If sleep is elusive, so is lasting weight loss.
Correcting sleep issues is working on your weight.
Sleep reduces physical inflammation, nurtures your mental health, and increases energy.
It’s not one thing that brings good sleep, but the direct result of a baseline of wellness practices.
Conversely, I’ve come to see a lack of sleep as an indicator of issues that need to be attended to. It’s the canary in the coalmine for unaddressed problems.
- stress
- overscheduled time
- poor eating
- relationship issues
- unreasonable demands at work
- alcohol consumption
Insufficient sleep duration is recognized as an important unmet public health problem [1]. …
I find it odd you would vigorously defend a practice you don't employ and give zero credence to some pretty glaring problems, not the least of which is that the latest scientific study shows it to be marginally effective for weight loss (link in the top line of the article).
IF is only ordered eating if you imagine that can done be done through arbitrary time periods. Your mind and body work independently from those wishes.
Further, I can't speak to those people who make this claim, only what is published and known. IF has one the lowest of all…
Your hunger isn’t a flaw.
The scientific study (such as it is) doesn’t take into account the psychological toll of denying hunger.
There are a lot of tone-deaf ideas for overweight people, but intermittent fasting might be one of the worst.
Intermittent fasting (IF) wrapped itself in a halo of health early on (the basis of the research came from rodent studies) but for many humans makes eating fraught. IF asks people to do the inverse of what’s needed for long-term weight control.
What’s that?
To understand your true hunger and use that information to properly nourish yourself. Your body’s signals aren’t flaws, they are bits of information you need to take good care of yourself.
I’ve seen it touted by doctors…
In my 50’s I will:
- Trust myself without reservation. The cost of rumination is too high. My instincts are excellent and even when I make a misstep I’ve proven over and over I know how to course-correct.
- Wear beautiful things. Or not. It was for me the whole time.
- Think of romance as a value-added, not central to my happiness. The endless searching took energy away from more valuable pursuits.
- Quit explaining my value to others (other than my customers). Maybe it’s someone else’s job to see, and not mine to make them look.
- Protect my peace. Boundaries are everything.
- Let go with love. Lots…
What’s that thing you want to do?
The one you go back to over and over. The one that feels like freedom, or maybe an expression of your best self.
Take a moment to close your eyes and see yourself realizing that dream. It’s ok to want, it’s ok to give yourself permission to hope.
Are you surfing, or hiking with friends unconcerned about keeping up? Are you feeling free to travel and try long-held desires?
Our day-to-day anesthetize us from those ideas of ourselves. It’s easy to shelve them in the face of our routines and obligations. …
And, gaining it back isn’t failure.
They are the same thing.
I‘ve noticed an interesting pattern in how people describe their weight over time. Periods of success are defined as weight loss and periods of failure defined as weight gain.
This is incorrect, they are two outcomes of the same problem.
What the gains and losses (and gains) reveal to me is one thing — weight instability. There is either deprivation or eating with abandon. Both are unsustainable behaviors based on faulty ideas.
Weight instability is a distressing and unnatural state of being.
This pattern is based on the underlying assumption that dieting is how one loses weight so if you…
You’re the product of evolution, not your own wishes.
These foods you have a love/hate relationship with are designed to short-circuit your hunger. They are specifically engineered to be overconsumed. Any control you imagine having is illusory.
Processed foods create the kind of internal chaos your mind and body have no defense for. Successful long-term losers (I’m now 11 years into a 50-pound loss, steady the whole time) know that some things have to be put down permanently.
There isn’t a way, short of a lobotomy to create a scenario where this food is in your line of sight and you won’t want it. I’m not saying there is…
I’ve been on a roll lately and putting out some helpful, short reads.
2-minute reads that will help you do better
Here they are in particular order:
1. When Getting Healthy Feels Overwhelming, Do This One Thing
2. Goal Weights Are A Tool of Diet Culture
3. Motivation Runs Out but Joy Is A Reliable Resource
4. It’s The Processing That Makes You Overeat
5. Putting Your Food Into an App Is Thwarting Lasting Weight Loss
They know you’ll do ridiculous things to make that number.
Goal weights are an invention of diet companies.
They are an unnecessary ‘motivator’ and do more harm than good. The more acute the distance between you and some magical number, the higher the likelihood you’ll agree to a plan with a 90% failure rate.
Goal weights allow diet companies to let you do the work of convincing yourself to accept unsustainable schemes. No carbs? Sure. Eat all your food in a 6-hour window, why not? Guzzle celery juice? Ok!
Every idea becomes reasonable in the face of that glittering number.
I lost 50 pounds without ever having a goal weight.
I started writing about my process because my experience (and…
Choose what pulls you.
Most of us understand that durable weight loss requires consistency.
What we forget is that motivation is highly inconsistent.
The question then becomes, how do we show up day after day for practices that result in a healthy weight?
I propose a radically simple answer. Choose joyful pursuits.
Yes, this means ditching workouts that you silently dread and have to psyche yourself into doing. There’s space down the road to intensify your movement practice when you’re ready for a bit more.
For now, today even, go do something that opens you up to joy.
In my case, that’s a walk. It's even better if it’s in nature, but a city walk with some parks thrown in does the trick. …
Rebecca Thomas
I teach permanent weight loss. Founder @ notanotherdiet.co
