At the start of each year, millions of people across the globe embark on a diet as a New Year resolution to lose weight. Before the second month of the New Year is through, a majority of these dieters would have already given up on their commitment and would have put on the lost weight, and sometimes even more.

When an individual loses weight, muscle and fat is also lost along with it. But when the weight is back on after unsuccessful dieting, it is purely fat that starts to get stored in the body. In the end, it can be perceived that diets are arguably a larger health hazard than not embarking on one at all; unless a diet that is sustained for a long period of time which allows the individual to develop long-term good eating habits and a healthy lifestyle.

Most dieters often struggle with dieting. To understand how to lose weight and keep it off, here are some barriers that you will need to overcome in order to succeed in dieting and losing excess weight.

1. Every person has two minds…

To begin with, let’s look at a simple exercise: for a brief few minutes, close your eyes and try to recollect all the nuances of the place that you currently are and the people around you, especially if you are in a public setting. With your eyes closed, try to recollect as many details as possible and make a mental note of them. Now open your eyes and scan the view around you.

Even as the environment might be extremely familiar, it is possible that you would have missed out on some of the obvious details in the setting. The issue here is not about the number of details you could recollect. Rather, the important point here is that there were some details that you decided not to recollect while overlooking some things and forgetting others.

A specific part in your non-conscious area of the brain stores simple things in the memory, while completely overlooking others, even if you are aware about them. However, this area of your mind does a lot more than storing simple memories; for example, it manages all the parts of your organs including your breathing, heartbeat, kidney function, metabolic system, liver and so on and so forth, without your actual awareness.

While you are unaware of what is going on in your non-conscious mind, you are certainly cognisant of what you are thinking when you are making a plan — that is you decide what you need to do or shouldn’t do, try to grasp a hold of something or make a decision of when to lose weight.

This is an extremely critical point: all of us have a mind that performs numerous activities, without our deliberate awareness and in fact completes hundreds of tasks at the same time, while at the same time we have a conscious mind that allows us to make a conscious decision about things.

Nature has had a lot of time to refine and improve the two minds — the doing mind and the thinking mind.

2. Just deciding to lose weight is not the solution.

Now that you know about the doing mind and thinking mind, when you set yourself a specific goal to lose weight you are engaging your thinking mind, but unfortunately your doing mind is completely unaware of your thoughts. Your doing mind continues to do what it has been doing all along that is, helping you sustain your body in a natural environment.

Now that you have decided to go on a diet, your doing mind considers the low intake of food as a sign of danger and in its role of helping you to survive in a natural and hostile environment it is pushing you to eat more as a key survival strategy. Since the doing mind is far more powerful and quicker than the thinking mind, there is no doubt as to who will be the obvious winner.

3. Going cold turkey is never a good idea; taking small steps is far more rational and effective.

If you are setting off on a diet with an ambitious goal in mind, it does not make sense to push your body to the extreme in order to ensure quick results, as you might not be able to maintain your weight at the end of the timeframe. The correct way to go about it is to perceive your weight loss as a journey that will take place over a given period of time, and not in a short timeframe.

Begin by using small amounts of weight rather than undergoing drastic weight loss as the body is better able to adapt to smaller goals of weight loss rather than a certain drastic step.

At all times place your emphasis on maintaining your weight loss goals and not the final results. Although this might appear to take longer than what you have had in mind, it is likely to be far more successful and long term.

Carlo is a diet specialist, loves to share her knowledge by writing matters on healthy diet and weight loss.