3 Reason You Haven’t Been Able to Lose the Weight

After working with nearly 1000 clients over the past four years, I have seen the same things hurting people in their goal to lose weight that they usually weren’t even aware of.

1. They see the solution as a short term fix. Whether you have battled your weight and your relationship with food all your life or it’s more recent, if you find yourself overweight, there’s a physiological reason as well as an emotional reason. Diet culture has sent the message that “all you need to do is........ then all will be well.“ But what we discover is that all is not well. We can’t do something temporary that brings us results and then stop doing that and think that we will maintain those results. Yet, that’s the mistake that millions of people make year after year when striving to lose weight. There’s a reason we see so many people being able to lose weight, but not keeping it off.

2. They don’t realize that their real problem may be an eating disorder. Let’s face it, society says an eating disorder is anorexia, bulimia, or more recently binge eating disorder. But the fact is there are lots of disordered behaviors with food that qualify as an eating disorder that don’t fall under those three options. Compulsively eating all day, hiding food, eating in secret, lying to people about what you eat or don’t eat, hiding wrappers, making a bad eating decision and then trying to undo it with extreme fasting, over exercising, taking laxatives etc., gaining and losing weight repeatedly, obsessively weighing every day or multiple times a day. I could go on, but that’s a pretty good starting list. If you find yourself doing any of those things on a regular basis and you’re still struggling with your weight or obsessed with food, it’s time to consider that you’re not just lazy, undisciplined, or lack willpower and that your real problem is you have an eating disorder.

3. They don’t realize they have a voice of sabotage in their head and that they’re not at war with themselves. That voice of sabotage is the one that says things like, “It’s Thanksgiving! Just eat all the things and you can get back on track tomorrow!” or “You’ve had a very stressful day and you deserve a treat. Just eat the thing and you can get back on track tomorrow!” Or “Just give it up. You’re not meant to be thin, just stop all the fighting, eat what you want, and enjoy life.“ The problem with all of this is that we never just get back on track tomorrow, there’s always something else that that voice uses to keep us stuck. And the problem with giving up the fight is that disordered behavior/eating disorders are progressive and we don’t get better by giving up the fight, we get worse. When we stop fighting the voice and eat whatever we want our health gets worse and our weight climbs. That’s not a healthy solution.

Does any of the above resonate with you? Let me know in the comments :)