6. Eat a good healthy breakfast
Many of my clients say that they don’t eat breakfast because they don’t feel hungry first thing in the morning. This intrigues me as they say that they are hungry throughout the day (otherwise they wouldn’t eat so much). Having slept for perhaps eight hours and perhaps not eaten for longer than that, I would have thought they would have been hungry. Breakfast literally means to break fast, so while you are sleeping your body is fasting. Your metabolic rate, the speed at which you burn up calories will only start when you feed your body first thing in the morning. It’s quickest first thing in the morning and slowest last thing at night. Therefore if we take someone who gets up at 7am, doesn’t have breakfast but has lunch at 12noon, they are wasting 5 hours of good fast metabolic rate before they start to burn up calories. You must have a good healthy breakfast if you are wanting to lose weight. A client of mine said that she didn’t feel hungry first thing in the morning so did not have breakfast. I had her eating breakfast whilst she was seeing me. Guess what, her weight went down. A few months after her sessions had finished she contacted me as her weight was going back on. I asked her if she was still eating breakfast, she said no and made the excuse that she didn’t have time to prepare it. I insisted that she started to eat breakfast again and report back to me in a months time. Yes you guessed it, she had lost weight again. I repeat, you must eat a good healthy breakfast if you want to lose weight and keep it off.
7. Treat every day like it’s a Monday!
I do not believe in diets (as you know they don’t work, if they did there would be very few overweight people in the world) but people who go on diets generally start it on a Monday. At the start of a diet people are motivated and enthusiastic (Monday) but after a few days that enthusiasm can dwindle especially as the weekend approaches. It’s Friday today and the start of the weekend, I’m not saying that you shouldn’t enjoy yourself but to prevent over eating I want you to wake up each morning ‘believing’ that it’s Monday which will help keep you motivated to eat healthily.
8. Reduce the size of your plate
Most people eat their main meals off a 12 inch plate. Reduce the size of your plate to a 10 inch. Always eat your main meals from the 10 inch plate as you will psychologically get to see this as a normal size potion. Then when you see people eating from a 12 inch plate you will ask yourself “how can they possibly eat all of that”. But you most alway eat your meals off the smaller plate. Give this a go and notice what happens to your weight. Do share this tip with your family and friends and let me know, in the comments, how you get on.
9. Work through your plateau
Almost all people trying to lose weight plateau at some point and may plateau several times before they reach their ideal weight.
I don’t believe any one really knows why people plateau but I have a theory that when we are born our fat cells are small and as we grow and get bigger and fatter our fat cells expand. As the fat cells expand they stay tight. When we start to lose weight our fat cells shrink and become flabby. My theory is that we plateau because our body needs time to retighten the cells and it will not let us lose more weight until our fat cells have shrunk and tightened up again. Therefore we stay at the same weight for a length of time; this could be days, weeks or even months. Only when the cells are tight again does the body allow you to start losing weight again. When the cells shrink some more and get flabby again you will hit another plateau. Many people reach the plateau and lose faith that they can’t lose any more and consequently give up on their weight loss plan and lapse or re-lapse. When losing weight you have to understand that you will hit a plateau and nothing will happen for some time but you have to give your body time to tighten up the fat cells and it will start losing weight again. You can read my free ‘How To Stop Yoyo Dieting’ report by downloading it www.philcollinshypnotherapy.com
10. What is stopping you?
Over the years you’ve trained your body and mind to eat and crave the food you do, which has got you to the weight you are now. You can retrain your mind and body to eat healthily. It’s like training a dog, it takes a lot of effort, patience, kindness and perseverance. So what is stopping you? Photo: Phil’s weight loss tip of the day: Over the years you’ve trained your body and mind to eat and crave the food you do, which has got you to the weight you are now. You can retrain your mind and body to eat healthily. It’s like training a dog, it takes a lot of effort, patience, kindness and perseverance. So what is stopping you?
You can train to eat sensibly