Lose Weight Faster By Treating Yourself?
Other than exercise and accountability, what is one of the most important things you can do while on a diet to help you stick to the diet and lose weight faster? Give up? The answer, oddly enough, is to treat yourself.
Now, don't take that the wrong way. You shouldn't reach for the potato chips every time you feel like it. That won't do you any good. But your diet should have treats built into it at regular intervals, say, every couple of days. One bowl of ice cream, one handful of potato chips, one soft drink: whatever you love most, in small helpings.
Why is this so important? Because the greatest challenge for dieters is sticking with the diet. The body begins to feel deprived, as it should. After all, you want it to turn on all those fat reserves for its nourishment. (And you wondered why you hated dieting: you're encouraging your body to eat itself!) But over a sustained period of time, your mind starts to complain more than your body.
Once that happens, unless you have more willpower than most do, it's only a matter of time until you throw in the towel and devour an entire 24-ct. box of donuts in a single sitting. And there goes your diet.
Regular treats built into your diet, on the other hand, keep you from feeling deprived. If you start having a craving for that bowl of ice cream, it's one thing to say "Bad person! No ice cream!" It's quite another to say "Just wait until tomorrow evening, and you can have some." Waiting is very different from denying.
Will you lose weight as fast if you build treats into your diet as you would if you went the Spartan route and cut yourself off completely? Well, the logical answer is No, you won't. You're consuming more fat and calories, so you can't be expected to lose weight as quickly. But that isn't the way it works.
When you treat yourself during a diet, you essentially give yourself the boost you need to stay for the long haul. Unlike other dieters, whose weight fluctuates as they start a new diet, only to abandon it when temptation gets too strong, you have the ability to stick with your diet, since it isn't as hard.
Adding regularly scheduled treats to your diet takes off the pressure. It helps you to stay the course, without binging. Plus, it lets you have the food you love best every couple of days, without feeling guilty about it. What's not to love? So next time you diet, make sure your diet has treats built into it. Otherwise, you may never lose weight!