While it is believed that diet and exercise lead to weight loss, behind the scenes it is your dedication and will power that helps you stick to a healthy lifestyle pattern which helps you maintain the weight you lose.
Importance Of Emotional & Behavioral Exercise For Weight Loss
These keys to weight loss are gaining importance and people are realizing that weight loss extends beyond physical exercise. It is also an emotional and behavioral exercise.
Our thoughts influence our feelings, and our feelings dictate certain behaviors.
“I’ll never lose weight”, “I deserve this piece of cake”- These thoughts influence feelings of depression and denial and can lead to binge-eating as a behavioral reaction. This can cause disturbance in your weight loss program.
It is therefore, important to use some cognitive and behavioral strategies to deal with challenges and negative feelings that can upset your routine.
→ Simple habits to relieve stress
Mindfulness & Positivity For Goal Accomplishment
Tuning into the experience of eating and feeling what it is to be hungry or full, reminding yourself of your weight loss goals and how important it is for you, breaking through the negative thinking traps and maintaining positivity, and using family members as a source of encouragement are some of the cognitive exercises for weight loss.
Planning And Organizing
Similarly, scheduling your day, stocking up on healthy snacks, and treating yourself only with healthy snacks are some of the behavioral self-control tactics to weight loss.
Accept Relapse As A Part Of Success
Of course, relapse can be de-motivating. It can take some fully off track. But if we exercise our thoughts and modify them to understand that weight loss is like any other venture in life, where anything worth working towards involves setbacks, you become more accepting of relapse as part of success.
Break Up Your Goals Into Smaller Tasks
Similarly, some people get anxious with the thought of maintaining the weight loss. So, instead of being overwhelmed by the idea, the trick is to ask yourself what you can do right now. Take each day as it comes. Break up your goals into smaller tasks that you can easily accomplish to move along the path smoothly.
Lower Stress
Stress and related conditions like increased anxiety and dysphoria could decrease the motivation to engage in the regular physical activity, thus adding a step towards obesity.
Finally....
A weight loss program is effective only when it is a combination of diet, exercise, and psychological intervention. Building a support system within and nurturing the mind and emotional self as much as the physical self leads to successful weight loss and wellness.
