.

Make positive goals instead of negative

Thinking about a healthy diet is often to simply stop unhealthy habits. But if it were so easy, nobody would fight with weight. The problem is that it stops to do something, will require willpower.

There is plenty of willpower under ideal conditions. We can make good decisions based on a large view when we are calm and well -kept. But while we are under stress, the fight, flight or freezer instinct. According to an article about Stanford.edu, if we work with instinct, we make decisions based on short -term advantages and do not concentrate on long -term advantages.

That also makes sense. In a hunter collector society, it would make much more sense to act at short notice if there is a threat than long-term to look. For example, if there was a wolf on the cave door, you want to flee to save your life (short -term thinking) instead of staying because you don’t find a new cave or want to sleep outside (long -giver).

This explains why so many of us eat junk food when we are stressed, hungry or stressed in any other way!

As my girlfriend Anne Bogle from modern woman Darcy says: “You can’t just drop a bad habit: you have to replace it with a good one. If you want to be successful, you have to create a plan. “

Instead of relying on willpower to “eat” junk food, it is more advantageous, positive goals such as:

• Add your breakfast every day
• Cooking with only healthy fats
• Make all of your treats at home with real ingredients for food (but not yet set a border)

In this way, they actively do something instead of trying to do nothing else.

Set up for success

It is not only important goals instead of negative, but also important to set up for success. If you achieve a healthy nutritional goal but do not make any changes in your life, it will be difficult to stick to it. If there is sweets and other unhealthy foods in the house, you have to rely on willpower again. And if you work late and have no plan for dinner, it will be really difficult not to take to out out.

Instead, prepare for your new lifestyle for healthy eating. This means supplying the house with healthy snacks and having a plan every evening, preparing healthy meals (real plans help a bin!). I only keep healthy food in the house, so there is very little space for failure!

Conclusion when sticking to a diet

Ultimately, we have to stop considering weight management as a problem with self -control and excessive food. The underlying health problems and poor nutrition are much more likely the problem. The quality of the food we eat and to create space for healthy eating in our life is the best way to finally stick to a diet and achieve a healthy weight.

Have you ever tried and failed a calorie -related diet? How did that affect your self -esteem?