If you’re not satisfied with your body image, you’re not alone. Research indicates that 90% of females (girls and women) and 75% of males (boys and men) are dissatisfied with their weight. With Memorial Day and bathing suit season approaching, many people get increasingly anxious about losing weight. Often, they resort to drastic diets promising quick results. But drastic, fad diets are usually highly restrictive, making them almost impossible to maintain, and making the people on them pretty miserable. Before long, dieters typically feel deprived, begin craving the foods they miss, which sets them up for binges, guilt, and regained weight – a vicious cycle of frustration.
LOSE WEIGHT WITHOUT DIETING, offered by the Morris Psychological Group, is a structured, evidence-based program for permanent weight loss. This behavioral modification program helps members learn how to make healthier food choices to improve how they feel, which impacts how they look. There are no food restrictions, no daily counting calories or adding points. Instead, LOSE WEIGHT WITHOUT DIETING helps individuals take a closer look at their daily food consumption, to determine where to make gradual changes that can be maintained permanently. For example, substituting a can of diet soda or seltzer for a regular soda, saves 150 calories per day, which over the course of a year, adds up to a loss of over 10 pounds. For those who love soda with popcorn at the movies, there’s no reason to refrain. However, drinking soda or other sugar-sweetened beverages on a daily basis adds nonnutritive calories that quickly show up on your waistline. In fact, soda and sugar-sweetened drinks (juice, sports drinks, and energy drinks) are estimated to contribute to the rise in obesity more than any other single food or beverage item.
Examining daily food intake increases awareness of other items people can exchange for something healthier – maybe an apple instead of a bag of chips – for an afternoon snack. While group members gradually integrate healthier eating habits into their daily routine, they also begin to slowly increase their daily physical activity. As individuals begin to burn more calories than they consume, they will lose weight, until they’ve reached their desired goal. The gradual integration of these healthy new eating and exercise habits into your daily lifestyle, results in sustainable weight loss and maintenance.
The LOSE WEIGHT WITHOUT DIETING PROGRAM is ideal for anyone wishing to lose five pounds or fifty pounds. Topics will include:
- Setting healthy, realistic goals
- Adopting realistic expectations and increasing self-acceptance
- Distinguishing between physical hunger and emotional hunger
- Identifying emotional eating patterns and triggers
- Discovering ways to self-soothe, without food
- Conquering cravings
- Initiating and motivating increased physical activity
- Counteracting negative, self-sabotaging thoughts
- How to rebound quickly from inevitable slips
- For further information about our program, please contact Dr. Van Nest at ext. 204.
