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I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how our thinking, whether positive or negative, affects weight.

Last Friday, I had a rough day and wound up the day feeling down. Guess what? Yep, fell off the diet wagon. Why is it we do that?

I think the negative feelings make it harder to stay on track, because somehow, we start to think that we’re not worth any better. Do you ever say those sorts of things to yourself? Do you postpone taking care of yourself, doing things for yourself, because you aren’t the right weight, haven’t exercised enough, don’t look just right?

That’s not a very constructive way to be, is it? You wouldn’t withhold those things from your husband, your kids, your friends, would you? Would you tell your husband to put off buying new clothes for work until he loses his spare tire? No, but we do it to ourselves all the time.

Then, the vicious cycle begins. You already feel bad about yourself because of your weight, then you start denying yourself things you enjoy until you lose weight, get into those jeans, whatever. So, what’s left? When you get stressed, you turn back to food because you haven’t built in any other “comforts,” have you?

So, here’s my challenge to you (and to me). Find some nice things to do for yourself this week and practice self-comforting that doesn’t involve food. If you need to, write down some reminders.  You deserve to look good and feel good right now, now some day.

Positive Thinking Can Bring Good Health 

Avoid Negative Thinking 

You may have heard that bariatric surgery is being touted as a cure for type 2 diabetes. If you’re diabetic, or know someone who is, you may be taking a harder look at the surgery and whether you should have it.

As many of you already know, my husband is a type 2 diabetic. We’re not considering surgery for him. His doctor hasn’t brought it up as a possibility, but we’re both against surgery unless it’s a last resort. Neither of us are health professionals, but we do have some specific reasons for our decision.

First, I think you have to be careful of the media. Stories tend to get exaggerated, and this may be no exception. Anyway, we all know not to get our health advice from the media (including blogs!) anyway, right?

Second, remember that the REAL benefit isn’t the surgery, it’s the side effect of weight loss. So, it stands to reason that if you can lose weight without the surgery, you get the benefits without the surgery risk. I know… sometimes that’s a lot easier said than done.

I have a prejudice against jumping to surgery. My preference is to try the least invasive, drastic approach first. Surgery is risky (obviously), so it’s something to be considered carefully. Even more of a concern is the fact that doctors still aren’t sure of the long term risks of bariatric surgery.

If you’re considering it, I’d suggest you talk to more than one doctor. Find out what ALL your options are and what the risks are. Nothing is a silver bullet, and decisions like this have to be made carefully. You’ll be asked to make huge lifestyle changes before and after the surgery, so ask yourself if you should try to make those types of changes in order to AVOID the surgery first.

Finally, be sure you find a doctor who is experienced in the surgery. Ask how many your doctor has done and his track record. This isn’t a time to be shy about asking questions.

Here are some links for further reading.

Surgery may cure Diabetes

Bariatric Surgery Risks

and more Bariatric Surgery Risks

Preparation for Weight Loss Surgery 

What to Expect from Bariatric Surgery

Long Term Success Tips

If you’ve been reading this blog for any amount of time, then you know that sticking with an exercise program is really tough for me. With that in mind, I’ve been searching for some motivation, and I think that you might enjoy them as well.

Marc and Angel suggest music and varying your routing will help to keep you motivated. I’d add one more suggestion that I may try — books on CD. I think I’ll try listening to a book only when I’m exercising. Hopefully the desire to finish the book will keep me exercising.

Don talks about building a habit, and I’m in total agreement. Do one very small thing each day and gradually build the habit of exercising.

Finally, Women’s Health and Fitness lists more tips for staying motivated, including finding a way to be accountable.

The Washington Post has an interesting article on diabetes and weight loss.

The gist of the article is that aerobic and resistance training combined is better than doing either aerobic or resistance training alone. In the article, participants did one or the other for 45 minutes, three times a week OR… they did both, each for 45 minutes, three days a week.

Yes, you read that right. The participants who got better results did twice the exercise as the others. It’s not surprising that they got better blood sugar reductions!

What I’d still like to know is whether it’s the combination of aerobic and resistance training that worked, or simply the doubling of exercise time. If they had simply walked twice as long, would that have had the same result?

What is clear, for diabetics and those who might be pre-diabetic is this: Exercise improves blood sugar. So, if you’re diabetic or pre-diabetic, talk to your doctor about what exercise is right for you. Start small, and work your way up gradually.

Building habits Lifehack has a good article with tips on building habits. This is one you’ll want to check out.

Weight Loss is all in your Head. This article talks about how your mental state affects weight loss.

You can hardly have missed the recent discussion about your friends making you fat.

The gist of it is this: Having an obese friend greatly increases your chances for being obese, even more so than having an obese relative or spouse. If one friend begins to gain weight, then there’s a good chance the other will too.  The article above chalks this up to changing norms, that is, as your friends become heavier, that body size seems more normal and acceptable.

I’m not sure I completely buy that.

Sure, if I hang out with heavy people, it seems normal to be heavy. However, I don’t think that explains why I’d gain weight. After all, I have to change my behavior to gain weight. I either eat more, exercise less, or both.  No amount of changing norms will make me gain weight unless I do something different.

I think the correlation between having obese friends and being obese is relatively straightforward. How do you get to be obese? You eat more than you should and exercise less than you should. If you’re hanging out with someone who’s doing that, then what do you think you’re doing? You’re probably doing a bit of the same, aren’t you?

If you’re overweight, like me, think about what you do in your social life. Do you invite friends out for a hike or to go swimming? Or do you meet for dinner and a movie? How about date night? Is it a bike ride or a romantic movie curled up on the couch?

I think this research does illustrate how important it can be to have people around you who support your efforts to lose weight. You don’t need to get new friends, however! Make the healthy changes you need to make in your life and still enjoy your time out with friends. Maybe you can be the catalyst to start everyone off making healthier choices.

These tips may not be specifically related to weight loss, but I believe that mastering even a few of them can do wonders for your outlook and mental health. Since I believe that for many, including me, eating is a form of self-medicating, these can actually help you achieve and maintain a healthy lifestyle.

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You probably know that losing weight can make you feel better about your body, which can help you enjoy sex more. Luckily, having sex can also help you lose weight. Talk about a lucky coincidence!

Fast facts about sex and weight loss.

• Be active during sex for a good cardiovascular workout
• Try different positions to work different muscles
• Sex can help keep a woman’s pelvic muscles in shape, and prevent incontinence later in life
• Sex can help prevent prostate trouble in men later in life
• Losing weight can help you feel better about your body
• Losing weight can make a man’s penis appear larger, some say as much as one inch for every 30 pounds lost

So, tell you spouse that you need to do more exercise, and get busy!
More reading

Better Sex: What’s weight got to do with it

Get Sexual for Ultimate Weight Loss 

Don’t get me wrong, it’s great that more people have their blood sugar under control. However, think about this for a minute, even with the improvement, still over half of diabetics DON’T.

Given the profound effect diabetes can have, that’s a pretty scary statistic, don’t you think?

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Dr. Weil has an interesting article today. Two things jumped out at me as being of particular concern: the amount of junk food we eat and the higher number of calories we consume.

One third of Americans get 47 percent of their calories from junk foods.

That’s amazing. Almost half of calories from food with very little or no nutritional value. No wonder so many of us are overweight.

As you know, I’ve been trying to eat healthy for a while, and I’ve noticed more and more how difficult it is to shop and avoid food that’s mostly junk. It’s not just the typical culprits either like candy, chips, cookies and so on. Walk up and down the aisles of your grocery store. Most of what we eat is heavily processed and packed with lots of simple starches, which aren’t much better than junk food really. From the white flour in your crackers to the sugar and salt in your soup, it’s tough to find food that’s really good for you.

To make matters worse, many foods that are touted as being healthy are really no more than junk food in disguise. I know many people eat protein bars, breakfast bars, granola, etc., thinking that they’re making a healthy choice. In many cases, these products are high in sugar and refined carbohydrates and low in fiber, not exactly what you were looking for, is it?

The average American is eating 300 more calories each day than he or she did in 1985. Added sweeteners account for 23 percent of those additional calories; added fats, 24 percent.

I worked with a woman a few years ago who would eat an entire PACK of fat free cookies for breakfast, and she couldn’t understand why she had trouble losing weight. This was during the low-fat craze; I remember reading and hearing the claim that only fat turned into fat. You could eat all you wanted of everything else as long as you avoided fat.

The problem is, fat free foods often have as many or more calories as their fatty counterparts. Manufacturers have to do SOMETHING to improve the taste, so often they add extra sugars to make up for it. That doesn’t sound like a wise trade-off, does it?

I don’t believe that there’s any “bad” category of food. The key is eating in moderation. I guess that’s too simple to ever make it as a fad.

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