Today, our culture is big on doing.
It’s also big on measuring, judging, denying and overindulging.
Research shows the incredible rate of weight regain after a diet resulting in a 30-lb. loss to be 97-99%.
Doctors are so desperate to make change, the American Medical Association has reclassified obesity as a disease, so they can justify highly invasive and expensive weight loss surgery which, by the way, causes complete regain in between 66-78% of patients, depending on the statistics you read.
Despite extremes taken to lose weight:
1. Via exercise: injury ends roughly 65% of weight loss efforts made with exercise, usually because exercisers are going beyond their fitness levels to excessive amounts of exercise.
2. Via fad dieting: look at cleanses – can you think of a more ridiculous idea ever suggested to a food addict, that they simply and suddenly STOP eating?
The fact remains YOU CAN’T DO ANYTHING TO LOSE WEIGHT.
That’s because losing weight is not a DOING thing. Witness the things we DO:
- We adopt our employers’ idea of how much we should overwork and overstress.
- We overfill our schedules when every sane person knows they should only book 60% of the calendar because STUFF HAPPENS.
- We think we are more valuable or important when drama reigns in our lives, driving excessive eating, drinking and drugging.
- We take prescription drugs instead of addressing WHY we are anxious, depressed or overweight.
So, losing weight isn’t about food, or calories, or the gym.
It’s about WHO you are BEING in your life.
Whether you’re being what (you think) society expects you to be, or being the important big wig at work, or even being the subdued wallflower who never voices her needs because she doesn’t want to bother anyone, or using all your precious energy taking care of everyone else… it’s the state of BEING that needs addressing.
- Living truthfully about your needs means you don’t choke them down with a donut.
- Expressing emotions clearly and truthfully means you don’t medicate them with a box of cookies.
- Refusing to hide or pretend is a positive fat melter.
It’s time to stop DOING and start BEING thin.
The holiday season is in full swing! Even if I never saw a house filled with lights, or the Christmas Tree in front of the mall, I would know it was December because my clients’ anxiety levels are rising! For anyone trying to lose weight, holidays pose more challenges than navigating the line at the Apple store when the latest iPhone is released.
But there’s one way to make holidays easier. And it doesn’t have anything to do with those silly tips you read in fitness magazines that teach you to CONTROL YOURSELF and CONTROL FOOD. Like that worked, right?
Holiday weight gain doesn’t have to happen. The easiest way to have a fabulous holiday season and, incidentally, perhaps change your life, is to examine and STOP making up stories about the holidays and notice how encourages changing habits and behavior with food.
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Coaching and training thousands of people towards permanent weight loss has taught me valuable lessons. After several years, I began to notice distinct differences in the way my male and female clients approached weight loss and found success.
I realized my male clients often followed a less complicated, linear pattern towards weight loss.
My female clients got stuck in circles of complicated emotions and layers of confusing responsibilities.
My male clients understood diets and controlling food. They thrived on structure and command. Food rarely has emotional connection or implication for most men.
My female clients yearned for true nourishment and were fulfilled by the experience of caring deeply for themselves.
My male clients wanted to earn something.
My female clients needed to grow into a new attitude before they could lose weight and keep it off.
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Permanent weight loss is what we want, even if we’re heavily invested in temporary weight loss via diets. We all think a diet will get us there – despite study after study indicating 99 percent of dieters regain their weight and every diet adds a few extra pounds too.
Why do we live in such DENIAL (read: Don’t Even Notice I Am Lying)? Because, if we believe the diet will fix the weight, we don’t have to take responsibility and fix US (or the underlying behaviors).
In my last two posts, we explored twenty things to STOP in order to achieve permanent weight loss. Now, here are 10 more very important steps to further your progress towards permanent weight loss. These are challenges that commonly show up for my weight loss clients and I hope revealing these challenges will make your weight loss easier and more direct. It’s a virtual blueprint to permanent weight loss!
This is Part 3 of a 5-Part Series – So, check back for subsequent posts! Or subscribe! You can now sign up at the right of this post to receive new posts via email notification too!
21. Stop making excuses – Excuses link us to victim status and there are a million and one excuses for everything. But the old saying “You can’t have reasons and results” is absolutely true. It doesn’t matter if grandma Mabel made your favorite cookies or your BFF (“friend” – really?) decided to surprise you with a mojito and shots happy hour, the moment we start excusing destructive behavior with well-thought-out and perfectly reasonable reasons, we lose the power of owning every choice. Weight is lost permanently when we step up and truly own every choice.
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One of my fabulous clients described her journey towards permanent weight loss this way: “It’s like I was on a rollercoaster when I was dieting, now I’m in the driver’s seat, driving change.”
I thought this was a great metaphor for dieting v. lifestyle change.
Let’s think about this.
When you are on the diet rollercoaster:
1. You feel out of control.
2. It’s scary.
3. Emotions rage with good days and bad days. Emotions always lead to emotional eating and comfort food.
4. The number on the scale can send you on a binge.
5. Disappointment, sadness, anxiety and other daily occurrences set off eating sprees, followed by food restriction and new promises to diet all over again tomorrow, next Monday, or next month.
6. You follow someone else’s plan – might be a diet, a book, a program. These plans never address your personal body’s needs, but are generalized approaches.
7. You “wake up” with an empty plate, a candy wrapper, a cookie box, or other container in front of you and no idea how it got there or where the food went.
8. You try to control the crazy momentum by counting something (calories, aerobic output, anything at all).
9. You think poor choices say something about your personal character.
10. You struggle. Struggle diminishes your effort, your success and, ultimately, your dreams.
9. You constantly fluctuate between weights, yo-yo-ing up and down the scale. Ultimately, you wind up back at the beginning, where you started, at the “loading zone” of the rollercoaster ride.
You know you are making a lifestyle change, and you are driving change, when:
1. You are the authority on what food is the best fuel for YOUR body and you know exactly what makes great energy for your unique physiology.
2. You consistently fuel your body for optimal energy.
3. You make decisions easily, without mental combat occurring.
4. You address any emotion, obstacle or event DIRECTLY, without buffering it with food.
5. You never make excuses, but OWN every decision and action.
6. You feel empowered. You are driving. You are choosing the route you take.
7. You treat yourself with respect and love in all circumstances, no matter what you ate that day.
8. The ride leads to new places, new discoveries, and wide-open vistas because you aren’t on a “track”, you’re in ever-changing life.
Getting off the diet rollercoaster isn’t just about losing weight. It’s about quality of life. It’s about living a fully empowered life, instead of giving power away to a plan, a diet, or anything that’s not organic to your amazing physical body.
Non-diet weight loss is the kind that lasts too. Isn’t that what we ultimately want when we think of lowering the number on the scale, anyway?
This month’s book contest features the “Just Tell Her to Stop: Family Stories of Eating Disorders“ , by Becky Henry.
This fascinating book offers a different perspective on eating disorders. If you have experienced disordered eating, or have children who might be susceptible, it’s a must read. Parenting a child in today’s world, which is focused on controlling food, food addictions, setting up bizarre behaviors with food, binge eating and food struggle, isn’t easy. It’s a food focused and foodcentric world. This book helps you understand the struggle for control.
Two ways to win!
1. Go to America’s Weight Loss Catalyst Facebook Page by clicking here and hitting the “Like” button. You’ll be the bonus of tips and motivation every morning from the facebook page!
2. Visit any other blog post right here on this site and post your comments, opinion or questions. We’re always happy when you share the blog posts by using the buttons at the bottom of the page too!
You get one entry for every action you take!
Share the Catalyst experience on social media and you’re automatically entered to win this month’s book: Just Tell Her To Stop: Family Stories of Eating Disorders by Becky Henry!
A recent blog post by Shay Sorrells, who was on Season 8 of NBC’s “The Biggest Loser,” inspired this post.
I couldn’t find a place to comment on her blog, but I wanted to share my perspective on her “lessons.”
Do these people look like they will find their essence in those apples?
Shay called her post “The seven biggest mistakes I made after Loser” and they went like this:
- I stopped measuring… [food]
- I took a break… [she says another person suggested she do this and she listened]
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Weight loss takes time. I’m often asked to define the best loss rate. My answer is: “The best rate is what your body and mind will allow. It will take as long as it takes YOU.”
There are natural restrictions on what your body will release in terms of weight. If you are careful to burn fat and nothing else (optimal because the body fights back when other elements of the body are threatened), you will release as much as your body can process. The process of burning fat is quite complicated, and doesn’t happen as efficiently as burning some butter on your stove – misunderstanding this is a big reason most people never achieve permanent weight loss.
Did you know that, if you could burn one pound of fat in a day (and you can’t), it would take
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