Lifestyle Choices

Lean is supposed to be beautiful. As a result, some women spend most of their adult lives trying to get thin and stay that way. For, in our society, thinness has become a symbol of loveliness, success, self-control, and social acceptability—and being overweight the twentieth-century bete noire of womanhood. You know the kind of thing: “Lose that nasty twenty-five pounds with our super new slenderizing regimen and it will transform your life into a wonderful world of bliss.” Well, don’t believe it.

From a health point of view, of course, there is every reason not to be overweight. Overweight women die earlier and are more subject to such illnesses as hypoglycemia, heart disease, and diabetes than their lean sisters. They also tend to have less energy. But the on-again-off-again dieting women go through to try and lose weight and keep it off is far worse than the extra few pounds.

Losing weight depends on restricting calories, but successfully restricting calories depends on your attitude, your habits, and your mental and emotional states. The psychology of weight loss can be just as important as the physical facts of it, if you are going to lose excess pounds permanently. First, it is helpful to have some understanding of why you overeat, if you do, and what things trigger it in you. Second, you can benefit from using some simple behaviorist techniques to alter your eating patterns. Finally, practicing a deep relaxation or meditation technique coupled with the use of creative imagery can make the whole process of weight loss much simpler and more fun as well as bringing you other benefits, such as an improved self-image and a greater sense of control over your life.

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF OVEREATING

There are a million reasons why people eat too much. Psychologists have at times explained chronic overeating by such phrases as “oral dependency,” “incorporate cannibalism,” a “compensation for loss of security” —you’ve probably heard them all. They sound interesting and may well be valid, too. But they usually do little to solve the problem. It is so easy to dismiss yourself as a compulsive eater, using this as an excuse for being overweight, thereby relieving yourself of the responsibility for it, and making yourself miserable in the process. But it is not very helpful.

There are some things, however, that researchers studying chronically overweight people have discovered that can be useful. For instance, Dr. Hilde Bruch at Baylor University in Texas has observed that abnormal eating patterns are usually “a failure in self-experience.” She and other researchers have studied people with weight problems and found that often as children they failed to develop a strong sense of personal identity or a feeling that they have much control over their own lives. Grown-up, these people often appear to lack initiative. They also have trouble differentiating between hunger and other states of discomfort like anxiety and unhappiness. When they were young, Bruch believes, many of them were treated in such a way that they came to think their own sensations—whether they were hunger in the body or feelings of like or dislike of an experience—were unimportant. In fact, they were made to feel their perceptions were so unimportant that they gradually got out of touch with them altogether, so that now they are unable to disinguish between hunger, for instance, and anxiety, fear, or a need for comfort. Many chronically overweight people rarely experience sensations of true hunger at all. Some cannot even tell when they are hungry and when they are not. This phenomenon has been observed and confirmed by a number of studies. Researchers at Columbia University discovered that where normal-weight people tend to eat when they are hungry, the eating habits of overweight people are often controlled by the clock. They found that when they altered the hands of a clock so that overweight people thought it was mealtime, the overweight people would eat more. The appetite of the group of normal-weight people remained unaffected by the clock alteration.

Another study, by R. E. Nisbett, showed that overweight people are also more affected by the sight of food than normal-weight people. Researchers took thirty-three subjects who believed they were taking part in research into psychophysical responses, put them through a complicated but bogus series of tasks during which their responses were supposedly being carefully recorded by the tester, and then finished by offering them a plate of either one or three roast beef sandwiches and a bottle of some soft drink. The testers told participants they were sorry the experiments had made them miss lunch and that they were welcome to as much food as they wanted, since there were more sandwiches in the refrigerator. Then the subjects were left on their own. Surprisingly, the overweight people ate more sandwiches than the normal-weight control group when there were three sandwiches on the plate in front of them, but less when there was only one sandwich there. In other words, their appetite depended on what they saw. Where the normal-weight group would go to the refrigerator for more when they wanted it, the obese group simply ate what was put in front of them, whether it was a lot or a little.

Such things—the fact that overweight people tend to eat what is in front of them and not what they do not see, and the fact they tend to eat not from signals of hunger but from internal signals of anxiety and other things, or from habit, depending on the time of day and so forth—can actually be put to practical use in a weight control program. This is what the behaviorists have done.

Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)
The Psychology of Slenderizing part 1

• Lose Weight and Gain Muscle in the same time
• Makeup must follow tips: for Beauty not Beast
• Holford LOW-GL Body Plan
• Useful Tools for Weight Loss
• Workout, Dig Within For Bliss
• Fresh Fall Look, Fashion Buzz
• Testing Your Fitness
• The Behavior Psychology of Slenderizing continue...
• Lost Beauty, Cosmetic Surgery
• Fashion Tips on Luggage and Briefcase