How To Lose Weight By Overeating At Night? Part 1

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

The problem of excess weight brings us quite tangible psychological "inconveniences", affects the quality of our life not only through the inability to wear what we like, but also through real physiological problems. Fashion for "skinny" bodies is also not conducive to getting pleasure from contemplating their curvaceous forms in the mirror. The problem is especially acute in spring and early summer, when bulky outerwear ceases to hide the kilograms accumulated over the winter.

Most overweight people categorically cannot say about themselves that they eat more than other people. And, although objectively (in terms of the number of calories consumed) they are wrong, in terms of their feelings and the need for food (which allows satisfying not only hunger), in a sense, they are right. They don't really notice or feel it. At the same time, bouts of overeating or gluttony are often followed by feelings of guilt.

It is widely believed that the problem of excess weight is solved by the formula "you need to eat less and move more." However, this formula is only effective for those who have gained 1–2 extra pounds to their ideal weight. And if excess weight is expressed in tens of kilograms, for some reason this formula is not implemented in life. In reality, in addition to restructuring nutrition, it is necessary to solve two more tasks: to change the attitude towards your body and learn how to cope with daily overload in some other way, besides eating.

Diet restructuring is usually not considered as an object of psychological influence. Moreover, many psychologists speak negatively about the attention paid to nutrition, rightly noting that the problem is much deeper than the wrong set of foods or their amount. However, most of the clients who came to me for help with their excess weight had a successful experience of losing weight with a nutritionist, after which they gained weight. Would like and can (under the supervision of a nutritionist) eat in a healthier way, but cannot do it on their own. It's good if my mother taught me modest portions, healthy foods, and the right regimen as a child. In this case, a person uses this knowledge automatically and wonders what kind of nutritional problems a fat girlfriend is talking about? The problem, apparently, is that healthy eating has not been taught according to all the canons of pedagogy and psychology. We do not demand professional analysis of the text from people who have not studied philology. For some reason, nutrition is considered as a topic in which everyone understands by definition. Meanwhile, most of our nutritional decisions are not deliberate, rational, and usually automatic. Of course, mindfulness is the main goal. But it does not form by itself. The theory of the stage-by-stage assimilation of mental actions by P. Ya. Halperin. Let me remind you that assimilation is best if the indicative basis of action (OOD) required for assimilation is complete and general. In the case of using ready-made diets taken from media sources or (which is more reasonable) prepared individually by a nutritionist, incomplete or partial OODs are used, which do not allow continuing to eat properly after the end of the diet. Reverting to a previous eating style will be inevitable because customers have not mastered another style.

Omitting the consideration of the stage of motivation in this article, I would like to draw your attention to the fact that, in addition to fixing the OOD, it is necessary to go through a number of stages of its implementation from the material stage through speech to the formation of mental action. Of course, if you have a personal chef and nutritionist, you don't need to load your head with additional knowledge and form a conscious healthy diet. The overwhelming majority do not have them, and therefore must attend to understanding what a healthy diet is. In other words, to fix in your mind (and for a start on some external medium: paper, disk …) the content of the complete and general indicative basis of the action.

And what should a complete general OOD include?

Diet restructuring involves teaching the optimal style of eating as opposed to the "chaotic" style inherent in such people, counteracting the excessive absorption of calories, with the necessary level of nutrients (emphasis on proteins, vitamins, water). It is important not to provoke phobias in relation to certain foods, therefore, the so-called “prohibited” foods are also included in the diet, with the formation of the skill of their safe use in the appropriate quantity and quality. This allows you to form new beliefs in relation to the probability and value of fluctuations in weight [3, p. 949].

Diet restructuring should be accompanied by training in various "tricks" of nutrition (for example, how to make it easier to give up sweets than to replace mayonnaise), debunking myths about weight loss (for example, the need to endure hunger pangs to lose weight; the ability to lose weight on fruit). The wording of the message about the quality of the products is important. So, based on the study of the influence of messages about snacks, in which 324 people took part, it was found that positive-negative messages about them lead to the rejection of harmful products ("All desserts are tasty, but not healthy"); only negative messages lead to an increase in the use of these products even more than only positive messages about them (TV channel "Science 2.0").

When calculating the calorie content, the amount of specific gravity in the diet of proteins, fats, carbohydrates, you need to know at least a few indicators. The first is body mass index (BMI), the second is basic metabolism (BOV).

The body mass index allows you to determine the real (and not the apparent) severity of the problem, to correctly establish the final and intermediate goals. The norm is BMI from 18, 5 to 24, 9, over 25 - overweight, over 30 - obesity, over 40 - severe obesity, below 18, 5 - underweight.

Base metabolism (aka base metabolic rate of BSM) shows the body's expenditure at rest. It is categorically impossible to eat less than this number of calories, since the body perceives such a situation as difficult times that require saving resources, and slows down the metabolism. BOV depends on gender, age, height and body weight at the moment. You can easily calculate these indicators on-line on a lot of sites, for example: calculator.imt.com.

It is the change in the habitual pattern of nutrition that causes the greatest difficulty in restructuring nutrition. This problem causes most overweight people to know (or think they know) how to eat differently, but don't. Templates that exist in standard situations work automatically. There is no room in the circle of templates for the decision to cut back on excess food or eat differently. There is simply not enough cognitive resources for this (cognitive: perception, thinking, memory …), engaged in solving other, from the point of view of the psyche, more pressing problems. If we add to this the lack of time, which makes us prone to thinking patterns in order to save cognitive resources, it becomes clear why we have not lost weight either since Monday or since New Year. Therefore, the first thing that a person who has decided to lose weight needs to find is not money, food, etc., but time. At least an hour per day must be inserted into the day's schedule.

How can this situation be alleviated? What will help us save cognitive resources along the way or raise the rank of a problem in the priority system with a subsequent increase in the cost of cognitive resources to solve it?

1. An external "kick" or external controller, which can be a doctor, psychologist, training group, etc. The one (or those) in front of whom it will be ashamed to weigh themselves or present the lack of results.
2. A variant of the external controller can be a dispute with a significant person on a significant gain / loss with a clear indication of the criteria for losing weight and the time frame for achieving results. Ideally, the significant person has the same problem, and the argument is heightened by competition (who will fold more?)
3. A food diary, it can be facilitated by using various sites with online programs for calculating calories, proteins, fats and carbohydrates, taking into account the required rate of weight loss, exercise intensity, metabolic metabolism, possible diseases, etc.
4. Support for loved ones.
5. Ready meals (nutritious cocktails, Malysheva's diet, etc.) and recipes for delicious and healthy dishes, food lists.
6. Finding like-minded people is always easier with someone.
7. Viewing thematic broadcasts, websites, periodicals …
8. Notes to yourself and pictures (photos) are motivators that change at regular intervals (ideally daily), etc.
9. Using a deck of cards with a daily nutrition task (day of strict diet, fasting day, day without diet, etc.).

In addition, the OOD of proper nutrition should include taking into account the individual characteristics of the brain, the functioning of the psyche at the moment, manifested in the type of overeating. But about this - in part 2.