The Emotional Side To Losing Weight

Many people claim they are committed to losing weight. They have a wonderful new exercise regime, and they have a brand spanking new diet plan. They have joined a gym and take great delight in telling you how much thinner and healthier they will be in just a few months time.

When that time comes around, however, you find that they're gym membership has not been used as regularly as they claimed, the diet plan has been discarded, and the proposed weight loss has not really happened at all. In fact, the majority of people who embark on weight-loss and exercise regimes end up like this - not sticking to the plans for any length of time.

This is generally due to the mental side of weight loss. It's all well and good to declare yourself embarking on these weight-loss programs, but to actually carry them out and see them through to achieve the results that you want takes a lot more than boasting about how you are going to do it.

Willpower itself is not the key ingredient in attempting to lose weight. The key is applying that willpower to a strategy and also understanding the information that you are adhering to. When we know the science behind the ideas of losing weight, then we are much more empowered and motivated to succeed.

For example, studies have shown that 80% of overweight people are battling food addictions - often without realizing it.

Food addiction and comfort eating are usually an addiction to the chemicals inside those foods rather than the foods themselves. These foods are designed to do just that - make you crave more.

They are created so that when you eat one you want another.

When we give in to those cravings and eat foods such as this, our brain secretes a chemical known as serotonin. Serotonin is a hundred times stronger than most recreational drugs, and completely and utterly addictive. Once we have experienced it, we want more of it, and we automatically associate it with the comfort foods that we are eating.

The effect of the serotonin is that you feel good - hence the moniker "comforts foods". But as the supply stops soon after you finish eating, you crash almost immediately - who among us hasn't felt a loss of energy after eating that burger, and yet also felt that you could happily eat another?

This physiological force is overwhelming, and can completely destroy anyone's willpower. The key is to break the cycle and change our way of thinking to go alongside our new diet plan and exercise regime. In order for them to succeed we must discover new ways to release the serotonin and discover new healthier combinations of healthy foods that will give us the same effect, but over a longer period of time.

The emotional side of losing weight is therefore more important than the physical side. Although the necessity of an effective and complete diet plan and a rigorous exercise regime is undoubted, they are doomed to failure if there is no psychological support for them. By learning the facts around your intended weight loss, and how believing in yourself, you will be extremely more likely to succeed!