Psychology and weight loss: three reasons it’s more important than dieting alone

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When it comes to a healthier way of living and a better approach to weight loss and management, there are a few topics we hear bandied about often – exercise, eating right and a healthy active life balance – but what about psychology?

If you haven’t heard the name around before, NOOM is a health platform that takes that concept and really drives it home, offering tailored expert approaches to a healthier way of living. From the top (your brain)-down.

NOOM helps its users better understand themselves, their brain and the science of choice.

With a three-pronged approach, it seems increasingly easier to tackle your health and betterment journey than ever before by harnessing the power of goal setting, social support and self monitoring.

It’s also essential that you have to be committed in continuing your weight loss journey unless if you’re planning on having a gastric band surgery.

Let’s take a look at the three of these a little closer.

Goal setting

If you’ve been to a yoga class before, you know the best way tog et through it is to set an intention. Same goes for weight loss and management.

It’s all about how you approach it and the enthusiasm you take toward achieving your mission.

Much like manifesting achievements in greater life through a diligently set moodboard, goal setting – though the number and specificity with which you approach is is hotly debated – can help keep yourself accountable.

This is where NOOM comes in, powered by technology, human coaches, and psychology, it empowers people to achieve proven health outcomes and has helped millions of people meet their personal health and wellness goals—from weight management to diabetes prevention to stress reduction.

Social support

We all know Rome wasn’t built in a day, right? Nor was it built by one man alone (sorry, Romulus). The power of the hive mind and communal approach to achieving anything is so powerful that none of us would be here today without it.

Tribes taking care of its members is the story of human psychological and physiological achievement and the same goes for health and wellness.

By sharing your personal goals with friends, colleagues, family, heck, even the barista you see every morning on the way to the office – if you’re going back there, again – can do wonders to psychologically hold you responsible for your own ambitions.

Many weight loss and health management programs utilise this method, much like NOOM the digital health platform on a mission to help people everywhere live healthier lives through behaviour change.

Self monitoring

This element can often be a rude awakening for those of us on the journey to a better us: writing down our food intake and weight progression.

Shocking, but effective, it’s considered one of the most effective strategies from the field of behavioural psychology for weight loss. It’s also included in most weight management programs.

Your approach really depends on your own sense of will and determination, but a daily-to-weekly weigh-in can spur you on enough to get the results you want in record time. It – much like a program from NOOM – is about putting the individual back in the driver’s seat of their health journey.

If you’re on a mission and keen to get started, try considering Noom. Click here to start the onboarding questionnaire now.