Weight Loss Tips From The Writing Diet by Julia Cameron
In her new book, The Writing Diet, Julia Cameron shares over a dozen weight loss tips. Here are the 10 diet tips I liked best…
In addition to her writing, teaching, artistic, movie and theater credits, Julia Cameron is now a weight loss expert! I have to admit, when I picked up her new book The Writing Diet: Write Yourself Right-Size, I was a little skeptical. Sure, Cameron knows about writing and artistic stuff…but weight loss tips? Come on.
But she did it! I couldn’t believe it, but I really enjoyed The Writing Diet. Cameron offers a bunch of weight loss tips, anecdotes from dieters, and tasks at the end of each chapter. For more info, click on her book cover…and read on for the best of Julia Cameron’s dieting advice and her inspirational ways to lose weight. And don’t worry, you don’t have to be a writer or a Morning Pages fan to slim down and get healthy.
Weight Loss Tips From the Writing Diet by Julia Cameron
1. Know when you eat to please others. Do you overeat at your mom’s or when you’re with your sister-in-law? Be aware of eating to make other people happy - especially your partner. Many women gain weight after getting married or moving in with their partners, because they tend to mimic their partner’s eating habits. According to Cameron in The Writing Diet, if you stop eating to please others, you’ll find it easier to lose weight.
2. Eat clean. “For optimum weight loss, it’s best to eat clean - that is, to shape your diet so that refined sugars, flours, and starches are kept to a minimum,” writes Cameron in The Writing Diet. “Three days off sugar, and you no longer lust after sweets. A piece of fruit will satisfy what used to be a candy-bar craving.” Eating clean is a new way to lose weight that’s becoming more and more popular.
3. Open your “Pandora’s Box of Emotions” and express your forbidden feelings in healthy ways (not by binge eating). Write out your feelings to help you identify why you’re eating. Are you sad because of your brother? Are you stressed because of work? Writing - especially while you’re eating - can help you identify and deal with your feelings. Cameron recommends it as a great way to lose weight.
4. Let go of “quick weight loss” advertisements. “What we are after is the permanent shift in lifestyle, not the quick fix of an extreme diet,” says Cameron. “If we lower our consumption by 250 calories a day and raise our exercise by 250 calories a day, that’s a moderate shift that results in a pound’s loss weekly.” A pound a week may seem slow - but it’s a diet tip that will lead to permanent weight loss.
5. Know your trigger foods. Do you love fat, salt, sugar, crunchy, soft, bitter, or warm? Some foods trigger an eating binge. Knowing what to avoid or control can lead to greater weight loss and more self-confidence, too. According to Cameron in The Writing Diet, knowing and avoiding the situations that lead to emotional eating is a great way to lose weight.
6. Live one day at a time. It’s not a sexy, glamorous weight loss tip - but it works. Take one meal, one afternoon, one day at a time. Eat well for today. Exercise for today. Sweat a little and move your body - just for today. (All those todays add up to a lifetime, which is what makes this a great way to lose weight).
7. Scale back on the scale. “Freed from the tyranny of numbers, we begin instead to focus on ourselves and our own perceptions,” says Cameron in The Writing Diet. “When we release ourselves from the daily use of the scale, we find ourselves able to embrace a more “easy does it” approach to weight loss. We begin to see that as long as we are moving in the right direction, the speed at which we reach our destination matters less.” A smart way to lose weight is to let go of your fixation about your weight.
8. Drink 3 glasses of water to overcome temptation. When you’re tempted to tear into that bag of Lay’s or Oreo chocolate chip cookies, drink three glasses of water first. Don’t deny yourself the potato chips or cookies; just drink the water first. Likely, you’ll wash away the craving…this is my favorite weight loss tip. I haven’t actually tried it yet, but it resonates with me. Water does fill you up and make you less likely to eat “bad” foods.
9. Look at your diet relapses. “For many of us, a diet is an exercise in futility and self-flagellation,” writes Cameron in The Writing Diet. “We set a plan in motion and then we sabotage it. We take a step toward our goal and then we relapse. We undo the good we’ve done.” Figure out why you sabotage your weight loss efforts. Do you relapse at night? What are you favorite relapse foods? Who do you relapse with? Cameron suggests that an effective way to lose weight involves canceling out your relapse with hobbies, exercise, writing, and self-awareness.
10. Learn to let yourself be pretty. “Many of us have to get over a “martyred” mode of dressing. Overweight and oversize, we tend to think of ourselves ad draft horses - good workers but little else,” writes Cameron. “It is a shock to find that we are still sexually appealing. Not all men are attracted to skinny women.” Wear lacy lingerie, and discard your “low self-worth” lingerie. That will create an upward spiral that’ll make it easy for you to lose weight - and keep it off.
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