Edited by Doctor Dora Intagliata
In clinical practice it has been found that most of those who wish to lose weight are lost along the way (between one diet and another), due to a lack of information from the dietician.
Learn to be your own psychologist
- During a weight loss diet it is good to learn to evaluate any situation that could put your self-control at risk (for example, go shopping on an empty stomach!). In order not to make such mistakes, it is good to plan useful behavioral strategies in time in the various spurious situations. The most practical strategy is to keep a food diary in which to write down both what you eat, both the emotions felt, and the situations and places where you ate. From an accurate analysis of one's writings, one generally discovers what situations are at risk and how to manage them correctly. In doing so, the diet will be a tool to get in touch with one's deepest "I", as well as a useful tool for well-being!
Don't expect too much of yourself by turning dieting into an obsession.
- Very often novice patients, who start a diet under the professional figure of the dietician, come across the meticulousness of following to the letter everything that is written on the pages given by their dietician; this meticulousness creates in the patient a sense of guilt at the slightest "sgarro".These are patients who meticulously count the calories of the meals to be ingested, the centimeters lost, the slightest movement of the scale hand. All these obsessive attentions soon lead to the boredom of the diet which obviously will be closed in the drawer after a few weeks. In these cases it is good to remind your clients that the DIET is a new lifestyle, where going overboard is normal! On the other hand, the effectiveness of a diet is not compromised by small, occasional deficiencies. So what to do after a cheat? Surely we must not give rise to the feelings of guilt that come out; it is useful to continue as if nothing had happened and above all not to try to compensate for the mistake by fasting or reducing the caloric intake of the following day.
Talk to your dietician about your food tastes
- The first visit to the dietician has an "extraordinary importance as regards the achievement of final positive results. The dietician, in fact, will draw up a personalized diet based on personal tastes, avoiding drastic reductions and excessive deprivation. In fact, removing everything from a diet liking is counterproductive to the final result of the diet itself. If the diet is too rigid, our body and soul completely lose control of the situation, increasing compensatory behaviors ("binges"). So it is useful to discuss with your own dietician about their own food tastes, so that the dietician himself is able to include favorite foods in the diet.This will serve as an additional lesson for clients who will learn to consume their beloved foods too, but in moderation!
Learn to listen to your body
- Our body sends hundreds of signals every day to make us understand what it needs at that moment. For example, the desire to eat salty or sweet foods is frequent, according to the seasons. Being able to pick up and understand these signals is the bet that each person should make with himself in order to start a balanced and healthy lifestyle.
From this short list of tips, it can be seen that the professional figure of the dietician is not limited only to the prescription of diet therapy, but goes further! The dietician must be the healthy carrier of the food principles that allow WELL-BEING. The dietician has the arduous task of teaching his clients to self-manage in front of different situations. As I have already mentioned before, the diet must not be a simple swag of written pages full of dietary tricks and useful advice, but it must be the point of starting a new lifestyle that any person should approach in order to LIVE BETTER.
The diet therefore provides the opportunity to test one's body and mind and to learn a new dimension of EAT.
