Three Easy Attitude Adjustments to Help You Lose Weight

Most of us have to keep plugging away on a program of healthier eating while battling life's pitfalls and problems. Here are three effective attitude changes that will help you lose weight and make enough sense to stay with you through aggravations, anxieties and despair. They aren't based on optimistic happy talk; they simply make sense, and once you come to believe them, your self destructive eating habits can change.

First: Ask yourself, how dumb do the food companies think I am?

Big corporations spend millions creating your cravings and convincing you that those desires are your own. Magazines, TV ads, and grocery store displays tell you the spicy nacho taste is great, the creamy vanilla center will melt on your taste buds. Walk down the grocery store aisle and look at the label pictures. Don't you want those foods right now?

That's how you've been programmed and manipulated, but are you that easy to control? What are they really trying to shove into your trusting mouth? Probably a bunch of chemicals from a belching factory in New Jersey. Disodium phosphate, MSG, disodium inosinate, red 40 lake coloring. What is this stuff? It's not food, it's a collection of chemicals trying to trick your tongue and mind. Are you going to be a sucker for that kind of manipulation? Are you so easily led that you'll sacrifice your health to eat a fake concoction dreamed up by a company that exists to exploit you and get your grocery money? Don't be scammed by junk food!

Make up your own mind about what you crave. When your mind begins to wander to that "hmmm-what-do-I-want" place, think of the exquisite taste of real food: icy crisp watermelon, a steamy baked potato or fragrant tomato sauce. In the long run, you will consume fewer empty calories and lose weight. Sneer at the nacho chips and the fake cake. Roll your eyes at the high fructose corn syrup and say, "Ha, AS IF... How gullible do you think I am?"

Second: Put down the ten pound bag.

Whether you want to lose ten pounds or two hundred, go to the pet products aisle and pick up a ten pound bag of cat litter. How long do you want to carry it? If you are young, healthy and in fairly good shape, carrying the bag would be a minor inconvenience, at least at first. If you are older, very overweight or have arthritis, it becomes a burden very quickly.

Now think about carrying it with you 24 hours a day, up the stairs, weighing you down while you rake leaves, tied to you when you roll over in bed. It gets to be a big drag quickly. Keep that image in your head when you decide to eat the wrong foods. We get so used to trudging around, carrying those extra pounds that we forget how good it would feel to be rid of them, and this experience is a graphic way to show yourself the difference.

Maybe, in reality, many of those bags are burdening your body, but getting free of that first ten pound bag is a doable goal, and wouldn't it feel great to put it down? Utilizing this thought is similar to the educational experience where teenagers are asked to carry baby dolls around with them for a period of time, baby dolls that cry, wet and exhibit all the demands of real children. Before long, most teens decide babies aren't as much fun as they once thought. The reality of an extra ten pounds of fat isn't much fun either, but you can put down that bag within a few weeks if you focus on this small weight loss goal.

Third: Do you want three problems or four?

All struggling dieters have probably put forth the same argument at one time or another: I deserve some (insert indulgent food) because, poor me, my boyfriend treats me badly, I hate my job and I'm broke. So would you be happier if you had a bad boyfriend, lousy job, no money and type II diabetes?

Credit for this attitude adjustment really should go to some Alcoholics Anonymous members I knew years ago. They stayed sober by reminding themselves that if you have three problems and take a drink, then you have four problems. Making life worse doesn't remove the obstacles that are making you unhappy now. Eating cheesecake won't fix your car's transmission or make your teenage daughter study harder. Is it better to be a healthy person with a broken transmission or an overweight person with a broken transmission?

Losing weight will never be easy or simple, but we all have the power to make the best use of our minds and retrain our attitudes to reach important goals. Try these steps.