Here at Simple Natural Weight Loss, we encourage you to make healthy choices every day. We don’t think you can lose weight simply by exerting your will. We found this article on the Calgary Herald website, and it discusses how the brain controls eating behavior:

“…According to a new study — published in the August 2011 edition of the American Dietetic Association Journal by behavioural and preventive medicine experts at Rush University Medical Center — you should focus on brain power instead of willpower.

Examining the way the brain controls eating behaviour in response to cues in the environment, known as neurobehavioral processes, can help with weight loss.

There are three neurobehavioral processes tied to weight loss and how much we eat:

Food reward…

Inhibitory control…

Time discounting…

If you need to lose weight to improve your health, trying to follow the old rules that rely on willpower to eat less and say no to food cravings likely won’t work…”

Read the full article here: Calgary Herald

The article explains the three neurobehavioral processes in simple language, and how they make it harder to lose weight. They also explain how you can recognize which behavior may be sabotaging your weight loss efforts.

The article then offers a series of useful tips to help you manage these neurobehaviors. Most of them will be familiar to regular readers, such as not keeping junk food snacks on hand; or splitting a large portion in a restaurant, and taking half of it home.

A new tip in the article we really liked was to use a “near-sighted focus”; instead of focusing on the long term goal of losing X number of pounds, focus on something such as how many servings of vegetables did you eat today.

We have written about something similar, we suggested that if you are trying to lose 50 pounds, not to look at losing 50 pounds but to break it into smaller increments. Trying to lose 5 pounds seems more doable than 50; and when you lose 5, you just keep repeating 5 pounds at a time until you reach your goal. Not only does it give you an achievable goal, but you also become more confident every time you lose another 5 pounds.

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