Stop Weight Loss Sabotage
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Stop Weight Loss Sabotage
Get Pat's Free Report
& receive her free monthly newsletter "The Catalyst"
Working out at the gym today, I heard a personal trainer tell her client, “If you want to lose weight, you just gotta learn to deprive yourself!”
Oh, brother!
I used to be surprised when a “fitness professional” said stupid things. Now, I don’t even blink.
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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
We hear a lot about “lifestyle change” today. In fact, most diets call themselves a “lifestyle change”, even the popular commercial ones that are nothing more than a prescribed food plan.
I guess it makes customers THINK they’re doing the big job, not the little (short-term) one.
My favorite “lifestyle change” quote came from a friend who dropped a lot of weight (temporarily) during the Phen-Fen pharmaceutical debacle.
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.”
Shay called her post “The seven biggest mistakes I made after Loser” and they went like this:
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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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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?
Here in the U.S., it’s Thanksgiving week. All around me, I’m hearing a collective intake of breath: those who eat, those who do not eat, those who eat by rules, and those who eat in disordered patterns — they are all in a panic.
Thanksgiving is feared by anyone who isn’t living in a peaceful relationship with food. Laden with high-fat, high caloric food, it’s a celebration of abundance that Americans translate into plenty of food.
We could celebrate the abundance of ingenuity, fun, humor, love or… just about anything… but we have translated it into food. Too funny, when you think about it. What if we celebrated an abundance of energy and lined the highways, exercising all day?
Hmmmm.
Don’t mind me, my mind just works that way. As I direct my thoughts towards the past 15 years of my life as I have lost weight (and not refound it), I find myself grateful for many things this Thanksgiving:
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!