Changing Your Eating Patterns is the Key to Long-Term Weightloss

Why don't diets work? Diets are usually too extreme to follow. This is because they cut down on way too many calories, which in turn causes your metabolism to slow down too much. Once your brain gets the signal that you are not receiving enough calories, it instantly reverts to "starvation mode" which serves to slow your metabolism and reserve any fat stores that you have.This is why most diets work, initially, then stop working. Consider this instead. While you may wish to lose a lot of weight, this is something that cannot be achieved overnight. You may have put on that extra 30 pounds over the last 10 years or so. What makes you think that you can instantly lose that weight in 2 weeks? It is virtually impossible without liposuction or plastic surgery.Since most of us cannot afford cosmetic surgery, we have to resort to more sensible measures. You should start off by examining what it is that you eat in a day. Do you have any idea how many calories you consume? What you need to do is keep a journal of what you eat. Everything that you eat, no exceptions, should be recorded in that journal. If you find it helpful, you can make notes about how you felt when you ate something or what led up to you eating that certain thing.Sometimes we eat for all the wrong reasons, not because we are hungry, but because we are bored or upset. This is called "emotional" eating. This is one of the most dangerous things that we can do because we are basically seeking comfort from the food that we eat. If we don't find other ways to deal with our emotions, we will find ourselves out of control and it may lead to obesity.If you are keeping a journal, then you can easily see what emotional triggers cause you to eat and what time of the day these triggers tend to occur. Your next step is to deal with the underlying issues of your triggers. Once you have these under control, then it will be easier to deal with your food consumption and to work towards healthier eating habits.The best way to go about changing the way that you eat is to make very small changes, initially, nothing drastic. Cut out certain snacks or late night snacks to begin with, or if you absolutely have to have some sort of snack, make a healthier choice, such as a small plate of vegetables or fruit.