Losing Those Last Five Pounds

Losing Those Last Five Pounds. My mother told me a little story the other night. When she first started working in sales, she said, her goal was to 'write a string of pearls' - in her parlance, five weeks in a row of 100 sales or more. Her first two weeks would be great - but that third week was always a killer. Four times in a row she got those two weeks, only to fail on the third week. Every morning she woke up and told herself, "I can write a hundred sales this week." And in the back of her mind, she'd add, "I can never get that third week."

On Thursday of that third week, she was struggling and determined, even though she'd only made 22 sales so far that week. She woke up and told herself, "I can write a hundred this week" - and for the first time, she actually heard what she was saying to herself in the back of her mind. "But I Can Never Get That Third Week". Realizing how she'd been undermining her own attempts at positive mental attitude, she resolved to overcome it. She went out that day and made over 50 sales - and the rest of the week fell into place. Not only that, she went on to write a string of pearls that set a record in her company that has yet to be broken.

What was her secret? And what does it have to do with losing weight? Simply put, your biggest enemy in your quest to lose weight is your own self-doubt and negative thinking. Positive affirmations are a powerful psychological tool that can help you lose weight - but it's just as important to catch your negative thinking and turn it around.

How many times have you caught yourself thinking, "I can never lose those last five pounds."? No matter how positive you believe you're being, no matter how often you congratulate yourself for the great job you're doing, those lingering doubts are sabotaging you.

Overcoming them isn't a magic bullet that will make it all happen -- but at least you won't be fighting your own inner voices when you face those last five pounds - or that piece of cheesecake.

How did my mother do it? She used a sneaky little trick that might be just what you need to get you past those last five pounds. She decided that since she could never get that third week, she'd stop thinking of this as 'that third week'. Instead, she'd just focus on selling what she could today. Setting a new goal for herself relieved her of the pressure and negativity that had been holding her back.

Setting yourself a new goal can freshen your perspective and wipe away all the 'failures' that seem to be holding you back. Forget the 'last five pounds'. From this morning on, think of it as 'only five pounds'. When you only have to lose five pounds, how can you miss?

Strategic Weight Loss

Strategic weight loss. One of the first things that you'll do when you decide to lose weight is to set a goal weight. For most, that goal will be their 'ideal weight', but for many, that 'ideal weight' may be exactly the wrong weight for them to be aiming for.

Years of dieting or being overweight have the physiological effect of moving the body's concept of the 'ideal weight' from what is truly considered ideal. The 'set point' is the weight at which your body naturally feels most comfortable.

If you've been overweight for a very long time, or if you've consistently 'yo-yoed', your body may respond to your initial weight loss by lowering its metabolism because it believes that you are starving to death. This slowing leads to discouraging plateaus that often knock people off their diets entirely, and lead to regaining all or part of the lost weight.

Instead of aiming for an 'ideal weight' that calls for you to lose weight steadily for months or even years, many experts recommend aiming for shorter-term attainable goals. Since the bulk of diet research shows that most dieters lose weight steadily for about 12 weeks, then hit a plateau, that's the number that they suggest you aim for. The strategy that many have found works best for them is one of alternating periods of weight loss and maintenance, each lasting 8-12 weeks.

Choose a realistic amount of weight that you can lose in 8-12 weeks. Figuring that the most reasonable and healthiest weight loss rate is 1-2 pounds per week, 30 pounds in three months is not unreasonable. Diet until you reach that goal, or for 12 weeks, whichever comes first, and then switch to a maintenance diet.

Why switch to a maintenance diet at that point? In part, you're giving yourself a 'breather', a break from more restrictive eating. The other part, though, is that you're re-educating your body and letting it establish a new 'set point'. Once you've maintained your new weight for 8-12 weeks, set another weight loss goal, and move back into weight loss mode. By giving your body a break from 'starvation', you'll have overcome its resistance to losing more weight, and be back to dieting for 'the first two weeks' - the weeks that most people lose weight more rapidly.

You'll also be giving yourself a chance to 'practice' maintaining your new, healthier weight. Researchers have found that more than half of the dieters who take off significant amounts of weight do not maintain that weight loss once they go 'off' their diet. By practicing weight maintenance in stages, you'll be proving to yourself that you CAN do it, and removing a powerful negative psychological block.

This will work with any long-term weight loss diet, no matter the focus. You'll find it much easier to do if you choose a diet that has concrete 'phases', like the South Beach or the Atkins, since the weight loss and maintenance phases are clearly laid out for you to follow. Regardless of the diet you choose, though, by alternating between weight loss phases and maintenance phases, you'll teach yourself and your body how to maintain a healthy weight.