Write Your Way to Fast and Effective Weight Loss
The DIY HCG Diet is a fast and effective weight loss program. Participants generally lose 20 to 30 pounds in 30 to 40 days resulting in serious body reshaping, but sometimes people who’ve done a round or two don’t do well on the next round they attempt. Why? They’ve experienced the diet and KNOW that it works but they subconsciously put it in their back pocket for later. They don’t follow the diet as meticulously as their first round or two, and then it doesn’t work.
If you’re on the protocol, or following any weight loss method for that matter, but are still struggling to stick to the program and shed those excess pounds, try to reinforce your efforts by adding writing to your weight loss regimen. Judging from the findings of a study published recently in the journal Psychological Science, writing about what matters most to you may help in your quest to slim down and weigh less.
Important values and weight loss
The study coauthored by Christine Logel and Geoffrey L. Cohen, of Renison University College and Stanford University respectively, had 45 female undergraduate students as participants. The students, more than half of whom were overweight, were weighed and then given the task of ranking values like family, creativity, relationships, and religion according to how important they were to them. Next, the researchers divided the participants into two groups and asked them to complete a 15-minute writing exercise. One group wrote about the values they ranked most important, while the other group provided possible reasons why values that didn’t mean much to them, would matter to others.
Within one to four months after the exercise, the participants were again weighed by the researchers, who discovered that the students who wrote about the values they considered important had lost weight. Those who were part of the other group, on the other hand, had grown heavier.
Self-integrity and weight loss
Logel attributed the weight loss effect of the writing exercise to the significance of self-integrity. People’s feelings toward themselves affect their actions, Logel explained. According to her, in situations where self-integrity might be at risk, people can hold on to their belief that they are good by reminding themselves about something they consider important. It is her theory that the undergraduates who wrote about the values that were important to them lost weight because the exercise left them feeling good about themselves. Going home feeling that way, they didn’t have to turn to food for comfort. They started what Logel referred to as “a recursive process,” with the students not giving in to the habit of snacking the next day and even the months after.
Though Logel and Cohen’s study does not show proof that the method they used could produce the same results in everybody, numerous other studies have shown that focusing on important values do help people when their positive opinion of themselves is in jeopardy.
So the next time you are feeling low and doubtful of yourself, reach for a pen and a piece of paper or turn on your laptop. Think about your friends, your career, your children, or a hobby you’re particularly good at and start writing. By shifting your attention to things in your life that you like and are proud of, you’re probably not only keeping your hands off that bag of chips or the pint of ice cream in the freezer, you could also be writing your way to a smaller waistline, a healthier body, and a feel-good habit that doesn’t involve unwanted calories.