Psychological benefits of losing weight

Psychological benefits of losing weight

When a person decides to lose weight, in most cases, they do so thinking about the aesthetic changes that will affect their body for the better: lose kilos, recover their figure, or maintain their ideal weight. These aesthetic changes are very important, but there are other improvements or benefits of weight loss that, despite not being as visible or apparent, should convince you of the need to fight obesity and overweight and even make you consider the option of resorting to a treatment that facilitates your weight loss process, such as those offered at westmedical.com.

These other not-so-superficial improvements in weight loss, both physical and psychological, matter as much or more than the changes in figure caused by shedding extra kilos because these other benefits directly affect your health and your quality of life.

Psychological Improvements

Feeling good about your body helps you regain confidence and reduces anxiety levels. It also increases self-esteem and improves or restores social and interpersonal relationships. Psychological improvements also have a positive impact on your quality of life. Being good with yourself is essential to being good with others.

• Increase self-esteem: Losing weight contributes to having a better body image, and your self-esteem will benefit.
• Fight depression and negative emotions: On many occasions, depression and obesity feedback. Depression triggers eating problems, and weight gain has a negative emotional impact.
• More effective interpersonal and couple relationships: Gaining weight can affect personal relationships. Many people decide to give up their social life out of pity for their own bodies.
• Improves mood: Performing physical activity along with losing weight increases the feeling of well-being and improves mood.
• You will achieve better sleep quality: Several studies maintain that reducing between 10 and 15% of body weight can improve sleep quality. However, with only 5%, you will also notice results.

4 Reasons to Maintain Your Ideal Weight

Arterial hypertension is an asymptomatic disease like diabetes, and there are other health problems that a proper weight can help prevent and/or control. Here we mention a few:

• Stroke or myocardial infarction: Being overweight and obesity are closely related to the development of atherosclerosis, the accumulation of fat that clogs the arteries.
• Respiratory disorders: The accumulation of fat in the body hinders the breathing process, decreases lung capacity, and can cause respiratory disorders such as asthma, bronchitis, or sleep apnea.
• Varicose veins: Excess abdominal fat increases the muscles’ work and damages the veins’ valves, which causes peripheral venous insufficiency.
• Cancer: Body fat unbalances insulin production and stimulates excess estrogen, causing a solid hormonal imbalance that could lead to breast cancer.

With these tips, you will be able to notice that beyond being an aesthetic issue, the ideal weight should be maintained for a matter of health. This is what the experts say.

The weight loss process can be quite psychologically draining if done for the wrong reasons. While being dissatisfied with your body can be an impetus to aim to lose weight, feelings of disgust, hate, and obsessive thoughts about losing weight are dangerous and could even trigger an eating disorder. Therefore, it is best to carry out the weight loss process under the advice of professionals.

What is Psychonutrition?

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), almost 40% of the adult world population is overweight, and 13% is obese, which represents a public health problem. While being overweight has many causes, one key to overcoming it is understanding and managing the thoughts that get in the way of weight loss.

Human beings establish many emotional relationships throughout their lives. One of the narrowest is with food. Psychonutrition is based on studying emotions, behaviours, and the context of that relationship since sometimes emotions are closely related to situations such as being overweight and obese.

From psycho-nutrition, dietary and psychological aspects that go beyond the food aspect and that are linked to overweight and obesity are addressed. It is a science that studies the relationship of the human being with food, and if you apply it or see a professional, you will be able to better understand the feelings, thoughts, and actions you have toward food. In addition, you will discover the causes of weight gain and, at the same time, how to lose it.

Benefits of Psychonutrition

Psychonutrition benefits both the physical and emotional health of the human being. The use of motivational techniques increases personal safety and incorporates healthy eating habits.

Improves relationship with food

The relationship with food is affected by emotions. But psycho-nutrition can provide tools so that negative emotions do not influence eating habits. Emotions choose, qualify and quantify the food you eat. For this reason, you must control them.

It helps control emotional hunger

Emotional hunger can become uncontrollable since there are several emotions involved in this process. In obesity, for example, the concept of “emotional eater” is described to describe those people who deal with their negative emotions -such as anger, frustration, and apathy- with so-called “comforting” foods, such as those rich in sugars and fats. The way emotions are regulated makes it possible to control the quality or quantity of the food that is ingested, and it becomes an excellent strategy for eating control.

It helps establish healthy eating habits

Psychonutrition helps to restructure distorted thoughts caused by erroneous beliefs in relation to food. It also applies motivational techniques for self-confidence, self-esteem, and lack of security in favour of healthy nutritional habits.

Weight loss requires not only physical but also mental effort. Everyone knows that the most difficult thing when losing weight is not exercising but having the will and perseverance. For that reason, it is crucial to involve the psychological aspect or to put psycho-nutrition into practice to understand why you eat when you are not hungry or why you only have an appetite for fatty or sugary foods.

According to experts, by losing weight, you could also experience a boost in your confidence and an improvement in your self-esteem. So decide to improve your lifestyle, be healthier and start exercising!