Forbidden Cravings and Other Mental Stumbling Blocks

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In addition to the biological stumbling blocks that are genetic and metabolic, there’s an important psychological component to the failure of quick-weight-loss diets. If “diet” is simply another word for deprivation, it makes sense that any time we deny ourselves food we will want to eat more than ever. We tend to want things we can’t have, so why would we think food was any different?
Because of this craving for the forbidden, our ability to lose weight through deprivation can be limited, which is yet another reason— in addition to preventing your body from thinking it’s starving— for losing weight gradually by compromising rather than conforming. By doing that, you’ll be able to keep those cravings under control. I call these cravings, along with the other psychological factors we’ve already discussed, a  

Diet Ambush

Post-Deprivation Elation: As soon as the diet is over, the first thing post-dieters may do is gorge on all the foods (good and bad) the diet made off limits. They believe the diet has protected them against weight gain and that they can eat anything. 

Diet-Failure Despair: If you’ve been on a diet and haven’t lost as much weight as you’d wanted to, you’ll be demoralized and won’t even have the desire to try again. 

The Energy Zap: Diets are exhausting. They take time, effort, and often don’t provide enough calories for sustained energy. 

The Craving Crazies: In addition to a slowed metabolism, deprivation creates exaggerated cravings, so that a piece of chocolate seems a million times more desirable than it really is. When people are on a diet, they tend to focus on deprivation, incessantly thinking about the foods they can’t have. Of course, they become obsessed and respond with diet induced overeating. And they never focus on what really matters— changing their behavior and how they think about food in relation to themselves.

How to lose fat fast

So What Does All This Mean?

As we have seen, and scientists have long known, weight gain and obesity are the result of a multitude of genetic, biological, environmental, and psychological factors. But by reviewing, understanding, and learning to control how we react to these perceived obstacles, including a genetic predisposition to obesity, we can succeed in losing weight and keeping it off. In other words, controlling your weight really means learning to control the availability, composition, and portion size of the food in your personal environment, and monitoring your psycho-social behaviors with regard to food so that you will be able to intervene and modify those behaviors in real world situations.

One British study, published in Obesity Research, stated the problem (and the solution) this way:
Food intake (eating) is a form of behavior that is subject to conscious control. In practice, many obese and weight-gaining individuals claim that their eating is out of (their) control. Mechanistic models describe the interplay of biological and environmental forces that control food intake. However, because human food intake is characterized by individuals intervening to adjust their own patterns of behavior, food intake should reflect interactions among biology, environment, and attempted self-imposed control of behavior. [emphasis added.] If you think having confidence in yourself might not be particularly important for losing weight forever— think again. A study, conducted by Jacinda B. Roach, Phd, RD, and colleagues, and published in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association reports that when various methods for increasing confidence in their ability to control their weight and create their own outcome (e.g., reading empowering books, reviewing family history, nutrition education, and identifying their reasons for wanting to lose weight) 

 participants’ eating habits improved and their weight loss was greater. The process I’ll be taking you through in this book is designed to give you the kind of self-knowledge and skills that will evoke that very same confidence you need to make it happen.
To begin with, it ought to be obvious that once you lose weight, you need to keep the weight off by eating the same types of foods that helped shed the pounds— not by going back to consuming whole boxes of cookies in front of the TV. But it was never obvious to me. And, apparently, I’m not the only one who thought I’d become a member of the “eat-whatever-you-want” club.
I really believed that something had changed, and that I wouldn’t have to worry any more. That was my dream, but I now understand and accept that my dream simply needed to be altered slightly. I have found a place where I’m comfortable and happy— and able to control my weight— and so can you.