Role Of Self Control In Dieting

Introduction And Background

Losing weight has become more of a war than an achievement for some. A constant war is being battled because the obesity rate is increasing per day. Gym memberships are increasing as well as the diet food available in the market but it doesn’t seem to be making a difference. Out of the ten people who start dieting, only four manage to lose weight and even out of those four only two would manage to achieve the goal weight they had wanted all along. Why is this so? Why do diets often end up failing? Is there something wrong in the diet or is there something wrong with you?

Self Control Above Everything Else
Self control is the reason why most diets fail. And this is because of you, not the diet. Of course, there are chances that the diet you have chosen is not exactly ideal for your metabolism or age and it doesn’t seem to work but about eighty percent of the time it is your inability to control yourself which leads to its failure. I know about six friends who started dieting together. Only one managed to lose weight because the other five would crumble at the slightest look at a giant soda or a burger. They would exercise and maintain the regulations of the diet but these slips in between are not good for losing weight. Self control plays a huge role in dieting.

How To Exercise Self Control?
Exercising self control is not that easy. Of course, nothing in this world that is worth having comes easy. But you have to understand that the first few days will be a bit painful. You will be eating way less than you usually do and that can lead to hunger pangs and even mild headaches which are more psychological than they are harmful. Now, to exercise self control, you have to know the technique behind it.

• Stop thinking about food. Usually, people go crazy while dieting because they cannot stop thinking about the one food they like be it fries or even shrimps. They want it and pretty soon, they end up having it. The thing to do here is, keep yourself busy. Stop thinking about food. Try watching a movie or even talking to someone in your free time. Do not sit idle because that tends to lead to ruining the diet.
• You should drink a lot of water while dieting. This way, your stomach is almost always full and the food you eat will also make you content because your stomach is already half full when you’re having it and your appetite will lessen this way.
• Most people miss munching on something. If this is the case for you, you can either get some crackers for yourself which do not have many calories and eat it when you feel the need to munch. This helps you from eating something large and juicy which would probably have a lot of calories. And it also helps your metabolism to work faster as starvation can slow down the metabolism.
• You can drink green tea. It is more known for working up the metabolism than reducing the appetite but that does not mean it does not do the latter. Green tea is a good appetite suppressant but the thing that most people do is have it after a meal to enhance digestion. Try having it before a meal too.

Other Ways Of Self Control
All the above methods were the natural methods. But if you cannot seem to do it the natural way, here are a few ways you can control your appetite:

• Appetite suppressants are available as an over the counter drug. If you seem to be having problems controlling your appetite, this is a way you can achieve self control. There are also herbal appetite suppressants available which can enable you to reduce the appetite. They are not that expensive and they do not have any side effects. You don’t need to worry about it.
• There are some diets which can help you to lessen the appetite. For instance, the HCG drops in the HCG diet have a hormone which can help you to be content with what you eat. The diet itself has a very limited amount of food but the drops are there to help you get along with it. The mechanism of the diet is very different but it does come amongst one of the self control diets.

Conclusion
Self control, as you can see, plays a very important role. It can make or break your diet. Without self control, you will probably remain at the same weight as you are in the start of the diet. Only by working hard and exercising self control can you lose weight.