Accept Yourself and Lose Weight

New research shows that spending some time accepting who your truly are can lead to increased weight loss. The research done at Arizona University took a cognitive approach to weight loss for the long term. In the research study 30 overweight women aged 35 to 65 years old went through a series of exercises to help identify with themselves and who they truly were over a three month time period. According to study researcher, Dr. Laureen Goodyear, the overall lesson was that "if you are 50 pounds overweight, that is not a sign that you should love yourself less, on the contrary it means to love yourself more and find out what is really causing you to become overweight." The study participants participated weekly in self acceptance lessons aimed at making each participant aware of their own unique needs as person, a female, and in many cases a working mother. The lessons were not aimed at losing weight directly but instead through finding ways to increase their personal enjoyment out of their everyday activities and choosing to increase the frequency of activities they truly identified with. Over the three-month time period participants lost an average of 15 pounds! According to Dr. Goodyear the women lost weight because they ate less calories and exercised more, but not because we told them too, or forced them to; because the chose to. This type of research according to Dr. Goodyear may not be groundbreaking simply because of the weight loss, but also because by helping women choose a new lifestyle that includes self-acceptance they are happier about making healthy lifestyle choices and according to research conducted on both rats and humans, this increase in happiness during the activity might be just as important as the activity itself. For example forcing a human or animal to run or perform vigorous activity does not cause a spike in brain derived neurotropic factor (BDNF), a hormone known to increase the sense of well being and happiness. But if the human or animal chooses to perform the exercise on their own the spike in BDNF is larger than that induced by strong prescription drugs. While the work of Dr. Goodyear is highlighting new ways women in particular can increase the quality of their lifestyle and lose weight, it all starts according to Dr. Goodyear by accepting that you are good enough already; that she says is the essence of each lesson the 30 women in her recent research study learned. To learn more about subjects like this and to start changing your body, please visit us at New Lifestyle Diet.