Wellpower Versus Willpower
News flash! You don't have to have incredible willpower in order to lose weight.
That's good news, isn't it? You don't have to suffer. You don't have to starve.
My Italian secret for maintaining a healthy weight without having to struggle? There are no tricks involved. It's simply a matter of putting a focus on being healthy rather than struggling to lose or maintain a certain weight.
This puts the necessary positive spin on things. The idea of losing weight can sound very dismal. We are programmed to think of it negatively, and that alone can make it difficult. Losing weight is not necessarily fun. But staying healthy is, and one of the things that makes it fun is getting visible results both in how you feel and how you look.
The cornerstone -- what it really boils down to -- is having a healthy love for yourself. Normally we are not taught to love ourselves properly. Mention loving yourself and people will think you are a narcissist or an egotistical person. But the truth is a healthy love for oneself is necessary for being a healthy person.
Many of life's ills come from not loving yourself properly. If you really loved yourself you would never let yourself be in the kind of toxic situation that can drive a person to overeat. You would never allow yourself to stray from health. You wouldn't allow yourself to eat unhealthy food, and you would insist on giving yourself some sort of health-enhancing exercise several times a week.
But this type of attitude and behavior has to be demonstrated to be adopted.
What do we have instead? A culture that places an emphasis on looks without emphasizing the healthy habits that lead to looking good. Not only are we not taught to how to feed ourselves properly, we're not brought up to have a healthy self-regard.
Even our school systems do not support health among young people. I'm shocked when I hear about the kind of food available to students nowadays. I remember good food in cafeterias when I was a child, replete with vegetables. By contrast, my sister not so long ago taught at a school where ketchup was considered the vegetable on the lunch menu. (I think french fries were, also.)
Meanwhile, some schools are cutting back on recess, and in some places, physical education is being eliminated. Is it any wonder we're a nation of couch potatoes?
When people are taught the value of real food, when it's stressed and made available to them, and when they become accustomed to its wholesome goodness, that's what they look for. Then it's not a struggle. Healthy habits become automatic.
So in case no one has taught you this, you'll have to teach yourself. You can by emulating the Italians. They eat three meals a day and put a limit on snacking. They eat a well-balanced diet based on grains and olive oil, fish and legumes, and fruits and vegetables. They eat pasta, but not too much at one sitting. And not with a lot of sauce.
They drink wine with dinner, which helps with digestion. And they walk a lot. (Including after dinner.) That's why obesity is less of a problem in their country than it is in ours.
Place your mind on being like a healthy Italian rather than a diet-crazy American. Instead of thinking you have to lose a certain number of pounds in order to fit into a certain dress size, think in terms of taking care of yourself -- feeding yourself healthy foods like fruits and vegetables on a daily basis and getting enough exercise out in the fresh air.
The focus on wellness rather than willpower makes weight loss an adventure -- a passionate game that you always get to win.