Top 5 Challenges for Weight Management this Year and Beyond

Given my age and profession as a nutritionist you might think I have it all figured out with respect to staying healthy and managing weight. I know a lot but that doesn’t mean I always do what is best or that there isn’t something new to learn. Let me share my top 5 challenges with weight management that I will focus on improving this year. I hope it will inspire you to discover and acknowledge the top five challenges you face!

All of my challenges relate to one simple truth. I need to do better with eating only when I am hungry and stopping when I am full. If only it were that easy! Getting a better handle on the situations that influence me to eat more than I need is a great place to start. How about you?

[Note: There are many reasons why we don’t recognize when we are full but that’s an article for another day. I’m going to focus on the times when I’m aware of overeating but I do it anyway. (To learn more now about why we unconsciously eat more than we need, I would encourage you to read The Instinct Diet: A Review)]

Here are my top challenges for this year:

1. The Clean Your Plate Club

I would say my biggest challenge is to once and for all give up on my clean the plate philosophy! This is a big issue for me. I struggle with wasting food because I can’t let go of the image of the many people who are faced with hunger.

How might I solve this? It all relates to the issue of stopping when I am full. Stuffing myself to clean my plate is certainly NOT helping anyone else and definitely not helping me.

Next I need to do better with serving myself less food in the first place. If I have been served more food than I need by a family member or friend I have the right to stop when I’ve had enough.

When at a restaurant I resolve to ask for a container for extra food at the same time the entree is served so I can immediately box up a third to a half. When I am in a place that I cannot bring leftovers home, I will need to simply let go of the fact that I cannot finish what is on my plate. This means I have to get better at accepting occasional waste. Sigh…

Cleaning my plate is an issue for me but it may not be for you. Congratulations! Let me share other ways I slip up.

2. Justification for Eating More than Needed

You can fill in the blank so that it might relevant to you.
“I’m ____________ so I deserve to have a good time and eat whatever I want.”

For me the blank might be filled in with “on vacation”, “enjoying time with family or friends that I don’t see very often”, “enjoying a special celebration”, etc. The problem for many Americans is that there is a reason to celebrate with food far too often! So I’m going to pick the holiday(s) or event(s) when I’m allowed to have a little more and resolve to watch my calorie count the rest of the time! How about you?

3. Hey, it’s free!

My third challenge is to stop eating things just because it’s there and it’s free. Have you ever found yourself thinking you’ll help yourself to the cookies, candy, or other treats just because it’s being offered? I admit I sometimes rationalize that I don’t buy candy or donuts or whatever it might be, so if I have a little of what’s being offered it’s as if it won’t count. Yeah right!

4. Overestimating calories burned with exercise

This is an issue for me because it isn’t easy to accurately assess the real calorie burn when I exercise. Like many people, when I’ve put in a significant effort I like to think I’ve burned far more calories than I actually have! Then I rationalize that I can eat more than I need.

5. Snacking Too Often

Unlike some nutritionists, I am a firm believer in the value of snacks. However, research suggests that the more often a person eats the more total food they eat. At times I find myself eating too much because I can eat too many snacks!

So how might someone avoid overeating with snacks?

I suggest limiting snacks to two a day. One mid-morning and one mid-afternoon snack should be enough for women. In addition, limit the calories! One hundred to 150 calories or so should be plenty for a snack if you are eating an adequate breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

[Note: See my 1200 calorie diet plan and 1500 calorie diet plan to get a sense of how you might divide up your calories each day between meals and snacks.]

Guys need more calories as a general rule so having an evening snack and more calories with each snack is appropriate.

O.K. that’s the list I am working on this year. Here are a few of the challenges I have dealt with in the past and am now handling better. I’m sharing this in the hope that you don’t take on too many challenges now. Tackling a few each year is enough!

To begin with, my husband and I have pretty much stopped eating at the “All You Can Eat Buffets.” It’s just too hard to not overfill our plates.

Another challenge I’ve dealt with is not succumbing to eating all of the goodies my dear husband and daughter like to bake. Keeping goodies out of sight goes a long way to stopping me from grazing every time I enter the kitchen. I’ve also taken to freezing these treats. It’s amazing how much slower a batch of cookies gets consumed when frozen.

A third challenge I have had fun with is expanding my repertoire of healthy low calorie dishes I like to prepare. This has helped in a couple of ways. I am less inclined to eat out if I have recipes that are not only easy to prepare but also tasty and low calorie.

I also find I am somewhat less inclined to overeat healthy food even when it’s very tasty! It must have something to do with having a greater awareness of when I am full. This is in great contrast to foods with lots of fat, sugar, or even worse, both. So I now make sure I eat healthy food first with each meal or snack. If I have had a successful day in burning LOTS of calories with exercise and I find myself still hungry, that’s when I get eat the treats! Works for me.

I challenge you to take some time and list the challenges you face.

In addition to facing these challenges, I’m currently working hard on my next weekly diet plan featuring HEALTHY frozen dinners from the grocery store. I may not eat frozen dinners very often but when I do I look for healthy. There are so many to pick from how can you know what is a good choice and what is not? I’ll give you some tips. And I am also preparing one or more articles on how you can boost your metabolism. For these tips and more check back soon!

For my previous weekly diet menus see:

Sample Menu Plan for 7 Days

Week Long Low Calorie Menu Plan

Till next time, watch those calories and eat healthy food!