"I WISH I Could Lose Weight..."

I have been studying weight loss for over 20 years. I have studied anatomy and physiology, behavioral science, and motivational theories related to weight loss. I have read thousands of scientific journal articles and books on nutrition, exercise physiology, and medicine and based on my knowledge, I have designed personalized programs for people to lose weight and regain their health. I have researched the quick fixes and gimmicks from cabbage soup diet to liposuction, interviewed people who tried them, and analyzed these fads for any potential effects and harmful side effects.

I have used my knowledge to lose weight, when my person health behaviors deteriorated and when I struggled to overcome binge eating and sugar addiction and I taught the behaviors I learned to work to all types of people in various settings. I have designed and implemented fitness programs, motivational group programs, and lecture series on health, weight loss, and fitness. I have gone to doctors appointments with clients with particular ailments. I have attended conferences to learn from other scientists and to present my research. I have studied the cultural, social, and environmental factors that lead to weight gain in our society and I have interviewed thousands of people from truck drivers to centenarians about their health behaviors.

What do I think leads to maintenance of happy and healthy weight? It is not the "most intense exercise program that burns 700 calories a session" and it is not a magic pill that let's you go on living just the way you have been living all along. What leads to permanent, happy, weight loss, is acknowledging and adjusting the beliefs that keep you from losing weight. Let me give you a few very common examples of the types of attitudes and beliefs that keep people from losing weight and implementing a healthy lifestyle.

1) If you do not believe that you can lose weight because of your body type, genetics, or because you have tried losing weight before and always failed, you won't lose it because you won't try to do it with any real effort. By believing that you cannot, you have already made it so.

2) If you keep repeating to yourself that you hate sweating, hate vegetables, hate healthy foods, and hate, hate, hate everything else weight loss related, you probably won't lose weight because you will resist all the changes necessary for you to succeed. You are basically repeating a self-sabotaging mantra that will make it all seem harder than it needs to be.  You will probably just keep finding more reasons why none of the weight loss suggestions your doctor, family, friends, or Oprah suggest, won't work for you.

3) If you tell yourself that you are a loser for "messing up" your diet last night and thus choose to just eat all you want until the ubiquitous "next Monday", instead of dusting yourself off and planning another healthy day today, you will stay in a contant cycle of starting and quitting.  Within a couple of weeks, you will probably stop trying all-together because you believe that one day or one meal matters more than a lifetime of healthier choices.  Grow up and stop throwing a personal tantrum when things don't go exactly the way you planned! 

4)If you tell yourself that eating healthy is not worth depriving yourself of all your favorite things in life, you will most likely keep gaining weight as you treat yourself to all the pleasures in life - congratulations, you are being honest with yourself and thus living the life you enjoy the most. However, you are not likely to lose weight with this belief and value system guiding your actions.  You may want to consider other amazingly enjoyable things in life, like being able to breath and not sweating in 65 degree weather to help you along your path to healthier living... or not and just enjoy your gluttony to the fullest!

5)If you tell yourself that losing weight will make you look older or make you have more wrinkles, you will most likely keep that weight on because you will sabotage your own efforts as soon as you see the slightest evidence of a new wrinkle, regardless of whether it's real, imaginary, or simply the product of some really shitty lighting in a gas station restroom.

6) If you wish you could lose weight but you are afraid that you will lose your boobs or your bum in the process, you will probably not lose weight because every time that you try, you will just hear those famous lyrics of that song that tells you that you won't meet the sexually appealing standards of some obese man you have never met, should you lose any of that voluptuous derriere.

7) If you wish you could lose weight but you believe that you don't have time for it, it won't matter how many hours of TV you watched this week, you will still believe that you don't have time to exercise or cook healthy meals and thus, you will probably gain weight as you order in pizza and finish that glass of wine you did find the time to drink.

8) If you believe that you cannot go to the movies without ordering a days worth of calories as snacks and you still keep going to the movies, you probably won't lose weight.

9) If you believe that losing weight is difficult, it will keep feeling difficult and your weight loss is probably going to be short lived because you're not very likely to keep up this "difficult and hard" stuff you hate but have to keep doing to lose and maintain your weight loss.   

10) If you wish you could lose weight but you're afraid that you will end up too skinny, no need to worry, you won't lose weight.  We cannot accomplish two opposing goals at the same time and we usually end up accomplishing the one that we don't have to change anything to meet.  Take home poiny - as long as you are afraid of weight loss for any reason, it will not happen.  You have to want it - really, really want it!

11) If you believe that taking time to workout would make you a bad mother for focusing on yourself, you will probably stay in the house yelling at your kids to turn off the PlayStation or TV, rather than taking them to the park to play and run around while you workout or run around with them (and set a healthy example for them to follow). 

12) If you believe that there are no healthy foods at the restaurants, you won't go looking for healthy restaurants or check the healthy options at the restaurants you already go to.  Thus, you will just keep ordering the biggest, tastiest, heaviest dish you have been ordering thus far and lamenting that it's impossible for you to lose weight because you have to eat out so often. Open your eyes, the world has changed and healthy foods are everywhere, even at most of your favorite fast food restaurants. 

13) If you believe that being over 30 or 40 or 50 is the reason you cannot lose weight, consider the fact that no matter how in or out-of-shape you are at any point in your life, there is always someone way younger than you in way worse shape than you are and someone way older than you in way better shape than you are.  Thus, it's not very likely that age, per say, is the variable responsible for your out-of-shapedness. You may want to Youtube some videos of 80-year-olds doing gymnastics, skiing, dancing, and running marathons to get over this skewed view of aging.  In fact, it is probably your out-of-shapedness that has got you feeling like you're getting old in the first place...

14) If you believe that you should be able to eat anywhere near as much as your 190 pound husband who works construction and still maintain your feminine 140 pound figure - well, you are delusional and probably not very good at math... and, you guessed it, you are probably not going to lose weight. ;) 

If you believe that losing weight is possible and that it is worth making some changes for and you value your health and well-being more than cookies, pizza, or a voluptuous derriere - NOTHING will keep you from doing what you need to do to lose weight.  You will find ways to make it easier.  You will find ways to move more and you will enjoy it.  You will look up new recipes and you will be happy to find that they aren't that difficult to cook or impossible to tolerate and with a little effort you will adjust them to make them even tastier.  You will discover new restaurants and your stomach will get full from a smaller amount of food than before.   

My advice - listen to what you tell yourself and when you catch yourself saying or thinking something that clearly holds you back from weight loss success, stop and rethink your belief.  Are you really going to starve, if you order a small instead of that super, duper size?  Probably not... so stop it! ;)