Читать книгу Drop a Size in Two Weeks Flat! plus Collins GEM Calorie Counter Set - Joanna Hall - Страница 13

No matter how ready and willing you are to change your body, there are natural limitations that may influence your success. I call it the “Three M Theory” – your mother, your metabolism, and your motivation.

YOUR MOTHER

The way you were brought up can have a strong influence on your relationship with food later in life. Research from Pennsylvania State University showed that women who are faddy about foods tend to subconsciously pass on their finicky ways to their daughters. If your mother actively encouraged you not to eat certain foods or not to overeat, warning that it would make you fat, you probably label foods as “good” and “bad” without even realizing it. If you ate a lot of sweet and sugary things as you were growing up, and your diet didn’t include a variety of tastes, it is likely that you now crave calorie-dense sweet foods rather than savory ones. Maybe your mother used to say “finish everything on your plate” and you still do. These attitudes have taken a long time to build into habits, and they will take a long time to diminish. This book will help you reevaluate your relationship with food, showing you how to draw up a sensible eating plan that will help you realize your weight and body fat goals, as well as providing a positive health message for your children.

YOUR METABOLISM

Research shows that from your mid-twenties onwards, metabolism begins to decline year on year. It’s a sad fact that if you continue to consume the same number of calories without stepping up energy expenditure, gradual weight gain will result. In addition, there are specific times in life, for example during puberty, when fat cells are prone to get bigger and multiply. If we eat excessively during these times, it is likely that the body fat laid down in the fat cells will pose more of a problem to shift than the weight we gain at other times of our lives. This helps to explain why some friends appear to drop weight effortlessly while our own attempts require a lot more persistence. We are all designed to have fat cells, and they all have an ability to increase and decrease in size as we gain and lose weight. Appreciating this will allow you to approach this plan with a realistic picture of what you can achieve long term.

YOUR MOTIVATION

Consider this: what we weigh in seven years’ time will not be determined by what we do in the next seven hours, seven days or seven weeks but by what we do consistently for the next seven years. So if your initial motivation to take those first steps is to get into a little black dress in 14 days’ time – great! But once you’ve achieved that, use sections two and three to build on your success and make it last. Whatever your initial motivation to start the plan, try to find a way to translate it into a strategy that you can incorporate and build on to achieve your long-term weight and body fat goals. Establishing a strategy and action plan will be crucial, and the results that you’ll see in 14 days will be the driving force to help you do so.