When it comes to engaging in a diet to lose body fat, there are both metabolic and psychological factors to consider. Things like calorie intake, macronutrient composition (carbs, fats, protein), timing of intake etc. covers the metabolic side. Your culture, past experiences, coping mechanisms with food etc is the psychological side. The problem with dieting as we see it today is that the metabolic side has been emphasised so much that the psychological side barely gets a mention; sometimes it isnt mentioned at all!!! The irony is that not only is the psychological side more important, it should be your largest area of concern. For example, many dieters deal with moments where despite having the best diets set up and understanding the benefits of higher protein intake, calorie cycling etc. they still binge out on their favourite comfort foods. Does the term comfort give you hint as to why what was eaten was eaten??? Because eating such foods results in an emotional response which addresses an emotional need (in this case comfort). No amount of metabolic knowledge will be able to deal with this issue because, quite simply, the issue isnt metabolic!!! To deal with such things requires a change in mindset, where the emotion itself must be identified, its cause and then the appropriate restructuring (aka addressing the emotion and cause) so that it occurs less often (and then hopefully hardly at all). Dont feel bad if you have tried many diets and failed. Sometimes it isnt the diet itself but YOU and YOUR particular context that you bring to the diet that fails YOU. Ive said it many times before, you are a human being, a biological organism, a living, breathing, thinking individual who is molded and shaped by the environment and experiences around you. Thinking in a mechanistic way (A + B = C) does not work well for us and is part of the puzzle in why so many start a body recomposition journey but seldom finish.
Posted on: Thu, 06 Mar 2014 05:44:06 +0000