Olga Vladimirovna Tsyganova, 28, economist, lost 110 lbs: Thats true! In the initial stages of weight loss, its tough to distinguish between true hunger and false hunger. I trained myself, noted time between meals. It was just as tough for me as it is for you, I felt like I was at the minefield. I was afraid to make a mistake, to do something wrong, so I got one thing straight: hunger appears in a different amount of time depending on what you have eaten. If my thoughts draw me to fridge in an hour or two after a properly balanced meal, its not because of the true hunger. Then, its infamous false hunger, and I need to do something about it. I went for a walk, tried to distract myself with other things, talked to friends, or simply trained my willpower, persuading myself that after a while, I would pamper myself by eating something yummy. Indeed, as they said in my group classes, you need to learn how to negotiate with yourself. Of course, there were times when nothing worked out. So what did I do? I ate what I wanted, but then I got back on track because I had a goal. As they say, the harder the battle, the sweeter the victory.
Group session of psychologist
Artyom Andreyevich Ovechkin:
Tomorrow Ill give you three criteria for distinguishing between true and false hunger and describe the distinction procedure. Then youll learn to recognize true hunger in five or ten seconds after receipt of a hunger signal.
N.B.! We have to feed our True Hunger with tasty, nourishing, and favorable food four-six times a day, while False Hunger gets nothing. It doesnt need food. It is important to provide your hunger with tasty, appetizing food. Dessert and high-calorie foods in each meal have to contain fifty kilocalories or less.
Later Ill describe to you a couple of ways to manage false hunger.
Lets talk about human beings now. We still have a mysterious third circle in this diagram. It remains unfilled. Bio, or body, is a physical, material aspect, the psyche is a spirit. What else do we need to become human beings? What does a human being need for turning into a fully-realized person?
Other people?
Exactly! We all need society, social relations.
Society turns a human being into a person.
Sometimes they find children who, for one reason or another, have been isolated from society and grew up wild, raised by animals. Have you heard about such cases? Media write stories about it sometimes. Such person can hardly become a human. Imagine if you have lived with animals for up to five or ten years and cannot talk, communicate, or normally interact with people.
Eating behavior and habits are at the intersection of biological, psychological, and social aspects of our personality. Overeating is caused by all these factors.
Lets talk about overeating. What does it mean? Food enters our body and turns into energy. Some of the energy is consumed for life support. What happens if you consume as much energy as you need to live?
Everything is fine. We dont gain weight.
Yes, you can maintain weight. What if you consume a bit more energy than you need for life support?
The excess of energy is stored as fat.
A person gains excess weight little by little.
Lets see what happens to the energy. These are our muscles, fat cells, connective tissue, several layers of skin, and this is excess energy converting into fat deposits. Its a kind of a gas tank, storage of excess energy, excess fuel Fat cells start to increase in size. The size of individual cell could increase tens times! Imagine a gas tank that holds up forty liters. You pour gasoline into it, fill it full. If you dont stop, gasoline will be poured over the edge. As for our body, its a kind of stretchable gas tank. Thats why some people weigh four hundred pounds and even more. Its a way of intense suffering that leads to disability and, as a result, to an early death.
We need to stop this vicious process. Energy entering with food should be less than consumed energy. In order to achieve the goal, we have to learn how to estimate calories in food.
Lets talk about overeating. What does it mean? Food enters our body and turns into energy. Some of the energy is consumed for life support. What happens if you consume as much energy as you need to live?
Everything is fine. We dont gain weight.
Yes, you can maintain weight. What if you consume a bit more energy than you need for life support?
The excess of energy is stored as fat.
A person gains excess weight little by little.
Lets see what happens to the energy. These are our muscles, fat cells, connective tissue, several layers of skin, and this is excess energy converting into fat deposits. Its a kind of a gas tank, storage of excess energy, excess fuel Fat cells start to increase in size. The size of individual cell could increase tens times! Imagine a gas tank that holds up forty liters. You pour gasoline into it, fill it full. If you dont stop, gasoline will be poured over the edge. As for our body, its a kind of stretchable gas tank. Thats why some people weigh four hundred pounds and even more. Its a way of intense suffering that leads to disability and, as a result, to an early death.
We need to stop this vicious process. Energy entering with food should be less than consumed energy. In order to achieve the goal, we have to learn how to estimate calories in food.
Gennadiy Arturovich Arustamov, 41, Ph. D. in Economics, a CEO of Reka-More company, dropped 90 lbs:
My wife has always supported me in my desire to lose weight, as it was medically necessary. So, at that moment, the main course and the main aim of my life was to get rid of excess weight and to return to myself.
Doctors refused to predict long-term prognosis; they didnt recommend me to make long-term plans. Things had gotten pretty bad. Almost desperate. I weighed three hundred pounds. I had diabetes, hypertension of some high degree. Pills were almost useless. Every six months, I increased the dose of medicines to regulate pulse and arterial pressure. I suffered from some other diseases as well. I took handfuls of pills twice a day. All of these occurred against the background of constant stress and insomnia. I had a serious sleep disorder. It led to the catastrophic failure of multiple body systems. I was in very poor condition. Problems with back, high blood sugar level. It was very upsetting. I was forty.
By now, weve managed to achieve the following results. Ive lost ninety pounds of excess weight. I dont have diabetes anymore. I can safely say, that Type-2 diabetes can be healed. Believe me. And its not very hard. Even suffering from Type-2 diabetes you can safely start losing weight. I am pleased to confirm it. Its fine. You can settle it. Diabetes shouldnt stop you from getting slim. Even in that case, the body responds to the change in the volume of food consumed. It starts to lose excess weight. I take only two pills daily instead of fourteen.
What else can I say? I still do sports. I focused on training the cardiovascular system and did aerobic exercises, avoiding tough strenuous activity. I did a lot to improve the performance of cardiovascular and respiratory systems, so my training activities were mainly directed to achieve this goal.