People who couldn’t manage to lose their weight in spite of their consistent diet plan routine and fitness regimen and struggle hard for avoiding junk foods or sugary drinks temptations, the only solution that is best for them is a defensive eating pattern.
For some of you this might be a new concept or even if you have heard about it somewhere then still might not have a clear idea regarding this. A defensive eating pattern is a newly invented concept that teaches you a new skill to cope up your cravings defensively and staying stick with your fitness regimen effortlessly. In one simple term, we can say that defensive eating can avoid weight gain.
Excessive body weight or getting an obese is becoming the most devastating health problem that is spreading like an epidemic worldwide. However, the worst part of this physical health concern is that its negative impact is not limited to your undesirable external appearance only but it also leads to developing many chronic health concerns if persists for a longer duration.
Some common health concerns associated with excessive weight gain issue include hypertension, high cholesterol level, cardiovascular diseases, type 2 diabetes, etc. These are primary major health problems and are life-threatening too.
So to avoid all these major health problems it is quite essential to relieving its root cause which is nothing but your excess body weight. While thinking about losing weight the first two suggestions that pop up in everyone’s mind is a hardcore dieting and workout routine.
However, in reality, these two dedicated efforts don’t bring and a noticeable reduction in the existing weight pattern for everyone. Yes, it works to some extent but not everyone is so blessed that they could achieve their desired level bodyweight just within a few months with the help of their full-fledged effort in this regard.
This calls the necessity of a defensive eating style. Some people consider this particular concept as the crash diet and rigorous workout regimen which is not true. In fact, it teaches you to change your thinking pattern in such a way that it can well reflect in your overall lifestyle leading to indirect effort for the weight loss.
Defensive eating habit helps you to incorporate new attitude in your lifestyle that includes a well-designed diet routine and exercise regimen that will keep you on track and also will help in avoiding unhealthy diet habit and lifestyle without much effort.
This particularly consists of a flexible low-fat diet eating pattern that will vary upon your daily physical activity level and accordingly it will change to ensure that you are consuming less calorie than you burn in a day.
Also, it takes care of your healthy diet balance so that your body could get enough amount of nutritious food without overeating by eliminating your frequent cravings by focusing on the quality of your meal, not the quantity. In simple term, it establishes a balance between your cravings and healthful nutritious diet.
In this way, it simply takes you to the path of a healthy lifestyle without preventing your bad temptations nor it forces you to count or keep a record of your daily calorie intake. Means you can live your life effortlessly like a normal weight person even without putting more weight rather, the weight loss process runs underneath for doing its targeted job.
In fact, you can maintain this pattern throughout your life to keep you healthy, along with managing a good amount of body weight for the lifetime. One example will clear you better what this defensive eating is actually about.
Like when we eat something to fill our stomach we often end up eating more than the actual requirement of our physical body because it takes at least 30 minutes time to get the signal to your brain that you are already full.
So in the meantime whatever you have eaten that started getting accumulated in the form of body fat leading to persistent weight gain problem. Herein lies the importance or role of a defensive eating pattern.
As per this particular concept, a person should stop eating before waiting for the signal of fullness. And this can be done if you stop eating before your plate is fully clean or clear. Wait for 10 minutes time if then your stomach craves for eating again then you can eat again and consider that your stomach was not full that time, and you are actually hungry.
Otherwise, if you don get any such urge after 10 minutes then it will be your accurate decision that you stopped eating before full clearance of your plate. Also, the possibility exists that foods that you left half-eaten would not feel so appealing after this waiting time as it could be just after your last bite.
This trick works amazingly especially for sweet dishes or desserts which is the favorite dish of every other individual and a major cause of faster weight gain problem.
Some common defensive eating tricks that can help you to incorporate this healthy eating pattern in your daily lifestyle for avoiding weight gain are enlisted below.
7 Popular Defensive Eating Tricks
Avoid Keeping Foods Within Your Arm Reach
One easy idea for reducing your portion size is to keep the meals far from your arm’s reach. This trick really works and helps in reducing overeating habit in people. For example, instead of serving meals container on the dining table you can create a rule for you as well as for other family members too, for filling plate directly from the kitchen cookware.
In this way whenever your stomach will urge for the second or third serving need you can easily avoid when you will not get the needed meal within your arm’s reach. This is the reason it is considered as an effective part of a defensive eating pattern.
No one wants to make an extra effort while eating so obviously to avoid such effort for getting the next serving you will eat what is available in your plate only and the pattern of overeating will gradually reduce with time.
Also with time, your portion limit will automatically reduce to the lower size and in future even though you will find meals within your easy reach you won’t get an urge to eat more than your portion size.
Apart from this, another reason of effectiveness of this particular defensive eating trick is that it takes at least 30 minutes to develop the feeling of satiety in the stomach which further pass this message to your brains.
So it is obvious that your stomach is already full with your first portion size or serving but as you have not received such message from your brain that doesn’t mean that you will keep on eating.
Avoid The Consumption of Soda
It is simply impossible to imagine any party or get together event without a drink and the sad reality is that most of these drinks are either flavored or non-flavored sodas which are simply unhealthy with regard to your weight loss goal.
Especially when you go in a buffet party then there is no limit of your soda intake which is very obvious as well as no one can deny their favorite drink when they can get it without any limitation.
These are some common events which cause difficulty to stick with your healthy diet routine for the weight loss leading to speedy weight gain as soda contains very high-calorie value a major factor for the rapid weight gain.
Also, these beverages are loaded with an excess amount of sugar which is neither good for your diet pan nor it is good for your overall body health. So it is very essential to replace these beverages with some healthy nutritious drink options like fruit juices, plain lime water juices, unsweetened ice tea, etc which are also quite good by taste and also benefit you by promoting easy weight loss.
Stick with A Small Portion Size
One common reason why people fails to stick with the small portion size is their temptation for foods that looks and smells so tempting to avoid and also their delicious taste that someone cant’ resist themselves from eating.
However, in this particular situation, defensive eating can save you from overeating in spite of all these temptations that gives you several reasons to eat more or in more precise term overeat.
You can divide your overall one day meal into small-small portions throughout the day. Use small size plates and bowls so that it could contain only a very small portion that cannot affect your diet routine without stressing your hunger desire.
In the long run, you will find that you are habituated of eating a small portion of the meal and without any difficulty, you follow that small potion eating pattern even when you eat in a larger sized plate or get any tempted food in the table either in your house or during a party.
Also, some other defensive tricks that you include to stick to a small portion is like you can stand while eating as in this particular position you will feel difficulty in reserving yourself to avoid the long time standing effect or stress on your body.
Start Saying NO When Requires
One of the common reason behind overeating habit especially in parties or any house event that we face difficulty in say no others when their force us to eat more and more with a belief that it can hurt the sentiments of our dear ones.
However, this issue can be well managed through the defensive eating pattern. You have to learn the skill of saying NO whenever it is needed. Yes, you do not need to be rude for that.
Be very polite by your posture and your words, surely the person who is compelling you for taking next serving will understand your feelings and will not urge you anymore without getting offended.
Skip Sauces
Sauces are the common weakness of every other food lover and it is the most common stocked food item in our houses which are absolutely unhealthy for you especially if you want to lose your weight. However, it is very difficult to resist its consumption when it is kept at most easily reachable or visible place that is a refrigerator.
Whenever you will open your refrigerator your body will crave to eat it especially during the snacks hour of a day as sauces and dips are the normal part of snacks. As sauces fit perfect with every meal of the day be it breakfast, lunch or snacks time so it’s quite difficult to avoid them
However, curbing your sauces desire is very important in order to incorporate a healthy lifestyle routine because all packaged or preserved sauces contain high-calorie values. In this regard, the defensive eating pattern can help you to control your longings for such an unhealthy diet source.
By avoiding your daily sauces intake you can easily reduce your daily 100 or even more than 100 calories intake very easily. So start avoiding sauces and dips to incorporate a defensive eating pattern in your life.
Avoid Eating according to Your Mood Pattern
One very common reason for food-induced weight gain issue is that often people tend to eat as per their current mood. Like it is your mood that triggers your hunger level leading to mindless eating that simply cause you excessive eating.
Eating as per your mood variations lead you to eat more even though your stomach is already full. Also mostly this type of craving is not a call of your body but it just a call of your mind which find temporary relief or relieve its present discomfort situation such as stress, depression, anger, fear, loneliness, etc by indulging in eating.
Also, sometimes people give themselves reward for their short term achievements or to cherish special day of their life with a sweet treat which is obviously neither healthy for the physical health nor it is good for your weight loss goal.
So consider this thumb rule as an important part of your defensive eating habit for avoiding weight gain, that you will never listen to your mind’s craving for food until it is actually your physical body needs or crave for eating.
Incorporate a Healthy Lifestyle
Defensive eating is a pattern that emphasizes to incorporate a healthy lifestyle including healthy food choices and avoiding the temptation and triggers for all unhealthy foods. However, this doesn’t mean that every time you need to count your calorie intake of a day or think about losing weight.
You can live your life normally just you need to train your mind so that it can easily develop a strict pattern that can keep you on track in your day to day life. Also, try to develop some defensive thoughts whenever someone offers you certain snacks or meals that don’t fit perfectly in your new healthy lifestyle pattern.
For example, you can recall your ultimate goal, think about your health effects out of unhealthy eating or think about your dear ones who will equally suffer if you remain unhealthy. This way you will find that your life gets simpler and healthier and you can easily get adapted to this new defensive eating pattern in your life.
Remember nothing can give you result just within a week or a month. It takes time to get permanent and long term fruitful changes in your life which are equally applicable for the concept that says defensive eating can avoid weight gain. So be very positive and consistent while following the above mentioned defensive eating techniques to lose your weight and keeping it off permanently.
[expand title=”View Article Sources“]
- https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/life-style/health-fitness/diet/Defensive-eating-is-the-new-diet-attitude/articleshow/51355273.cms
- https://www.raptitude.com/2009/09/defensive-eating-raptitude-experiment-no-4/
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