Non-obvious reasons for excess weight and habits that will help you lose weight

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Larisa Parfentieva, author of the bestselling book 100 Ways to Change Your Life, talks about the non-obvious things that helped her lose 30 kilograms.

Five years ago, I rode in the Moscow metro and held on to the handrail. Suddenly in front of the sitting grandmother got up from her seat and said: “Sit down, girl. You are still expecting a baby."

Of course, I was not expecting any baby. That baby in me was … fat. I didn't want to disappoint my grandmother, so I, holding my imaginary child, sat down in her place. All the way I smiled absurdly, showing my grandmother how happy I am to be a mother … or rather, a carrier of 30 extra pounds.:)

This incident became a turning point in life. After this story, I quit a prestigious job in Moscow, returned to my hometown - Ufa - and began to understand myself. There I ended up at the MYTH publishing house, lost 30 kilograms, began to write, spoke at TEDx, began to help people change. And it all turned my life upside down. I wrote a dilogy "100 Ways to Change Your Life", in which I talk about people who managed to turn their lives 180 degrees.

I have been studying the history of human change for several years. And the biggest revelation was this thought: more often than not, we do not see the real causes of our problems.

And today I want to share with you my ideas about why people get fat and how to deal with it.

First, let's define the concepts. We will conditionally divide the reasons for excess weight into psychological and physiological. For example, we will consider physiological a lack of physical activity, unhealthy diet, health problems, violation of the daily routine, and so on.

I am not a doctor, so I will not dwell on the physiological reasons. After all, we all know that we need to drink enough water, get enough sleep, eat more vegetables and less sweet and starchy foods. All this is clear and correct.

But it is much more interesting to look into the underappreciated psychological causes. The main reason is one - stress, which leads to overeating, caused by various things. I want to share with you the techniques that helped me lose weight, as well as life hacks from my friends and acquaintances.

Get rid of grudges

In the second part of "100 Ways to Change Your Life," I wrote about a guy who got over stage 4 lymphatic cancer. The main mechanism that launched irreversible processes, he calls … resentment.

Resentment generally triggers many unpleasant mechanisms. They also become one of the hidden causes of excess weight. I also had a girl friend who, after forgiving her mother, lost 10 kilograms. When we forgive someone, we release a tremendous amount of energy and release a lot of stress.

And if there is no stress, there is no "overeating" either.

Maintain deep relationships

When I worked on the project "Top Model in Russian" with Ksenia Sobchak, my work consisted of constant moving: dozens of cities in Russia and around the world.

This went on for more than one year. I had a weakened relationship with friends and, of course, had no personal life.

As a psychologist later told me, the lack of deep relationships with people becomes a stress factor, which can lead to excess weight. As soon as I returned to Ufa and settled in one place, a strong relationship appeared in my life, anxiety, stress and partly weight went away.

Take a closer look at your surroundings

I like to say that obesity is an infectious disease. What do your friends look like? Let me give you an example from a study. Scientists tried to establish whether the study participants got fat if their friends were gaining weight. It turned out that this probability increased by 57% if it was just about friends. When a close friend got fat, the likelihood that his friend would follow suit rose by 171%.

One of the reasons for your excess weight may be that you are simply copying the eating behavior of your friends.

Slow food

We live at high speeds. The world dictates such rules, so most of us are fast enough. I would even say fussy: we walk fast, eat fast, speak fast. We are constantly in a hurry because we are driven by imaginary deadlines, and we are always afraid of missing something.

One day I noticed how long it took me to eat Greek salad. It turned out 2 minutes. It could not be called food - it was more like stuffing the stomach. And for the first time I decided to set myself a task - to stretch the salad for 10 minutes. It was difficult, but I did it.

When you eat slowly, you feel full faster and eat less. Try to slow down. Set a timer if needed. You'll like it.

Mindfulness while eating

We all know what to eat without gadgets and laptops, but for some reason we ignore this rule. At such moments, I always remember the spiritual leader Tit Nat Khan, who says that anything can become meditation: walking, washing dishes, talking, eating.

The main thing is to focus on what you are doing 100%. Apparently, our grandparents, who said "When I eat, I am deaf and dumb," learned real Zen.

Hara hachi boo

The Japanese island of Okinawa is considered a "blue zone": there are a lot of centenarians on it - those who have lived 110 years or more. The inhabitants of the island say the old saying before eating: "Hara hachi bu". It means the following: "Eat until the feeling of hunger begins to disappear." And this happens when the stomach is 80% full. Simply put, you need to get up from the table slightly hungry.

For a long time, I even wanted to get a tattoo on my arm with these words as a reminder. And now I always adhere to this rule - to get up from the table with a feeling of slight "under-catch".

Add emotion

We are human beings and we want to experience emotions. We overeat when we lack positive emotions. I think the way out is to get emotions outside of food. For example, in art: books, films, paintings, photographs.

A friend of mine found solace in films: she lost a lot of weight when she started going to the movies twice a week. “Oddly enough, after the films, I do not want to eat. It’s as if the body is saturated with different emotions and my nervous system calms down,”she says. In general, our brain in many cases does not know how to distinguish reality from fiction, so it is quite possible that it counts the emotions experienced in the cinema as real.

So add pleasant emotions to your life.

Calm the inner storm

We are often "stormy" because of problems in relationships with our halves, and especially - potential halves. At such moments, we experience a whole range of experiences: anger, pain, hatred, self-dislike and passion. In short, suffering of all stripes. Earlier, at such moments, I found myself eating tiramisu or "Red Velvet".

Now I have learned to calm myself. It's important to stop, sit in a quiet place and just watch. For example, I imagine myself as a ship caught in a storm. The storm is my emotion. But at the same time, I know for sure that nothing will happen to the ship. You just need to wait out the bad weather.

So do not rush to seize the inner storm. Just enjoy its beauty.

Express yourself

When there is energy inside that cannot find a way out, this is also stress.

When we know that we can do more, but in reality this does not manifest itself in any way, we begin to eat. At an unloved job, like on a pack of cigarettes, you need to write: “Caution! Unfulfillment leads to obesity."

For example, I get fat when I don't write because that's my way of expressing myself. I was so carried away by the process of writing the "100 Ways to Change Your Life" dilogy that by the end of the process I came up with the minimum weight for myself.

Ray Bradbury said coolly about creativity: “During my travels, I realized that if I don't write one day, I feel uncomfortable. Two days - and I start to shake. Three - and I'm close to insanity. Four - and it cries me like a pig with diarrhea. One hour at the typewriter invigorates instantly. I'm on my feet. I run in circles as if I was on the run and loudly demand clean socks."

Alcohol-free

It also helped a lot that I gave up alcohol altogether. I think this is one of the best decisions in life. Alcohol makes you eat more, takes energy, time, money and ruins the next day. According to my feelings, 5-7 kilograms went away only because I stopped drinking high-calorie alcohol in the evenings. In addition, then, as you know, very (I will say in plain language) "hits the havchik".

I am absolutely sure that alcohol is also an attempt to either cope with stress or drown out the inner emptiness. Or both.

Rejection therapy

Many of us lose the fight against being overweight because we don't know how to refuse. I don’t know why people start using the “force-feed” program, but this is just like a national game. It is important to learn to refuse when they try to shove another piece of sushi or another slice of pizza into you.

It is best to start out with a strategy for yourself. A good “stuck record” strategy is when you repeat the refusal before you go down: “Thank you, but I don’t want to”, “Yes, it’s probably delicious, but I don’t want to”, “It's great that you care about me eating, but I dont want . And so on until they leave you alone.

If … then plan

Many alcohol addicts are advised to always have an “If… then” plan on hand. For example: "If during a walk I see a bar on my side of the street, then I will cross to the other side." I also made similar installations for myself: “If I come to a cafe and there is not what I want to eat, then I go to another cafe” or “If I order a salad in a cafe and I am additionally offered dessert, then I say“no” ". And no compromises.

It may sound strange, but the brain finds it easier to navigate when it has a clear checklist.

Overeating calendar

Often we overeat and do not remember how bad it happens to us after that. Some of my friends have nightmares if they gorge themselves at night. Does that happen to you? At some time, an overeating calendar that I came up with for myself helped me. After each incident of overeating, I wrote down in it: “In the cafe I ate fettuccine and soup, and then drank coffee and cake. I felt disgusting. Next time, if you want to eat dessert, wait at least an hour."

The overeating calendar showed me that I make the same eating mistakes every time. And soon they stopped repeating themselves.

Mini habits

I also love the idea of mini habits. If you can't, for example, start doing exercises in the morning, then start with one small action: start doing one squat, one push-up, one abs. Or tell yourself: "I will do morning exercises for 2 minutes." Start with a small action and then get involved.

What is described above, plus, of course, "physiological" things helped me lose weight by almost 30 kilograms. To briefly list the rules that I adhere to now, these are: walking a lot (at least 5 kilometers a day), dancing twice a week, drinking 2.5 liters of water daily, eating more vegetables, not eating 4 hours before bedtime; flour and sweet - in moderation. I also went to an endocrinologist, did several different blood tests, as well as an ultrasound scan.

In general, this article is not about weight at all, but about how important it is to enjoy life, realize yourself, learn to say "no" and not be exposed to unnecessary stress. As the famous joke goes, "If you can't relieve stress, don't wear it."

And even more stories of change in my new book 100 Ways to Change Your Life. Part two.