Category: Internal Medicine

Snacking in front of the television is one of the more challenging habits to overcome for people who are dieting. Sometimes such a habit has been in place for years so it has become very strong – compelling, even – and changing it seems incredibly difficult.

However, like anything else, it’s just matter of changing your daily routine and forming better habits.

The following are 11 ways to start moving away from the rut of mindless night time eating:

1 – Re-position

Do you always sit in the same spot while watching TV? Move to another spot! Grab a pillow and lie on the floor, or move from the recliner to one side of the sofa. This will move you out of your customary routine so you don’t feel as tempted to munch mindlessly.

2 – Quiet cravings beforehand

Before you even sit down to watch television, sit in a quiet place for 10 minutes, breathing deeply and letting go of any tension and anxiety. This helps center you and make you less likely to eat for emotional reasons.

3 – Breathe deeply

Speaking of breathing deeply, you can continue doing so as you watch television. Do it especially if you start feeling tempted to eat and you aren’t hungry. Imagine breathing in peace and well-being, and expelling cravings with each exhale.

4 – Keep your hands busy

Take up an activity that you can perform while watching television like knitting, needlework, or even shuffling a deck of cards.

5 – Work out while you watch

Do sit ups, push ups, and march in place while you watch TV, and you won’t have time to feel restless and start craving food.

6 – Chew gum

Snacking and chewing gum are never done at the same time, so keep your jaws busy and a fresh minty flavor (or any flavor you choose) tickling your taste buds. (You can also brush your teeth before you begin watching TV if you don’t like gum.)

7 – Drink water

Sip on ice cold water while you watch TV – or even crunch on ice cubes to keep your mouth busy.

8 – Munch healthy

You can also make a small platter of crunchy, healthy vegetables to munch on while watching. Good choices are low-calorie options like celery and cucumbers. If you’d like to break the habit of eating in front of the TV altogether, eat a low-calorie snack right before you tune in to watch.

9 – Chew on a straw

Chewing on a straw can also be effective because it gives your mouth and hands something to do but has zero calories.

10 – Doodle

Grab a notepad and start doodling during commercial breaks. Draw funny little pictures of the scenes you are watching on TV, or draw caricatures of your favorite actors.

11 – Fidget

Fidgeting can also be helpful – just start shaking your foot or tapping your fingers and keep it going. Do this especially if you start feeling tempted to visit the kitchen – shake and tap to get rid of nervous tension.

7 Common Beliefs That Can Stall Your Weight Loss

Most experts agree that weight loss is not just a physical endeavor – there are a whole bunch of emotional and mental issues that tie in to the size and state of your body.

While weight loss is largely a result of calories in, calories out, there are also plenty of mental “stumbling blocks” that could slow you down or even keep you from reaching your goal weight at all.

The following are 7 common beliefs that could cause problems while you are trying to lose weight:

“I can’t do it.”

If you have tried unsuccessfully to lose weight many times before, you may find yourself struggling with a strong belief that you can’t lose weight.

Maybe you believe that you can only lose so much weight, or you may believe that you can’t lose any at all. Either way, this kind of belief will override your desire to eat healthy and exercise, so that it seems like a constant battle to keep going and making any progress at all.

Overcoming this belief is as simple as reminding yourself that you can do anything if you simply take the right action steps. Keep telling yourself that millions of people successfully lose weight and keep it off, and you can too.

“I don’t deserve it.”

Low self-esteem can leave you feeling like a failure, even if you try to make the right moves toward a healthy body weight. If you commonly feel like you don’t deserve to have a slender, healthy body, be sure to keep building up your self-esteem by saying daily, “I deserve to live a happy, healthy life, and the actions I take today will make that happen for me.”

“I’m doomed to stay this way.”

Sometimes it’s easy to feel like the entire universe is against you, and no matter what you do you will stay stuck where you are. It’s possible to feel this way even if you don’t have any logical evidence to support such a belief, but it’s even easier to feel this way if you consistently feel stuck in other areas of your life too.

Keep reminding yourself that you are the only one in charge of your life. The universe is not conspiring against you – you simply need to take different actions to get different results.

“My family is overweight.”

On some level you may know that just because your family is overweight does not mean you have to be too, but you may feel as if your genes are working against you.

The problem with this perception is that you won’t feel strong enough to even try losing weight – you’ll just assume that because much of your family is heavy, you will remain heavy too.

To overcome this belief, remind yourself that plenty of overweight families have one or two members that do not struggle with weight.

Also remind yourself that more often than not, HABITS are passed down through generations, and those habits contribute to overweight problems much more than genes do.

Change your habits and you will also change your body size and weight.

“No matter what I do . . .”

Do you ever say to people, “No matter what I do, I can’t lose weight”?

This is a sure way to create a self-fulfilling prophecy because you are essentially failing yourself before you even allow yourself a chance to succeed.

Turn this around by saying, “I choose to be successful at everything I do from now on.”

At first you may not really believe it, but eventually you’ll see the proof with your own eyes. Also be sure to turn each day into a success.

At the end of the day, say to yourself, “Wow, I intended to eat healthier today, and I did! That’s success. I intended to work out, and I did. More success!”

Just change the way you see success and failure, and you’ll realize that they are nothing more than perceptions that serve you or work against you.

“It’s too hard.”

Even though most of us know that losing weight and changing our lifestyle habits isn’t going to be easy, we try to convince ourselves that it will be easy so we don’t lose motivation.

Once we get going, however, we realize that it’s harder than we thought it would be, and we begin to doubt our ability to keep going.

At this point you just have to say to yourself, “So what if it’s hard? I’m going to keep going anyway. I’m going to do my best, even if I stumble now and then, I’ll still be making progress.”

“I feel vulnerable.”

Many people don’t realize that they aren’t overweight just because of their eating habits. More often than not, there are some emotional fears and traumas that cause them to put on the weight as a defense mechanism.

They feel safer or more protected with the extra pounds on their bodies, and when they start to lose weight they end up feeling very vulnerable and exposed.

If this is a problem for you too, keep reminding yourself that extra weight doesn’t really protect you from anything. If anything, it makes your life more difficult, physically, mentally and emotionally!

Be willing to let go of the weight and be more vulnerable, and you’ll likely discover a hidden well of strength you didn’t know you had.