As the last few days of 2011 whisk by, it’s time for our annual contest where YOU guess how many exercise sessions I completed this year. The winner will receive a set of Catalyst products, including workbooks and CD audio classes worth $295.99, that will illuminate the journey to permanent weight loss!
For anyone who’s new to this blog, I’m a proponent of non-diet, permanent weight loss through true lifestyle change. After all, diets are temporary ways to eat, while changing behavior and the deeper needs for food are modifications that last forever.
My weight loss is close to 90 lbs. and my weight loss will be sustained 12 years on March 13, 2012!
After years of battling excess weight and yo-yo-ing up and down the scale,
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I’ve noticed a trend in the experience of my clients as they lose weight permanently. Many of them experience fewer cravings, faster weight loss and are more in touch with their hunger and their bodies when they do not snack.
What? Doesn’t that go against common diet advice?
Yes, it does.
But my own permanent weight loss of close to 90 lbs. was accomplished by breaking just about every rule touted by “diet world.” I don’t put much stock in “rules”, especially when so little of the weight loss from those rules results in long-term change.
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I made a big discovery in the land of permanent weight loss yesterday. Even after maintaining my weight loss for five years (which signals “permanent weight loss” in the medical community), I still struggled at holidays. And, in my coaching practice, clients bring their struggles into their coaching sessions and holidays are often a very tough time for them when they are addressing their excess weight.
Now, however, 12 years into maintaining weight loss, this holiday season is remarkably different.
Instead of forecasting and planning, which I once felt helped me
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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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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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This week has seen a lot of discussion about a new diet book which targets girls ages 6-12. After the initial outbreak of criticism, the author appeared on several talk shows defending his book as “empowering.” I spoke on the news about it Thursday.
I have to admit I’ve been wrestling with conflicting feelings about this. On one hand, I want to have the guy banned from Amazon and every other bookseller. His complete ignorance of the damaging and diminishing effect of diets on young women is simply deplorable.
On the other hand, we live in a country where we enjoy freedom of speech.
And yet, we have laws and policies that protect children from harm. And this is harmful.
To complicate matters further, as a blogger, do I speak up and risk giving him more exposure, or do I remain silent?
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One of the primary reasons the American woman’s body image is distorted is the virtual lack of REAL role models in our society.
Most of our role models come from the fashion industry and Hollywood films. If we only viewed French or Italian films, we’d see a wide range of sizes, shapes and ages among the actresses looming on the big screen. (We’d also see less cookie cutter beauty and much more interesting types of beauty.)
But, time after time, I find myself watching an American movie and wondering “Why does she have to be so thin?”
She looked like this, primarily due to bulimia.
What We’re Comparing Against Example 1: Boomer women are reeling over Jane Fonda’s admission that she was bulimic when she starred in Hollywood films and exercise videos of the 70s. Nice of her to admit it now, I guess, but millions of women did those stupid videos until they were blue in the face and then beat themselves all the way to the bakery because they didn’t wind up looking like her.
What We’re Comparing Against Example 2: Actresses in two current hit films have admitted using body doubles in their nude scenes.
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We often have a picture in our heads of what successful weight loss looks like.
It might go like this:
New Diet + Short Period of Time = Skinny Me
We convince ourselves this is how it works and, when it doesn’t work, we blame ourselves. Or the diet. But usually ourselves – as if any diet EVER worked!
With a 99% fail rate and a 108% regain rate, diets are so not the way to go.
Once we realize this, some really big opportunities open up! As one of my clients recently said, “There really are 50 ways to leave your lover!”
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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
