In a week that saw Karl Lagerfeld attack singer Adele for her weight, and Golden Globe winning actress Octavia Spencer announce she didn’t feel healthy at her weight, I had four clients encounter the madness of the medical profession about weight issues.
There’s never been a time when there seems to be more controversy about weight. Is it really “bad” or unhealthy to be overweight? Although it’s a common part of the entertainment industry, does it serve any purpose to call someone out for their size, shape or appearance?
Is Your Doctor Helping or Hurting You?
On one hand, it makes sense that there’s a wide range of healthy but, on the other, does the HAES (Health At Every Size) movement help? EVERY SIZE? Yes, we can all get healthier, no matter what our size, but it’s simply not true that you can be healthy at ANY size.
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Eating and food habits challenge us when we are trying to lose weight. Diets encourage eating in a different manner but habits have a way of coming back, reappearing just when you’re making progress, or getting to a comfortable weight or size.
Why?
One of my brilliant clients coined a new phrase last week when she said many of her food habits had become more engrained than simple habits – they had deepened into behaviors – they were like
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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!
Hard Truth: The more we focus on losing weight, the more we gain. It’s true – dieters regain at an average rate of 108%.
Today, there are more “diets, “fixes”, “cures”, “pharmaceutical relief” and “apps” for weight loss than ever before in history. But our society weighs more and has MORE health problems associated with weight too.
It doesn’t add up, does it?
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It’s been a busy few weeks. I’ve been on the road a lot, training and teaching people about permanent weight loss. I absolutely love meeting new people and hearing about their challenges and perspectives.
On this trip, I was confronted with two very different angles on weight loss – particularly my weight loss, which is nearing the 100 lb mark. Roughly 74 of those pounds are soundly in the column labeled “permanent weight loss” (measured at 5 years), since I’ve sustained that loss for over 11 years now.
Perspective One
A doctor approached me after a training session (Before I train the coaches in an organization, I host anyone and everyone in the organization who’d like to know more about permanent weight loss. It may seem crazy, but many healthcare professionals still talk “diet” and don’t understand permanent weight loss.)
This doctor had a quizzical look on his face, and I assumed he needed clarification on something I had presented to the group.
Get a load of this!
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My two favorite things are change and commitment. It wasn’t always that way. In fact, I’m laughing out loud as I write those words.
Before I learned what it took to alter my weight permanently, change felt really scary and even threatening. I never committed to anything. Oh, I said it did, but I wasn’t reaching any of my goals, so now I know I wasn’t committed to anything.
In those days, I usually decided to diet in the evening, after eating too much all day, and, by 10 a.m., I’d have blown my diet. Every day began with hope and ended in regret.
I liked to gather all my willpower for the latest fad diet, then lose 10 lbs and regain 15.
I studied books, diets and nutrition advice, then wonder why they didn’t work long-term.
I used various food avoidance behaviors, sometimes going most of the day without food, then binging at night.
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During an interview this week, I was asked a question that stopped me in my tracks.
“What derails you?”
It took me a couple minutes of thought before I could even get my head around this. It felt a little familiar – like maybe I once knew what it was like, but it was a dim memory.
I’ve been losing weight a long time. Like, if there’s an award for long-term change, I’m in line for it. But what happens when you keep going is that some things that seemed like BIG CONCEPTS and HUGE AH-HAs become…
well…
just life.
So I told the interviewer:
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A number of new sources are talking about the addiction paradigm this week. For almost 100 years, alcoholism has been defined as a disease. It took quite a while to get the condition out of the realm of a “moral failure” and into the realm of “medically defined disease.”
But is medicine doing anything to help cure addiction? Or are they treating it as they treat most conditions: by over-medicating?
I’ve long maintained that addiction is multi-faceted. It really can’t be defined as simply a disease or any sort or moral issue. It’s emotional. And it’s deeply spiritual.
Medicine cannot touch that.
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- Confused? Most people are. All this is diet advice from the perspective of what I call Diet Mentality. Based in fea… https://t.co/oLbdhU6utw
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- I've always said exercise is more important than food control. What do you think? https://t.co/nRyJeKMZ9y
- Before and after pictures are usually complete fakes, and give us the misconception that the "after" picture is the… https://t.co/QUdTrITjeG
- Take a look! Wisdom! https://t.co/zjh6DbmIh9
