Author: Diane Carbonell

How To Lose Five Pounds In Two Weeks Without Starving Yourself
Our society is food-centric. Almost every celebration involves food of some kind. Even the simplest wedding typically has a cake, some type of beverage, and the ever-present Jordan almonds or mints. If you are dieting, navigating celebration foods can be maddening. What are you to do? Stop going to celebrations because there may be food there? Definitely not. You can attend celebrations, navigate the food options successfully, and still lose weight.
There is nothing wrong with having food at celebrations. Sharing a meal with others helps you connect on a different level than just standing around chatting. In fact, the tradition of having food at celebrations goes back to ancient times. Hieroglyphics found in Egypt show gatherings of people around tables filled with food—most likely a celebration or ceremony of some kind.
What can be difficult is when you have celebration after celebration to attend and find yourself constantly confronted with a smorgasbord of tasty delights that tempt you away from your weight loss plan.
That’s tough.
Although some weight loss gurus say to skip celebration foods completely, that’s not realistic for most people. Sure you can do that if you rarely have events to attend where tempting foods are laid out for you to enjoy. But if you regularly have weddings, baby showers, retirement celebrations, bar mitzvahs, or office parties to attend, you can’t always skip the food.
It’s just not practical.
The key to celebrating with food without gaining weight is developing the art of mindful eating.
Think back to the last party or celebration you attended. If you watched the people there, you may have noticed that many of them were eating and talking at the same time, standing around the food table sampling this and that, not really paying attention to how much or what they were eating.
That’s the exact opposite of mindful eating.
When you are at a celebration where food is present, you’ve got to get into the mindful eating zone to avoid the pitfalls and calorie traps sitting in plain view.
Here’s how you can get into that zone when faced with a shower, wedding, or any other celebratory event.
1. Know Yourself
Know your weaknesses when it comes to food. My weakness is chocolate. I’ve got to watch myself closely around chocolate goodies at parties because chocolate is a temptation for me.
If you know what foods you swoon over, then you can also know to avoid or severely limit those foods when at celebrations.
2. Detach Yourself
It can be exciting to see all the fabulous foods laid out at an event. Detach yourself from the excitement and emotion of the event and objectively look at the foods.
3. Choose Deliberately
Choose the foods you will eat deliberately and mindfully. Because you have taken the emotion out of the choices, choose based on what you like and what fits into your weight loss plan.
4. Savor Flavors and Textures
Whatever you eat, enjoy it. Savor the flavors and textures of each food. Eat slowly, taking care to concentrate on the act of eating rather than socializing. You will enjoy each bite more fully and avoid the tendency to overeat.
5. Remember Tomorrow Is Coming
Lastly, remember that after the event is over, you have to deal with the consequences of your actions. Being mindful of your choices at the party helps ensure tomorrow will be another great day for weight loss and not one filled with regrets over eating too much.

Sometimes we are our own worst enemy when it comes to dieting. Although no one likes to admit sabotaging their own weight loss efforts, many people do it unintentionally. The results can range from a lack of weight loss for a while to a total abandonment of your diet. If you are having trouble staying true to your weight loss plan, self-sabotage might well be the problem.

Taking Ownership of Self-Sabotaging Behaviors

The concept of self-sabotage in a person who is dieting is rather disconcerting. At least it was for me. I certainly didn’t want to admit I might be messing up my diet on purpose. It wasn’t until I had been dieting steadily for about 9 or 10 years that I realized, finally, I was my own worst enemy when it came to dieting.

And just to clarify, when I was exhibiting self-sabotaging behaviors, I wasn’t doing it with the express purpose of ruining my diet. Instead, it was unconscious behaviors and old habits that ended up ruining my diet. But at the end of the day, those behaviors I demonstrated did sabotage my diet. I was the one in charge of my food choices, and ultimately I was responsible.

Identifying Self-Sabotage

It’s not always easy to identify the ways you might be sabotaging your weight loss. Here’s a list of behaviors and thinking patterns I commonly see in client coaching sessions and in myself.

Thoughts

• You blow up small mistakes into huge ones.
• You don’t believe you can do successfully lose weight.
• You call yourself negative names such as “fatty.”
• You constantly put yourself down.

Behaviors

• You fudge the truth about how much you eat throughout the day.
• You don’t give 100 percent when you exercise.
• You stop standing on the scale without another way to stay accountable.
• You buy foods you know you have a hard time refusing. (Think chocolate, ice cream, or chips.)
• You hide treats or secretly eat foods that aren’t on your diet when no one is looking.

Now before you get to feeling super guilty about possibly sabotaging your own weight loss efforts, let me assure you that these behaviors are very common—and easily remedied, if you’re willing to work on them.

Fixing the Problem

It doesn’t do any good to know you are doing it without knowing how to fix the problem of self-sabotage does it?

Even after I realized and admitted I was sabotaging my dieting efforts, I still did it every so often. It’s hard to change but it is possible—and not only possible but also necessary. Without fixing the problem of sabotaging your diet, you will be hard pressed to successfully lose more than a few pounds.

Here are some steps to take to fix the problem of self-sabotage.

1) Work on positive thinking.

I know it is depressing to feel as though you will never get to your healthy weight. But snarking on yourself, putting yourself down, and not believing you can do it makes the process 100 times harder.

Practice saying nice things about yourself while looking in the mirror. Write down positive affirmations on post-it notes and stick them where you can see them. Ask your spouse or significant other to gently remind you to be nice to yourself when you start down a negative path.

2) Bring secret behaviors out in the open.

Many self-sabotaging behaviors are secret ones. The buying of unhealthy food, eating in secret, and not being truthful with how much you eat are all done in secret.

Practice openness by making your food diary available to a trusted family member and truthfully recording what you eat. If you do not live alone, make an effort to eat in front of other people so you can break the cycle of eating more than you should when no one is looking.

3) Do your best every day.

A component of self-sabotage can be just half-heartedly trying to lose weight instead of fully committing. As you wake up each morning, commit to doing your best no matter what life throws at you.

Over time, with a lot of work, you will hopefully find the self-sabotaging behaviors slowing down and then stopping completely. You will slip up and make mistakes, but own them fully and move on.

The word dieting may conjure up images of deprivation, writing down all the food you eat and following a formal plan in order to lose weight. But do you really have to do all that work to lose weight? Can you actually lose weight without a formal diet plan? Here’s the answer to that important question.

Formal Dieting Positives

Dieting doesn’t have to be a negative experience. Going on a formal diet does have its upsides, especially if it is a healthy plan such as Weight Watchers or the DASH diet. Before you decide to ditch formal dieting altogether, here are some positives to adhering to a formal diet.

• You know what to eat.
• Accountability is built in.
• It has a proven track record.
• Weight maintenance transitions may be easier.
• If you follow the diet correctly, you will likely see results.

Formal Dieting Negatives

On the other side of the coin are some of the negatives to following a prescribed diet.

• You may feel boxed in by limited food choices.
• You don’t like having just one way to measure progress (i.e., the scale).
• The diet may not allow you to eat foods you like or fit your eating philosophy.
• Once the diet is over, you are on your own.

What Does an Informal Weight Loss Plan Look Like?

An informal weight loss plan can look different for every individual. That’s the benefit of losing weight without formally dieting. However, even though you can customize your own weight loss plan and not officially diet, you still have to follow some basic weight loss principles in order to succeed.

Calories in Calories out

To lose weight you have to eat fewer calories than you need. If you don’t, you won’t lose weight. It’s just a fact.

Portion Control Can Replace Calorie Counting

You can lose weight without counting points or calories by being careful with portion sizes. That’s how I lost over 150 pounds. I never felt like I was dieting because I didn’t write down every piece of food that went in my mouth. When you sit down to a meal, serve yourself the recommended serving size based on the package or standard measure. Then your calories stay in line.

Exercise Matters a Little

Exercise is good for you whether you are losing weight or not. You don’t have to exercise to lose weight, although it is beneficial. When you do exercise, don’t overeat because you worked out. Instead, pat yourself on the back for doing something good and focus mainly on healthy eating.

Customization and Specialization

One of the pluses to losing weight without a formal diet plan is you can eat foods that are nutritious and appeal to you. You don’t ever have to buy a diet meal, shake, or diet food. Losing weight without a formal diet means you can eat high-quality foods that fit your lifestyle perfectly.

Avoiding Pitfalls When Using an Informal Diet

As appealing as losing weight without a formal diet may sound, there are definitely some pitfalls to watch out for.

First of all, make sure you have some form of accountability for your progress, whether it is standing on a scale, measuring yourself once every few weeks, or calculating your body fat percentage. If you don’t know if you are losing weight or getting smaller, how will you know if what you are doing is working?

Second, make sure you are consuming enough calories. Dieting without a plan can work, but you need to be sure you are losing weight in a healthy way. Even though you don’t have to count calories, occasionally make a list of what you are eating and make sure to get at least 1,200 calories if you are a woman and 1,800 to 2,000 calories if you are a man.

Third, don’t fool yourself. It’s one thing to say you are losing weight without a formal diet plan, and another thing to make it work. Be 100 percent honest with yourself as to whether you are actually losing weight, learning to have a healthy relationship with food, and feel in control of your weight loss efforts.

I’ve been enamored with a lot of hobbies throughout the years. First it was tennis, then knitting, scrapbooking, and furniture refinishing. Like many hobbies, some I stuck with and some I didn’t. If you always seem to be starting your diet, stopping your diet, and then restarting it once again, you may be treating your diet like a hobby. If you are tired of this pattern, here’s how to quit hobby dieting and diet like you really mean it.

Hobby dieting isn’t an official dieting term but rather one I use sometimes when talking to people about weight loss.

I define it as dieting without committing–kinda like casual dating without any intention of getting serious. There’s nothing wrong with either hobby dieting or casual dating, but if you really want to lose weight, you’ve got to get serious about what you are doing and why.

Hobby dieting is easier than committed dieting. Because you aren’t truly invested in a successful outcome, you tend to approach your diet with enthusiasm at first. After you’ve been at it for a while the excitement diminishes and then fades completely. Before you know it, you are done with that particular dieting experience.

Committed dieting requires you to look at your weight loss effort differently and has these characteristics:

Shows a Long-Term Commitment

A hobby diet is often a short-term diet. A committed diet shows a commitment to making lifestyle changes that will be permanent. For example, when I was in hobby diet mode, I’d swear off chocolate forever, but that didn’t last for long. During my final diet, I learned to manage my cravings and have the occasional treat without blowing my diet.

Is Action Driven

Hobby dieting is sometimes lazy dieting. You might not exercise much and only measure your food every so often or when you feel like it. A committed diet is based on actions that will get you to your goal, such as regular exercise, learning to deal with emotions, and careful food choices.

Often Evolves

Hobby dieting is usually a set diet that is short-term. A committed diet typically evolves over time. After dieting for some time, you may decide that you want to tweak your balance of nutrients, change up your exercise routine, or explore new ways of staying accountable. The benefit to allowing your diet to evolve as you achieve success is that you are preparing for eventual weight maintenance.

Avoids Excuses

Committed dieting avoids making excuses for failures. Instead, when you are truly committed to your diet, you put excuses aside and take responsibility for what went wrong. For example, a hobby dieter might excuse a week or two of poor eating because of work stress, but a committed dieter owns up to overeating and figures out how to not let it happen again.

Hobby dieting isn’t all bad because it can give you practice for a truly committed diet when you are ready. But I encourage you to give up on hobby dieting right now and move toward committing to a diet that will finally get you to your goal weight.

“These pants don’t fit anymore. I need the next size up. I think my jeans shrunk in the wash.”
These are just a few of the many excuses people give for needing to buy a new, bigger size. While jeans do shrink and the dry cleaner does ruin the occasional clothing item, needing the next size up should be a red flag that your weight loss isn’t working and you need to turn things around—fast.

A Personal Tale

After I was first married, I quickly put on weight. I blame myself for never cooking healthy foods, always going out to eat, and never exercising. I gained about 35 pounds in 3 years.
Not good.
Instead of turning things around, I began buying the next size (or two) up. I lied to myself about my weight gain. I rationalized that my old clothes didn’t fit anymore because of washing errors or some made-up excuse. I stopped wearing my fitted business suits and switched to flowy dresses that made it less obvious I was gaining weight.
Denial was strong and lasted for years.

Sizing up is a red flag.

Unless you are underweight, consistently needing bigger size clothing is a red flag for weight gain. Now, I understand that a healthy-weight person doesn’t always wear a certain size. Size 6 is not the perfect size for everyone, and neither is a size 10. It all depends on you—on your body shape, height, etc. I get that. I also understand that clothing sizes aren’t standard.
But one of the first signs that your diet isn’t going well is needing larger sized clothing. I see it all the time with the weight loss clients I coach.
They share stories similar to mine. They were trying to lose a few pounds but instead of seeing the scale go down, they saw the scale move in the wrong direction. Then they found they needed larger jeans, skirts, and dresses.
Some people are good at turning things around before their weight gain gets out of control, but for others, needing larger clothes is what finally gets their attention.

Turn it around quickly.

The faster you recognize the problem, the easier it is to turn things around and get back to a healthy weight or get back to losing weight. Denial, although powerful, doesn’t do you any favors.
When you discover your pants are suddenly too tight and your favorite skirt doesn’t quite look the same, take action.

1. Stand on the scale and assess the damage.

It’s never fun to see what weeks or months of overeating have done to you, but honesty is the best policy in this case. Stand on the scale, record your current weight, and move forward.

2. Analyze what you’ve been eating.

When your pants get tight and you need a bigger size, food is usually the problem. Think back on how your diet has been, what kind of portions you are consuming, and what your snacking patterns are.

3. Find the foods you’ve been overindulging in and remove them from your house and diet.

I overate a variety of foods but had a special weakness for sweets. When I finally turned things around, getting rid of sweets was vital to my success. Find your danger foods and get rid of them.

4. Increase or restart your exercise plan.

Exercise won’t fix weight gain but it will help. Plan regular workouts that make you sweat and don’t settle for being lazy.

5. Monitor your weight and clothing fit.

Once you are on the path to turning things around, keep an eye on your weight and how your clothes fit. Hopefully those bigger sized jeans won’t fit for long.
If you do these five things, you can turn the weight gain around before you blow your diet completely. Believe me, it is easier to lose 10, 20, or even 50 pounds than 150 pounds. That’s how much I ended up gaining before I finally turned things around and stopped ignoring red flags like needing larger sized clothing.

Do you ever wake up and instinctively know this isn’t going to be a successful diet day? Can you just feel the urge to binge in every pore of your body? Or perhaps your binge feelings come on over the course of the morning and by midday you are in full food binge mode. No matter what the scenario, bingeing does nothing good for weight loss. Here are three steps to stop the food binge in its tracks.

1. Recognize the Signs

A true food binge is usually different from just feeling a craving for junky foods. You probably know what I mean. When you are craving junky foods you might aimlessly wander from room to room but always end up looking in the refrigerator or standing in front of the pantry. Nothing really appeals to you but you settle on an apple or perhaps a handful of chocolate chips if your diet isn’t going so well.

A food binge is intense, unrelenting, and hard to control. You may feel an unstoppable urge to eat all the ice cream in the house, go to the grocery store and buy a bunch of chocolate, or eat all the little bags of chips you had set aside for your child’s lunch.

2. Take Immediate Action

When the food binge feeling starts and you have identified it, you’ve got to take quick action before you eat 1,000 calories in a Mississippi minute, as they say in the South.

In other words, really fast.

Here are five ideas to make it harder to binge.

– Ruin the food. I know it seems drastic, but if there is one particular type of food in the house that you are getting ready to binge on, pour some water on it, throw it in the trash, and make sure it is inedible. 

– Get away from the food. Remove yourself from close vicinity to the food. Get out of the house for a while, leave the grocery store if that’s where the binge strikes, or if you can’t leave your house, jump in the shower or take a long bath. Taking a step away from the immediate vicinity can help you control the urge to binge. 

– Call or text a supportive friend or your therapist. Reach out to someone you know will help you through the difficult time. This can be your therapist, a close friend, or even a trusted co-worker. Talking through how you are feeling lessens the intense desire to binge, and a friend can help hold you accountable. Eat something indulgent. Although not for everyone, this technique works for some people who are on the verge of a binge. It often worked for me. Try eating a small amount of an indulgent food like an ounce of dark chocolate, two spoonfuls of your favorite ice cream, or a cup of coffee with a dollop of whipped cream.

Even though these aren’t low-calorie options, they can take the edge off the binge until you get your feelings under control. And, let’s face it, a spoonful of ice cream has hundreds of calories less than a whole container.

– Start writing down the calorie content of foods you want to eat. Part of the problem with binges, besides the fact they are often a sign of an eating disorder, is that you can consume a tremendous number of calories in a short time. Write down the calorie counts of the foods you are tempted to binge on. Think about how you will feel after you eat that many calories and what that will do to your weight loss efforts.

3. Wait for the Urge to Pass

Part of the food binge cycle is its urgency. The good thing is that food binges tend to come on quickly and fade once you’ve practiced some self-care.

Wait for the urge to overeat to pass. Eventually, the urge to eat large quantities of food will pass and you will be free of the binge–for now.

As you move forward with your weight loss efforts, pay attention to how often you get the urge to binge. An occasional food binge may not indicate an eating disorder, but frequent desires to binge certainly can. Don’t be like some people who avoid seeking help for a true food disorder out of a sense of embarrassment. Get in touch with your doctor and ask for help.

Life isn’t fair. Or at least that what my mother always said. And in some ways, she was 100 percent correct. If you have a naturally thin friend who seems to eat whatever she wants without gaining an ounce, while you seem to gain a pound just by smelling chocolate, you will agree that life isn’t fair. What is it that sets your friend apart–and if you emulate those traits, will you lose weight?

They Might Be N.E.A.T.

The American Council on Exercise (ACE) performed an analysis of naturally thin people and discovered they engage in non-exercise activity thermogenesis, or N.E.A.T. Basically the term means those naturally thin people move more even when at rest.

They are the ones you notice fidgeting, standing up and pacing while talking on the phone, swinging their leg while sitting down, and engaging in more non-exercise activity than other people do.

Now, I was often accused of swinging my leg and hitting my brother’s leg during dinner but that alone didn’t make me thin. However, I can definitely see where little movements will add up to an additional calorie burn that can help you lose weight.

Genetics Helps

Researchers in the United Kingdom found that thin children and adolescents tended to have thin parents. It makes sense when you think about it. Thin parents pass on traits and genetics that flow into their children. Don’t despair if your folks are overweight. You can fight your genetic tendencies and overcome obesity by following the habits of naturally thin people.

They Pay Attention to Portions

I’ve known a lot of thin people in my life and one of the things they have in common is they do not eat gargantuan portions of food. This is one of the harder things to emulate, because in our society, food portions are huge.

Even though food portions tend to be on the larger side in restaurants and in processed foods, you can copy your thin friends’ strategy by trying one of these techniques:

1) Cut every restaurant portion in half (except steamed veggies and salad without dressing).

2) Take what you want from a larger bag and put it in a smaller baggie. Don’t go back for seconds.

3) Have baby-sized portions of really high-calorie foods. My thin friends “taste” a dessert rather than digging into a huge piece.

They Weigh Regularly

I know some current dieting fads recommend skipping the scale entirely, but years of research show that people who weigh regularly do weigh less than people who skip the scale.

Pick a weighing-in schedule that you can live with and doesn’t make you crazy. I recommend weighing in to check on your progress at least once a week.

Remember, when you don’t really know how much you weigh, it is easy to justify an extra serving of cake, chips, or alcohol.

They Work at It

Although it may seem as though those thin friends of yours don’t have to do anything to stay slim, I was surprised to find that my best thin friend exercised every morning before the sun came up and rarely ate dessert. I didn’t know she did these things because she didn’t talk about it until I started asking her.

Thin people do work at staying that way. They may exercise, deliberately skip tempting treats, drink a lot of water, and avoid fast food. What looks easy from the outside does require work and an awareness of what their body needs to stay trim.