Still Trying To Reach Your Weight Loss Goals?
If you're still slowly working your way toward your diet and weight loss goal like I am, maybe it's time to pause and evaluate your progress.
In one of my recent articles 5 Diet Health And Fitness Questions I took a close look at some of the reasons for my overeating and I asked myself five very important questions that needed to be answered if I were to successfully achieve my weight loss goal.
Why Do You Overeat?
One of the questions that I asked myself was why do you overeat?
After pondering this question for a few moments I came up with a few typical answers such as hunger, loneliness, boredom and stress and I left it at that.
As time went on and my weight continued to fluctuate up and down, I began to examine my eating habits again and tried to see if perhaps I was missing something.
Diet History and Culture
I began to think back on my childhood and what my eating habits were like then. During the process of going back down Memory Lane I realized that the cultural habits associated with food were still impacting my current behaviors.
Eat Everything On Your Plate
I had three younger brothers growing up and my Mom and Dad both worked. So every day my Mom would come home after a long day at work and head to the kitchen to make dinner for the five men in her life.
My Mom is a very good cook and I still have very fond memories of the wonderful smells that came from that kitchen.
Mom and Dad worked hard to provide for us and as you can imagine, we did not waste food!
That was the rule in our house and every other house that we visited.
That was the rule in our house and every other house that we visited.
Eat Up And Become A Big, Strong Man
My Dad was a kind and strong man and I really admired and looked up to him.
Like a lot of little boys I wanted to grow up to be just like my Dad. And the only way to do that was to eat everything on my plate.
So yes, in an effort to achieve that goal of growing up to be big and strong, I consistently cleaned my plate.
People In This World Are Starving
"Don't you know there are people in this world who don't have anything to eat and are starving to death?"
This was a common phrase that was heard often during my childhood but one that was never used by my parents because we knew that our goal was to eat everything that was on our plates whether we liked it or not.
I can recall brothers and cousins who were more selective eaters sitting at the table alone after everyone else had finished, staring at large amounts of food on their plates and trying to figure out how they were going to eat it all.
There were times when some of them actually fell asleep at the table!
Mothers Expressed Love Through Food
Mothers, Grandmothers, Aunts and others in our family and community took great pride in their cooking.
During times when there was perhaps not much else to give, they could always express their love of family through wonderful home cooked meals.
These creative women could make excellent meals with little to nothing to start with.
Not eating was disrespectful and asking for seconds was often viewed as a compliment to the woman of the house who had spent long hours preparing the meal.
After each meal we always told the preparer how good it was and how much we enjoyed it.
I never changed my eating habits. It sounds simple now and we hear it time and time again but we can't always continue to do the things that we always done and expect to achieve positive results.
Like or not, sometimes we have to change.
Understand Why
Understanding how many of my eating habits growing up are impacting my diet has given me a new perspective that will help me make the necessary adjustments to reach my goal.
So far I've lost 20 pounds in five months.
Progress is slow but old habits die hard.
Progress is slow but old habits die hard.
I would say best of luck with your diet but luck has nothing to do with it.
Maybe it's time to take a good look at why you overeat, perhaps therein lies the secret to helping you achieve your weight loss goals.
Maybe it's time to take a good look at why you overeat, perhaps therein lies the secret to helping you achieve your weight loss goals.
It's time to lose weight so let's get busy!
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