Weight loss without balance: only 14% of French women have a serene relationship with their weight
All the slaves on the scale know it: weighing yourself every morning, even morning and evening for some, borders on heresy. But difficult to resist this sentence that leads to self-flagellation or autocongratulation. And inevitably forges the mood of the day. If the weight barometer shows three hundred grams too much, it's horror and the day is done. On the other hand, when the index is down, even minimal, it is euphoria. According to a survey carried out a few years ago by the Cniel Observatory of eating habits (Ocha), 14% of French women only would have a serene relationship with their weight. And more than 16% recognize joining the club of "neurotic balance". Since then, this number has only increased due to the specter of the obesity epidemic, the moralizing rhetoric about food propriety and the incredible commercial success of books on miracle diets or similar proposals on the Internet. " Keeping your eyes on the scales goes hand in hand with the obsession with self-image control. This usually leads to a fixation on food, to establish an increasingly conflicting relationship with it and ultimately to deregulate its eating behavior, "said Florence Pujol *, dietitian. It has been proven time and time again that the irrepressible fear of getting fat is an emotion that drives you to eat worse and worse. All physiological landmarks are scrambled. One listens to one's mind (" I have to tighten my belt to lose those cursed 300g "), and no longer the needs of his body expressed by the signals of hunger and satiety addressed by the hypothalamus. The latter " are however great indicators to know if what we are going to eat will be used or not, that is to say, quickly burned or stored, " says nutritionist Catherine Dijuste. By force of willpower, of mastery, we fall into the spiral of cognitive restriction. We avoid at all costs some foods deemed "dangerous" (bread, cheese, cakes ...). Little by little, the prohibition breeds desire, extreme temptation. A negative spiral then develops, where guilt, frustration, loss of self - esteem , cracking and then need to be compensated by a new regime ... In short, under the pretext of better being, one hurts unnecessarily.
* Author of I'm eating and I'm good (Ed Puf).
Weight loss without balance: stress, a purveyor of superfluous curves
The daily torture of the scales is a ritual all the more sterile as it does not serve anything! Not even to measure the possible fruit of his efforts. You may have eaten only green beans steamed in the day and meet the next day when you wake up with five hundred grams more than the day before. Regardless of the food intake, the weight naturally oscillates over the days, from one hour to another sometimes. " It can vary between plus one and under a kilo, while being stable at the body level, says Florence Pujol. There are more than a hundred factors that affect weight: temperature, hormonal fluctuations that increase or decrease the phenomenon of water retention ... "The daily verdict should not be seen as a judgment without appeal . What matters is the overall profile, the medium and long term weight changes.
Instead of throwing your scales on a whim (you risk anyway to buy a new one in the next six months), put it in a closet, out of your sight. And use it only once a week at most if you have real weight problems; only two to three times a year if you do not have one. To find out if you are rounding up, refer to your clothes instead, a less fussy justice of the peace than a bathroom scale. This will save you a lot of unnecessary stress . Because stress alone is the provider of superfluous curves. At first, it triggers an adrenaline rush that causes the body to burn more calories. But, eventually, the adrenal glands are solicited and begin to produce a large amount of cortisol, a hormone whose excess disrupts the satiety signal and encourages the adipose tissue cells to go into "reserve" mode. As a result, they store more calories at equivalent ingested calories. Not ideal to shape a dream body !
Lose weight without balance: dissociate biological hunger from emotional hunger
The best solution is to find a serene relationship with food. " For this, it is necessary to reconnect with the sensations of his body and learn to dissociate biological hunger and emotional hunger , explains Catherine Dijuste. The biological hunger develops slowly, is able to wait to be appeased, is satisfied with a carrot and induces a wellbeing. Emotional hunger, on the other hand, arises in an intense and sudden way, demands immediate satisfaction, is rather a cake and induces guilt. Once we can differentiate them, food intake can strictly adapt to its nutritional needs . "Listening and respecting your body allows you to eat without abuse, but without deprivation either. To know how to agree small pleasures is also essential because to eat is not only to feed oneself. It is an activity fully rooted in culture, family tradition, social relations ... The scientists of the think tank on obesity and overweight (Gros) have also shown that eating with pleasure could make you lose weight in the extent to which taste contributes to the regulation of appetite. Another reason to forget your balance and to intoxicate your taste buds.
To lose weight without balance: the good weight, what is it?
The weight to which we aspire is not always that which corresponds to us, that conditioned by our genetics. " The first, decreed by the intellect, is what is called a" head weight ". The second is a "body weight", notes dietitian Florence Pujol. The latter, which allows the body to maintain its fat mass around a constant value, serves as a deposit. If one tries too hard to get away from it, the body is resistant: it defends the weight that it considers just, not the one on which you fantasize. In addition, " weight, or BMI *, does not mean anything individually, " says Professor Arnaud Basdevant, head of the nutrition department of the hospital Pitié-Salpêtrière. " A rugby player has a BMI in excess of 30, which theoretically defines him as someone who is obese, when he is not. He's just extremely muscular. And because muscle weighs more than fat, its BMI peaks. Not to mention the structural differences. Be careful not to fool yourself. " Most often, it is not changing two numbers on the scale that you want, but to find the line, " adds Florence Pujol. Two women of the same weight and height may not be the same body size. One will enter a 38, the other barely a 40. It's all about silhouette and firmness.
* The body mass index is calculated by dividing its weight (in kilograms) by its height (in centimeters) squared. Between 19 and 24, the BMI is considered normal. Between 25 and 30, there is overweight. Beyond 30, we talk about obesity.
