Thread: Making the Commitment to your Diet Plan

In order to be a success at any diet you need to make a commitment to your Plan, to get your mind in the right place for you to succeed.

Research has shown that change occurs through a process, through a series of stages.

There is a certain “readiness” to the change process.
Knowing what stage you are in is helpful to create success with any kind of change.

If you attempt to make a change you are not ready for, you are setting yourself up to fail.

If you think about the way you have accomplished change in the past, you don’t just go out and make it happen. You may not be aware of the process, but it is still there.

Here is a brief description of the stages of change (Prochaska, et.al.):

1. Precontemplation – You don’t see that you have a problem. You are in denial. People in this stage have no intention of changing themselves and usually only seek help with strong pressure from others. They resist change and are often demoralized as well because they view the situation as hopeless.

2. Contemplation – You acknowledge that you have a problem and begin to think about solving it, but you feel “stuck”. People with food and weight issues often hang out in this stage. You know you have a problem. You may even know what you need to do to change it, but you are not ready to commit to action.

It is not unusual for people to spend years telling themselves that “someday” they will lose weight.
Fear of failure (or focusing on past failures) can keep you stuck in this stage for a very long time. It can look like searching for the perfect solution and reading lots of diet books, but not actually doing anything about it.

3. Preparation – You are planning to take action within the next month. You start focusing more on the solution than on the problem. You also start thinking more about the future than the past.
You are committed to action, but haven’t necessarily resolved all of the mixed feelings you may have. For instance, losing weight requires letting go of some behaviours that may have provided temporary comfort in the past.

4. Action – You take visible action steps. You may purchase certain foods you plan to eat or remove foods from your home that you plan to avoid. You take the steps you have been preparing for. However, the change process does not end here.

5. Maintenance – You work to maintain the strides you have made in the previous stages. If you don’t have a strong commitment to maintenance and a support structure in place, you can relapse back to a previous stage.

Author Dr Carol Solomon Phd
Diet and Weight Loss - Are You Ready to Lose Weight

The most important point is making that commitment to your Plan.

Make a list of the reasons you want to lose weight. Look at it every day to remind yourself of why you are doing this.

Know that you are not 'depriving' yourself of anything. The thoughts of 'not being able to have x,y,z' is very often what will make people fall off the wagon. Instead, think of it as 'I am CHOOSING' not to have chocolate, beefburgers, biscuits, or whatever, so that I stick to my diet plan and achieve the results that you want.

Do some visualisation - see yourself in your mind's eye looking in a full length mirror as you really truly want to be - see yourself trying on different outfits, see yourself from all angles. This exercise of visualisation really does help with your motivation and your desire to succeed. Do this every day, twice a day preferably, once as soon as you awaken in the morning and again during the day if you feel your resolve is slipping. Look through the internet or catalogues and see an outfit you really like and see yourself in that outfit and looking spectacular.

Wishing you well on your journey.

I think a lot of us get stuck in a cycle of 2-4. We get so gung-ho and do so well...and then we fall off the wagon. And then we decide, again, that we are "really going to do it this time"...and we do well for awhile...and then we're back to cheeseburgers and fountain cokes 3 times a week. It can be so hard to break out of this repetitive cycle and really make a lifestyle out of healthy weigh maintenance.

Originally Posted by TwoPoundsPerWeek

I think a lot of us get stuck in a cycle of 2-4. We get so gung-ho and do so well...and then we fall off the wagon. And then we decide, again, that we are "really going to do it this time"...and we do well for awhile...and then we're back to cheeseburgers and fountain cokes 3 times a week. It can be so hard to break out of this repetitive cycle and really make a lifestyle out of healthy weigh maintenance.

Agreed.

I seem to have been on and off diets since i was 14 and i'm 27 now. I'm not an unintelligent person so i can't understand why i find the basic concepts so difficult? I've always believed i'm just greedy but then i was told by a congnitive behavioural specialist that there's no such things as a greedy person and it's the way your brought up that affects your attitude towards food. For example she told me that some people are made to feel guilty for not eating everything on their plates, etc I have to say that none of those things happened to me when i was growing up so i've reverted back to assuming i'm greedy. Plus i've always had the mind set that once i reach target weight the diet has finished and we all know that's not correct!

This time i'm taking a different approach to the diet. last time i started i only concentrated on getting to my target weight which seemed so far off! This time i've set mini goals of a stone a time to see if that helps.

I hope it works out for you! I agree that our attitiudes towards food are shaped by our upbringing. My mother was CONSTANTLY dieting, and pissing and moaning about her weight and her perceived flaws. I think that really had an effect on me. As a mother myself, I make a conscious effort to never comment on weight or body issues in front of my daughter. And doing that has actually improved my body image, and I very rarely comment on my body in a negative way even when she's not around to hear it. When I talk about eating well, I always make sure to state it that we eat healthfully for our hearts, and our lungs, and our bodies-not to stay thin. It's never about weight in our house.

Yes I agree. I was brought up by a mother who was obsessed with weight and took me to a dietician at the age of twelve when I wasn't hugely overweight (and those dieticians never work). She's now 9 stone and stil constantly weighs herself and frets about every calorie- she's a size 8 for god's sake!!! I think this kind of had a different effect on me, in the way that I didn't want my size to ever have an effect on anything I did. When I tried Lighterlife I remember in one of the meetings the counsellor said that losing weight would help with employment and promotion and i thought 'why the hell should size matter?!' I think having my upbringing made me more ambitious.

However, saying that, I do want to lose weight for my health and for my fitness as well as looking better too. I think it's my attitude that is hindering me and I think I need a kick up the bum or a shock to really make me get into it. It's not like I've only got 1/2 stone to lose, I want to lose 7 stone! Last week I lost 3 pounds and this week I put on 1/2, and this is the way it happens every time- big lost and then the next week I put on because I get complacent.

I need to get my head into gear!