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The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition published an issue on long-term weight loss maintenance. These experts think as many as 80 to 95% of dieters gain back the weight they’ve worked so hard to lose. Women who have attempted dieting for years might have experienced this unless you are in the lucky 5% who kept the weight off naturally. If you have lived through countless diets, and experienced short periods of thinness, only to have the weight pile back on it could be that deep down you are still a fat woman. Your up and down weight has become tangible evidence of your poor self-esteem and a destructive relationship with food. But where does that leave you? Being overweight is such a huge mountain to tackle in front of you. We know it will take work, effort, and better time management. Resources we simply just don’t have. In truth, that should be rephrased to… “I have enough excuses as to why there are no resources”. Or we have brief powerful motivational periods that fire up our willpower and lose weight with a fad diet. But eventually, kg by kg the weight gains back on. Why is this? Why can’t we lose the weight, and finally keep it off? Because we are not really in, and not really out. You want to lose weight, but you also don’t want to because of the effort, or whatever excuse you have. Weight loss is a crossroad, it’s a choice, a concrete decision within.
I’m reminded of a lady I once coached through her weight loss journey. She was doomed to fall within the unfortunate statistic group. She will lose weight, then gain back even more than what she lost. And so the cycle was repeated over and over. A few months before summer she will gallantly embark on the newest weight loss trend. As a little girl she was not nurtured, which led her to believe that she was not special, she was never good enough. Every time she wanted to meet a man, every time she showed up for a new social event, every time she wanted to share an insight with anyone, her weight would drain her confidence. She shared something so profound with me. “In my mind, I hear people saying…if you are so smart, why are you so FAT?” I realized how true that belief was for her. When we see or engage with a “fat” person, do you get the assumption they are lazy, incompetent, or weak? Society unfairly determines a person’s character and capabilities purely based on their weight. The saying dress to impress holds true, but we never connected the dots that our outside shape conveys a deeper message about our value to the people we engage with. In actual fact, Lizel has a Ph.D. in Sustainable Development, and she is anything but the contrary of “smart”. I understood that no matter what Lizel would dress herself in, people will notice her weight before they notice anything else.
Until you decide to do whatever it takes to discover the source of your eating mania, you are condemned to bounce back and forth between the desire to be healthy and the seduction of overeating.
Lizel’s transformational catharsis happened the day SHE DECIDED that come hell or high water she was going to stop whatever is keeping her fat. That was the day she divorced/removed/disconnected/detached food as her lover, energizer, the primary source of joy, and her comfort. Food will no longer be anything other than a nutritional need. What was the difference this time? The shift was in her use of language. You can tell whether a person has really given up smoking. They don’t say “I don’t smoke” they will empathetically tell you “I’m not a smoker”. The distinction is profound. One states “that is not an activity that I participate in” versus “I am not that type of person”. (I am not the fat woman within) One indicates a preference the other a declaration of personhood. To make a decision is to forfeit any other possibility. In fact, the Latin root of the word decide means “to cut off”. Lizel was pushed to the point of deciding to stop the yo-yo dieting and find a comprehensive solution. She was finally ready to invest in anything necessary to eradicate all of the beliefs and behaviours that made her overeat. Lizel was determined to stop people from assuming something about her which is not the truth. No longer was she going to be bound by poor self-esteem that perpetuated her weight gain and numerous weight loss attempts.
To decide is a promise to yourself that whenever you experience a setback, you will take the opportunity to learn more about yourself, and never again find a good enough excuse to give up on your personal journey.
If it’s important enough to you, you will find a way…
Now ask yourself how ready are you to make that decision to lose weight for good. How important is it? Come hell or high water important? If you are ready to make your “
” decision you will need a comprehensive solution that will ensure you don’t fall back into that statistic. What does that comprehensive approach look like?
You will need to experience tangible change, awareness, or progress in these areas:
Rewiring your Brain: Within our brain there is measurable activity when we fantasize about food, when we experience external food triggers, or after consuming highly addictive food. The dopamine addiction factor needs to be rewired so that we get our dopamine supply from external activities and behaviours and not from comfort food. Breaking the addiction is crucial.
Develop Self Knowledge: We gain higher and higher awareness of the involuntary, hardwired behaviour we have with food.
Recognition of Physical Hunger: As you restore your relationship with food, you will more easily discern the difference between physical and emotional hunger.
Awareness of Emotional Imbalance: For many women emotional imbalances are the predominant trigger of overeating. To recognize, name, and address the emotional need when we are out of balance is crucial.
Mindfulness practice: We are in tune with, where we eat, what we eat, and why we eat. Making good choices about food to support progress and experience success. It’s the choices you make today that will determine the YOU in a year.
Awareness of the Cycle of Shame: Identify the negativity and guilt after overeating and then learn from it. Gaining a deeper understanding of shame when overeating happens is tremendously helpful in restoring your relationship with food.
There is a fundamental difference when weight loss is approached from this perspective. Utilizing this knowledge you can rephrase your self-concept from “I am fat” to “I currently carry more weight than I need”. Then we cease to define our personhood in terms of weight. Making this decision for good, and then keeping the weight off for good.
Sprezzatura is a comprehensive solution to weight loss. It is not a supplement you pick off the shelf and you are left to attempt weight loss on your own merits. We hold your hand at that crossroad and equip you to make that lasting decision and never go back again.
www.sprezzatura.net.za