How To Avoid Falling Victim To A Weight Gain “Trigger”

Somewhere along the way you fell victim to a “trigger.”

You stepped onto your bathroom scale and did a double-take when you saw the numbers had moved up. After all, you thought you were doing everything right! You made changes in your lifestyle, right-sized your eating, started exercising regularly, and even asked for help from your support system when you needed it. Yet, you gained weight, and you have no idea why. Here’s one possibility: Somewhere along the way you fell victim to a “trigger.”

At Ideal Protein, we understand that triggers can derail progress toward your weight loss and healthy eating goals. That’s why our Protocol works to balance macronutrients to help your body feel satisfied, with the goal of reducing the chance that you’ll be “triggered” in the first place. But let’s take a look at triggers, and what you can do to cope with them.

What is a trigger?

A trigger is any kind of stimulus that we can have a reaction to. It can be sights, smells, sounds, locations, stressful situations, even people that break down our resistance and cause us to eat things that sabotage our weight loss efforts.

It shouldn’t surprise us that we’re feeling triggered right now. After all, we’re facing one of the most stressful situations of our lives as we continue to cope with the COVID-19 pandemic and all the personal and societal upheaval it’s causing. Maybe we’re working at home where food is within easy reach at all times, or we’re tired of cooking for ourselves and are tempted to order take-out or delivery.

How do you spot a trigger?

Because triggers are specific for each individual, they can be difficult to recognize, but here are some examples of things that can trigger someone into overeating and gaining weight.

• • Our surroundings
    The enticing smell of cookies can lure us into a bakery, or even into our own kitchen if a family member is baking, and, usually, when we walk out, those cookies leave with us.

• • Distracted eating
    Sometimes we’re triggered simply because we’re not paying attention to what we’re eating. For example, we check emails while snacking on some crackers. When we’re finished, so are the crackers.

Think about what might trigger you—and read on to see how you can keep from falling victim.

What can you do to avoid falling victim to a trigger?

We are surrounded by opportunities to eat. Not only are they where you’d expect—like fast food restaurants—but also vending machines, gas station mini-marts with their displays of candy and coolers of soft drinks, or that box of donuts a family member brought home. As we begin to leave the shelter of our homes, we’ll once more be facing these kinds of triggers.

Arm yourself with both knowledge and support to combat these triggers. In addition, following the Ideal Protein Protocol will help you reset your metabolism and balance your blood sugar to help reduce the cravings a trigger may cause.

The most important thing is to become more aware of what causes our triggers and to change our behavior so that we aren’t vulnerable to temptations. For those triggers that are unavoidable or particularly tempting, the key is to have a game plan in place to deal with them. For example, if the smell of baked goods are tempting you, enjoy an Ideal Protein sweet snack. You can also try techniques such as visualization (picturing yourself achieving your weight loss objective) and thought-stopping (thinking something positive, like how proud you were when you started losing weight) to help keep triggers at bay until the urge to overeat passes.

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Interested in working with an expert coach for guidance on challenges as they come up? Consider Ideal Protein, a medically-developed Ketogenic Weight Loss Protocol that uses food as medicine to empower you to lose weight and live at your best and healthiest for the rest of your life. In addition to individually-tailored support from your coach, you’ll gain access to a wide variety of delicious Ideal Protein food and an extensive list of all the other fresh, lean, healthy meals and snacks you need to reset your metabolism, health, and life.

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