4 tips to avoid obsessing about weight loss

How do you avoid obsessing about losing weight and consuming just the right amount of calories?

Body weight is more than just a measure of how much mass our body has. For many, weight is experienced as a fundamental problem in their lives, so much so that they have the need to reach their "ideal weight" in order to accept themselves.

Many associate weight as an indication of attractiveness, beauty and health and, of course, this influences their self-esteem and self-concept, with some people feeling terrible when their weight is not what they want.

Weight loss is a rather delicate issue that can range from the mere loss of a few pounds on medical advice to a real mental health problem. That's why, in the following we are going to see how to avoid obsessing about losing weight and understand that it is not everything..

Why obsessing about losing weight can be a problem?

Millions of people across this world are concerned about their weight. Some worry in what we might call an "innocent" way, in the sense that they've had a bad time lately and, now that they're back on their feet, they're aiming to get to a healthy weight, either by gaining a little weight or losing it. Others, unfortunately, find themselves trapped in a hard spiral of obsession with weight, worrying about every calorie they can get their hands on.They worry about every calorie they eat and forbid themselves from eating any kind of rich but "evil" food. They value themselves according to their weight, which greatly influences their self-esteem.

Food is that which provides us with nutrients, the fuel our body needs. Without food, human beings simply die and therefore we need to eat. However, what is a basic need, something instinctive and that the only concern we should have is in case we do not find it, many people worry about "overdoing it" with food, gaining weight by overeating and, to compensate for it, they go into restrictive diets or, directly, stop eating.

We may at some point in our lives need to lose a little fat for health reasons. However, becoming obsessed with losing weight can lead to a situation that is not at all synonymous with health, and that is the harsh world of eating disorders.. This is why it is so important to establish a healthy relationship with food and understand that weight is not a measure of beauty or health, but an indicator of mass, nothing more.

The purpose of this article is to learn a little about how to avoid becoming obsessed with losing weight by looking at some myths, beliefs and attitudes to combat about how weight loss and weight gain occurs in addition to understanding that maintaining a healthy diet is something extremely necessary to have a beautiful body, which is no more than any body that is in good health.

Myths about weight loss

There are many myths that exist around food that are directly related to becoming obsessed with losing weight. Many people, in their attempt to achieve their weight loss goals, control over the numbers that should appear on the scales becomes control over what they eat, which is the breeding ground for developing an obsessive obsession with weight loss. the breeding ground for developing an unhealthy relationship with food..

It is curious how in today's world, where we can easily get more food than ever before, we eat worse than our ancestors did. It is true that we have more nutritious food available and that malnutrition is relatively uncommon, but we also live in a world where there are many hypercaloric, fatty and nutrient-poor foods that happen to be hyperpalatable, that is, more palatable compared to traditional and seasonal food.

Since the most nutrient-poor foods are, in turn, the most intensely flavored, it is not surprising that the population prefers them to healthy food.. As a consequence, we have in the population diseases such as obesity, diabetes and Cardiovascular diseases, since it is difficult to resist this type of food, which also tends to be marketed already prepared and sold at relatively low prices.

To say that the population is addicted to junk food is not an exaggeration. People know that they are not healthy foods, that it would be better not to eat them at all and that they carry health risks, but they find it very difficult to stop eating them. As a consequence, once they have gained a lot of weight, they try to give them up all at once, categorizing them as "forbidden" foods, and this is where the unhealthy relationship with food breaks out.

How can we avoid becoming obsessed with losing weight?

There are several actions we can take to avoid becoming obsessed with losing weight.

1. Do not use the gym to eat more afterwards.

There is no doubt that physical activity burns calories and helps you lose weight. Going to the gym should be seen as a way of ensuring good health and having a good time, whether you do strength training, cardio or targeted activities.

However, the truth is that many people go to the gym with the clear intention of burning a lot of calories and then replenishing them by eating all kinds of food.. Obsessed with weight, to make sure they do not gain a few extra kilos, they do all kinds of exercises in the gym and then eat all kinds of high-calorie foods.

This is quite dangerous. On the one hand we have the fact that the person binge eats and, on the other hand, performs compensatory behaviors, in this case doing excessive exercise, all to avoid gaining weight. All this can serve to suspect a possible case of bulimia, an eating disorder that requires psychological intervention.

2. Don't be too demanding when tracking calories

There are countless applications that serve to track the calories of what we eat and also the calories we burn with exercise. These can be useful in that they provide guidance on caloric intake and the proportion of macronutrients we have ingested, helping us to know if we are maintaining a varied diet and consuming the necessary amount of calories.

However, obsessing about tracking absolutely every calorie to make sure you lose weight is a mistake.. These applications should be downloaded and used with caution and understand that they are only a record of what we eat, putting the focus more on the nutrients consumed rather than our caloric intake. The reason why these applications should be taken with caution is that many people want to make perfectionist use of them.

There are those who try to keep an exhaustive record of everything they have eaten throughout the week, motivating themselves to continue taking between 1200 and 1500 calories, which are the recommended in very general terms. It often happens that by the simple fact of having forgotten to record a day, its users become overwhelmed, feel they have failed, break down, and break down.They feel that they have failed, break their streak and overeat, feeling that they get fat with every bite.

It is necessary to understand that by not writing down absolutely everything we eat in a calorie counter we are not going to get fat. As long as we eat a healthy diet, rich in nutrients, we can be a little more flexible in what we eat and even forget to write it down.

3. Neither restrictive diets nor prohibit foods.

Many people believe that they will only lose weight if they prohibit certain foods and totally control the calories they eat.. It is true that knowing the caloric intake can be assumed that you will lose weight, as long as less calories are ingested than are spent and there is a caloric deficit.

Now, making a restrictive diet does not work, and much less if it has been obtained from dubious sources. It is not difficult to find on the Internet all kinds of miracle diets in which forbidden foods are highlighted. These, far from being good instructions for weight control or weight loss, become dangerous sources of guilt.

They prohibit so many foods that practically do not allow you to enjoy food, only being able to eat low-calorie foods such as lettuce, some low-fat meats such as chicken and strictly prohibiting anything sweet. Others force us to eat the same food for several weeks (e.g., the pineapple diet).

Both types of diets are extremely unfeasible, since they are extremely boring and insist on the idea of forbidden foods, which means that if the person skips a day with a food of this type, he/she feels a lot of remorse and goes to the other extreme, i.e., binge eating.

It should be clear that to prohibit foods goes against human nature, and that they can only be "prohibited" in those cases that for health reasons can not be ingested under any circumstances, such as salt in hypertension.such as salt in hypertensive patients or carbohydrates in morbidly obese people. Restrictive diets enhance eating disorders.

Any diet that is going to be done should be consulted with professionals, including doctors, dietitians and nutritionists. In case of suspicion of a possible eating disorder, a psychologist should be consulted.

4. Do not expose yourself to the scales every day

One of the most dreaded moments for people who are desperate to lose weight is to weigh themselves on the scale. Everyone has an ideal weight in their head, although not healthy and not really ideal, but that translates into a specific number, a value that if we have not reached it yet saddens us a lot. For many people this can become obsessive and they use the scale every day, even several times.

The weight on the scale can be a double-edged sword.. On the one hand it can happen that, in case of success, we feel motivated to continue with our weight loss routine, eating healthy and exercising, but on the other hand, in case it is not so, what will happen is that we feel frustrated and even become obsessed eating less or exercising more than necessary.

Both weight loss and muscle mass gain are a process with its ups and downs and therefore, the daily measurement of where we are is of no use. the daily measurement of where we are is not useful because it can very well demotivate us.. What has to be taken into account is the whole process as a whole.

We are not going to lose weight from one day to the next. Weighing every day does not provide reliable data and any variation that occurs may be produced by so many factors beyond our control that it would be very difficult to use them as a measure of whether there is progress or not, much less indicative that there is an improvement in health.

In most cases it is appropriate to weigh yourself once every two weeks, preferably only once a month, and using smart scales, if possible. These are devices that go beyond simply measuring weight, but also measure other aspects that do relate to a person's health, such as fat percentage, amount of muscle mass, fluid retention, basal metabolism and premature aging.

The scale should be kept hidden or at least in an unexposed place on days when it is not going to be used.. To do this it is best to put it in a high place where it is difficult to lower it, or directly hide it in a drawer that we do not usually consult. This will avoid the temptation to weigh ourselves out of date and, thus, we will be able to better evaluate the progress.

Bibliographic references:

• Carbajal Azcona, Á. (n.d.). Water - Manual of Nutrition and Dietetics. Retrieved from https://www.ucm.es/nutricioncarbajal/
• Soenen, S., Bonomi, A. G., Lemmens, S. G. T., Scholte, J., Thijssen, M. A. M. A., van Berkum, F., & Westerterp-Plantenga, M. S. (2012). Relatively high-protein or ‘low-carb’ energy-restricted diets for body weight loss and body weight maintenance? Physiology & Behavior, 107(3), 374–380.