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Home » Long Term Weight Loss » Weight Loss: How to Reset Your Brain For Success – Health Essentials from Cleveland Clinic (blog)

Weve all been there after a month of being good on your New Years diet, you attend a party for the big game thats bursting with treats. Suddenly corn chips and chili dip are calling your name, and you cant concentrate on the game because youre spending all your mental energy avoiding the chips. When you finally give in, you feel guilt, shame and lowered self-esteem.

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Combine these feelings with the idea that since youve blown your diet, you might as well eat more before you go back to being good tomorrow, and you have weight gain.

Several things happen in our bodies when we restrict our food intake, says dietician Anna Taylor, MS, RD, LD. We know that our metabolism slows, and the hormones that regulate our feelings of hunger and fullness get out of whack. You end up overeating, not because you are bad or weak, but because your body is doing everything it can to get out of your self-imposed famine.

Several studies have shown that restrictive dieting ultimately leads to weight gain, not weight loss. But studies have also shown that self-esteem can predict dieting outcomes.

When you work on reducing your guilt and shame around food and better body image acceptance, you tend to develop better eating habits over the long term, says Leslie Heinberg, PhD, Section Head for Psychology in Cleveland Clinics Center for Behavioral Health Department of Psychiatry and Psychology and Director of Behavioral Services for the Bariatric and Metabolic Institute.

Even when you are not actively on a diet plan, your dieting mindset can cause you to eat more and gain weight. You may eat more than you normally would, anticipating that soon you will be back on a restrictive diet.

From an evolutionary perspective, our bodies are more tuned to survive in times of famine, Ms. Taylor says. The body of the yo-yo dieter is accustomed to having random times of food shortage or restriction; therefore, the body strives to eat and store more overall. The human body does not like to lose weight, so it fights back.

A dieting mindset also tells you that your food decisions reflect on your worth as a person. You are eating bad foods, so you are a bad or weak or unworthy person. This can perpetuate a cycle of emotional eating that adds excess weight, reduces self-esteem and is tough to end.

Ultimately, what works for weight loss in the long-term is small, incremental changes to your overall eating patterns. The less you focus on restricting and categorizing foods and the more you focus on creating healthy behaviors around food and exercise, the healthier your body and mind will be.

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Weight Loss: How to Reset Your Brain For Success - Health Essentials from Cleveland Clinic (blog)

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Home » Long Term Weight Loss » Weight Loss: How to Reset Your Brain For Success – Health Essentials from Cleveland Clinic (blog)