What overweight women believe to need for their weight loss success

There is often a significant disparity between what overweight women desire for weight loss and what they truly need. People often struggle to identify their true needs in solving a problem, primarily because it falls outside their area of expertise. Their wants often align with the outdated belief of eating less and exercising more. However, what they genuinely need to achieve long-lasting weight loss is often something entirely different. What women truly require is a transformation of the old paradigm.

Now, let’s explore three lists that outline what overweight women typically desire when it comes to their weight loss journey.

Things overweight women believe to need which are inherently wrong

“I need to learn how to count calories to make better food choices.”

While counting calories can be a useful tool for some individuals in certain situations, it is not the most effective or sustainable approach for long-term weight management. First of all, it’s a flawed system which has nothing to do with what’s going on in human bodies. The calorie myth has long been debunked, yet it stubbornly remains in people’s heads. Secondly, the quality of food: is much more important than the quantity. Counting calories alone does not take into account the nutritional value and quality of the food you consume. Not all calories are created equal, and focusing solely on calorie counting can lead to neglecting essential nutrients your body needs for overall health. A balanced and nutritious diet, consisting of whole, unprocessed foods, is essential for sustainable weight loss and optimal well-being. And here we are talking about a healthy lifestyle and not about a weight loss diet. 

It’s not the calorie counting you need to learn but to find out WHY you eat too much. What is behind the eating. Once you have that figured out and transformed, eating too much will no longer be an issue. 

“I need a structured meal plan to help me make healthier choices.”

Although this statement is not entirely wrong, it is based on food, seeing food as the sole root cause of weight problems. This is something your intellect tells you that you need, but  for most people it’s  nonsense. 90 percent of weight loss coaches give you this kind of advice because this is what they understand or believe to know about weight issues, but they’re completely oblivious about the real causes of weight gain. The choices you make regarding food are just symptoms of a deeper rooted problem. While there is nothing wrong about making healthy choices, the root problem is why you’re not making healthier choices and not your meal plan per se. Once you have uprooted the underlying causes, making a healthy meal plan will be the most natural thing to you. In other words, you have to tackle the problem from the other side, not at the food plan. 

“I need guidance on portion control.”

The same is true here. Unless your eating habits are completely out of control – and even then – what you need more than control is finding and eliminating the root cause. If you feel that your portions are out of control, then this is a sign of a deeper problem, a psychological problem, maybe even a health problem. 

“I need a workout routine that fits into my busy schedule.”

This statement is also based on the false and outdated paradigm of eating less and exercise more. On top of that the problem is seen in the person’s busy schedule, and that is a false mindset of setting the life priorities wrong. If you add such a tactic into your weight loss strategy, you’re going to fail with it because it’s not based on the truth and on your needs. It’s something which has to get squeezed in, and thus you will never have fun with your exercise/workout routine. Of course there is nothing wrong about working out, and it should always be part of a healthy lifestyle. But if your schedule is so busy that you can’t fit a minimum of exercise into it, then you have a priority problem, not a time problem. 

“I need practical tips for eating healthy while traveling for business.”

If you feel that you need practical tips for eating healthily while traveling for business, then you’re on a fad diet and not on a healthy, sustainable weight loss strategy . Here too, if you need tips for eating healthy…regardless where in the world you are…then the problem is not the eating but what’s behind your eating habits. Maybe you are not aware of what’s healthy and what not. You’re focusing on outside solutions instead of what your body really needs. Again, you have to tackle the problem from the other side, at the root cause or simply learn to listen to your body’s needs. When traveling, ask your body what it needs. It may be something very different from what it needs at home. Meat, fish, salads and vegetables are always available in every country of the world. If you stick to those, you can’t do much wrong. 

“I need guidance on how to read food labels and make informed choices.”

Well, if you have a lot of time and understanding food labels is your passion, that’s certainly an interesting hobby. But if you only need guidance with that for the purpose of weight loss, if you have lost contact with your body and your common sense, then the problem is not the food labels. The real problem then is that you’re eating the wrong foods in the first place. The simplest guidance I can give you is, stay away from any foods which HAVE labels. You may live under the false assumption that you don’t have time to cook from scratch and hence you need pre-cooked food. And, don’t get me wrong, I can fully appreciate that you feel that way because of your demanding schedule. Here too, the problem lays deeper. First of all, it has something to do with your life priorities, you’re not prioritizing your health. Secondly, it says a lot about what you believe to deserve (labeled foods are no better than any dog or cat food). Thirdly, by eating foods with a label , of which we know that they contain toxins, does notsave you time but takes precious time away from your life…you win nothing. therefore, may I suggest to make your health a priority and see where you can free up some time? Maybe you could stop counting calories what is very time consuming. Cooking from scratch does not necessarily mean that you need a lot of time. You can make a healthy meal in as little as five to ten minutes. 

“I need strategies to navigate social events and parties without derailing my progress.”

If you have a healthy, sensible weight loss strategy and a good relationship with your body, you don’t have to care about food during social events or while travelling. You can only spoil the weight loss process when you’re on a restrictive  fad diet, which as we know, lead to yo-yoing . I have clients who lost weight during Thanksgiving week while eating everything they had on the table  (including pies) and enjoyed the time with their loved ones. It all begins with your mindset and your inner paradigm .THAT’S where the change has to begin and not with your diet . Once you have accomplished that, neither social events nor travelling will ever be a problem for you anymore. Eating has always to be a natural process because your life depends on it. As soon as something so simple like eating becomes complicated, there is something wrong about your approach. 

“I need to address my lack of knowledge about nutrition and healthy eating.”

Again, this implies that food is the enemy. It’s not. It’s a false paradigm. It’s the reason why you eat what you eat and why you overeat which is the problem, not the food itself. It’s your inner world that leads to weight gain, not your food. Overweight people naturally tend to give food way too much power over their body and weight, while the real master over our health and body is within us. 

“I need practical tips for meal prepping and planning ahead.”

If you are so used to feed on prepared meals – which is, by the way, one of the root causes for being overweight – then you may never have learned how to cook a healthy meal. In that case I highly recommend to take a few cooking classes and find joy in the cooking process. It’s such a great feeling to take care of your body by cooking a delicious meal. It instantly increases your feeling of self-worth. For example, how about a cooking class for mediterranean cooking, Italian cooking, French cooking, Chinese cooking, etc. These are all healthy ways of eating. Just add a lot of fresh produce. 

“I need to find ways to incorporate movement and exercise during my busy work hours.”

Statements like that make me really sad . They reflect lives which are based on wrong priority setting. It’s all about outer circumstances. People who feel that way have completely lost touch to their inner self and to what’s really important to them. They’re running amok on a job just for the money while often only small shifts would give them a better income with much less stress and more free time for their health and families . Yet, this is exactly how we are being manipulated to live our lives. This is a form of brainwashing us into leading an unhealthy lifestyle where we have to earn more in order to consume more, what consequently makes us sick what then forces us to buy more drugs to stretch our lifetime. That’s not a quality life, it’s a rut. If you WANT to exercise but can’t fit it into your schedule, the problem is not the schedule but your life priorities. Just ask yourself, if your doctor would tell you that you have a terminal disease and that you will die within the next 12 months if you don’t change your lifestyle immediately, would you then find time for a daily walk, for example? 

“I need resources on creating a healthy and supportive environment at home and at work.”

This too is a matter of  setting healthy life priorities. Yes, a healthy and supportive environment at home and at work are crucial for your health. If one of your highest priorities is health for you and your loved ones, then you’d do everything in your power to create a healthy and supportive environment, be it at home and at work. Only you can tell what a “healthy” environment means for you. Besides, you have to feel comfy and at home. Nobody is holding you back except of yourself. If you feel that way, you’re living in kind of a prison of an old paradigm which has led you to create the environment you currently have. Then it’s your paradigm which is holding you back, not the environment. The real resources are not somewhere out there, out of your control . They are inside of yourself. 

“I need resources on how to handle food-related triggers and temptations at work.”

Everything else I have said in this chapter is also true for this paradigm. It just doesn’t work that way. You don’t need resources but a deeper understanding of what’s going on within you. What you need is transformation of some emotional response patterns you have at work. You see, I understand that you have been told that you need something to handle food-related triggers. You did not wake up one morning and said to yourself, “Goshk, I need to find something that helps me handle food-related triggers.” This is an information which comes from some false weight loss coaches who do not understand that habit transformation is an inside job and not based on some “resources”. Therefore, I can’t blame you for feeling that way. 

“I need help in breaking the cycle of emotional eating and finding healthier coping mechanisms.”

Although I agree that you need help in breaking that cycle (nobody can do that by herself because we can’t see our inner patterns), it’s not so much about “coping mechanisms”. This too is one of these false weight loss tips 90% of weight loss coaches would give you, simply because they don’t understand the truth about emotions and emotional eating. It’s not about “coping” but about taking responsibility and shifting your emotions instead of applying a coping mechanism. If you know how, you can instantly shift any emotions within seconds. 

“I need guidance on managing my time effectively to prioritize my health goals.”

It’s one of the biggest illusions mankind has that we could “manage” time. Time is nothing real  although it often feels that way. The planet earth is probably the only place in the entire universe where something like “time” exists. The prioritizing part is correct, though. It’s all about setting or changing life priorities, which have nothing to do with time. This topic is too complex to talk about in a short paragraph. That’s something I’m going to work on intensively with a small group of people very soon. Once you understand the real issue, your will never have a stress or time problem ever again. 

“I can’t control my eating habits anymore. The only thing that can help me lose weight is a gastric bypass.” 

These beliefs stem from a flawed comprehension of genuine weight loss success and the necessary steps involved. They are rooted in an outdated, erroneous paradigm that misguides women in their weight loss efforts. As long as you adhere to this misleading paradigm, achieving lasting fat loss will remain elusive. In such cases, a significant mindset shift becomes imparative. If your situation has gone so far astray that you feel you need a gastric surgery, then I highly recommend to join me in my free webinar  Sustainable Weight Loss For Women Through Habit Transformation. This will give you a good idea of what really works regarding eating and other fattening habits. Try that first before getting yourself ‘under the knife’.  And, speaking of gastric surgeries, they never solve the real, underlying root cause, which is the reason why surgeons are so perplexed when they’re patients gain the lost weight back after 10 years. Before you make such a decison, please check with me what healthier possibilities you have to  lose weight for good instead of doing something so threatful with questionable results. 

Things overweight women believe to need that are partly correct:

“I need to find healthy alternatives to my favorite comfort foods.”

Healthy food is good, but a healthy lifestyle does not necessarily mean that you have to be without your favorite foods all the time. And it neither means that comfort can only come from foods, healthy or not. In my courses I teach women what they can do to lose weight even while occasionally eating some comfort foods . If you forbid yourself all the foods you like, your diet is not going to work and it will not be sustainable because you will regularly fall back into your old habits. Why not start with a sustainable method right from the beginning? 

“I need strategies to overcome my cravings for sugary and processed foods.”

I highly recommend to leave out sugary and processed foods as much as possible because with them, losing weight is close to impossible.  I know it sounds conflicting what I have just said before. But both is true. You can eat comfort foods without or little sugar. And it’s not only the sugar alone. The worst thing is the toxins in those foods. However, what you call “overcoming your cravings” will not work either. You’ll have to tackle the problem on a deeper level. You see, there are about a dozen reasons why we crave things. It can be a physical problem (i.e. parasites) or a psychological issue. So before you work on your cravings, it would be helpful to find out what the real cause is. Once you have that, it’s easy to overcome such cravings. Nevertheless, it still does not mean that you can’t enjoy desserts. There is a number of natural sweeteners (not the artificial kinds) you can consume without any restrictions. 

“I need assistance in setting realistic and achievable weight loss goals.”

I agree that most overweight women have extremely unrealistic weight loss goals, and we all need assistance from time to time. It’s a wise thing to reach out for help. The biggest reason for such unrealistic goals is being mislead by unrealistic testimonials from people who went through a crash diet. Real, lasting weight loss never goes linear, and since we never know what else is going on in our body and subconscious, it’s impossible to say how quickly you can lose weight with any given method. The results are very individual . Therefore, realistic goals should not include a time frame within which you want to achieve a certain weight. Besides, it puts pressure on you, and that’s something which is not helpful for a successful weight loss process either. The body does what it can without the time frame it needs to burn that extra fat, and each body is unique. And, once the pressure is gone and the real root causes detected and transformed, the weight loss process can really be fast, like in my case (52 pounds in three months without dieting and exercising). 

“I need strategies to overcome my late-night snacking habits.”

Although late-night snacking is not optimal, I disagree that you need a strategy. What you need is a paradigm shift, a new mindset regarding healthy eating habits. Then the question is, why do you eat late at night? Are you hungry? Are you stressed? Didn’t you eat enough during the day? Are you bored? Are you tired? Are you thirsty? Do you need a 10-minute hug? What you can do is replacing the old unwanted habit with a new one which is more appealing to you. Eating before going to bed is not the only way to calm down. 

“I need to learn how to listen to my body’s hunger and fullness cues.”

Yes, this is basically true, but it sounds like this requires a lot of discipline and strength (“I need,” “I must….”). Actually, it’s rather the other way around. It requires stillness and letting go. And there is something else that is required to master this: a very good relationship with your body, which has been buillt over years so that your body knows that it can fully trust you. That trust got lost through countless diets and other fad methods. The goal is to learn once again to cooperate with your body, and that takes time. So, it’s not really ‘learning’ what you need but trusting the wisdom of your body and start communicating with it.

“I need help managing my time better to prioritize healthy habits.”

Prioritizing healthy habits? Yes, absolutely! Managing your time better? No, that’s the wrong approach (see chapter 1). It’s the other way around. You first prioritize your health, and then you make time by eliminating less important things (i.e. watching TV, constantly checking your messages, chatting, etc.). 

“I need to find ways to incorporate physical activity into my workday.”

This too sounds like a stretch, something that is difficult . The reason why you find this to be difficult can be found – again – in your life priorities. Once you change those, finding time and ways to do what’s healthy for you will not be an issue anymore. Besides, most people who say something like that, use time as an excuse. Therefore you want to tackle the problem from the other side. Make your health and physical activity (= longevity) a higher priority. 

“I need guidance on creating a balanced and nutritious grocery shopping list.”

Nutritious food, yes. Guidance?  I believe that you know better than anybody else what’s healthy for your body. Please keep in mind that what is healthy for one person is toxic for another person. What you really need is listening to your body’s needs  and learning to trust your body. If you do that, you will find a healthy balance after a while. What I would recommend to get guidance on, though, is on working on your relationship with your body . That doesn’t come natural to most of us. For far too long we have been trained to ignore our body. It takes a while to restore a healthy relationship with our body. Once that works again, your grocery shopping will become a pleasure. In my SheSlimEasy program we continuously work on that over the course of 12 weeks. 

“I need strategies to manage my cravings for sugary drinks and beverages.”

Cravings for sugary drinks often come from a parasite overgrowth because parasites feed on sugar and carbohydrates. In that case it’s the parasite which wants the sugar, not your body. By going on a sugar detox you can usually get a handle on your sugar cravings. If that’s not the issue, you want to get a coach or counsellor who is familiar with the correlation between emotion and sugar. Therefore, it’s not really a strategy you need to manage your cravings but and understanding what causes them. That then will become an integrated part of your overall personalized weight loss strategy. In a little bit more than a week from now I’m going to launch a new program of which this is part of. So, if this is an important topic for you, keep your eyes open.  

“I need to prioritize my health and well-being as a fundamental aspect of my success.”

Absolutely. Go for it. You’re spot on. Your health simply must have a very high priority otherwise you’ll find yourself spending a lot of time and money to fix an ever increasing number of health issues. 

“I need strategies to overcome emotional eating triggers during high-stress periods.”

What you really need is learning how to respond to stress differently. Then emotional eating will no longer be an issue. In other words, take care of stress, and you don’t have to take care of your emotional eating. If this is a serious concern of yours, let me know so that I can get you on the early bird list of a program for stress relief which I’m going to launch in about a month. 

“I need help in creating a realistic exercise plan that doesn’t feel overwhelming.”

A good, realistic exercise plan should never feel overwhelming. You can start very small and increase over time. My clients often start with a daily walk of about 5 to 10 minutes and increase the time with 5-minute increments from week to week. Depending on your current weight you don’t want to start heavily anyway. Please never, ever go the path of The Biggest Loser. That’s simply dangerous. 

“I need support in dealing with body image comparisons and unrealistic societal standards.”

Yes, you’re right. That shows a childhood issue which needs to be transformed. This, again is something you can’t just attack directly by saying, “I’m not going to compare myself with other women.”  There is a hidden root cause why you’re doing that, and that’s an issue many, many women have. These are behaviors going as far back as 2,000 years and can’t be changed by the snip of a finger. 

While these beliefs contain elements of truth by addressing the fundamental issue at hand, they remain grounded in an outdated paradigm and a limited comprehension of the genuine root causes. Many of the statements merely touch on the surface-level symptoms rather than delving into the underlying, substantive problem.

Please listen closely to these statements. They all say, “I need, I need, I need.” That shows that most people are searching for outside solutions instead of looking for ways of transforming their inside issues. Your questions determine the answers you get. If you’re asking the wrong questions, you will keep getting the wrong answers. 

Things overweight women believe to need which are absolutely correct:

“I need support and accountability to stay motivated on my weight loss journey.”

“I need help managing my stress and emotional eating triggers.”

“I need to learn how to prioritize self-care and make time for myself.”

“I need to address the underlying emotional issues that contribute to my weight gain.”

“I need a positive and supportive community to share my challenges and successes.” This is on the way. So keep your eyes open. 

“I need to establish a consistent exercise routine that I enjoy.”

“I need to find healthy ways to cope with work-related stress.”

“I need help overcoming my fear of judgment at the gym or fitness classes.”

“I need to break the cycle of yo-yo dieting and find a sustainable approach.”

“I need to improve my self-confidence and body image.”

“I need to learn how to listen to my body’s hunger and fullness cues.”

“I need to develop a positive relationship with exercise and view it as enjoyable.”

“I need to address my lack of motivation and find ways to stay inspired.”

“I need to learn how to overcome my negative self-talk and practice self-compassion.”

“I need resources on stress management techniques and relaxation exercises.” This will be the topic of my new program called SheSlimStressFree, which will be launched next month. 

“I need to find healthier alternatives to cope with work-related pressures.”

“I need strategies to stay motivated when I hit a weight loss plateau.”

“I need to address my emotional attachment to food and find healthier coping mechanisms.”

“I need support in dealing with unsupportive or negative influences in my life.”

“I need resources on building a positive body image and cultivating self-acceptance.”

“I need to improve my sleep habits and address any sleep-related issues.”

“I need help overcoming my emotional attachment to food as a source of comfort.”

“I need to address any underlying medical conditions that may be contributing to my weight gain.”

“I need support in finding the right balance between work and personal life for self-care.”

“I need to develop a positive mindset and believe in my ability to make lasting changes.”

“I need to find ways to stay motivated and committed to my weight loss goals long-term.”

“I need support in managing my emotional well-being and finding healthier outlets.”

“I need resources on understanding the importance of hydration and staying adequately hydrated.”

“I need strategies to overcome the ‘all-or-nothing’ mindset and embrace progress over perfection.”

“I need guidance on building healthy habits that can be sustained for the long term.”

“I need resources on stress reduction techniques that don’t involve food.”

“I need strategies to overcome the guilt and shame associated with my weight.”

“I need to learn how to navigate and overcome setbacks without giving up.”

“I need guidance on finding a healthy work-life balance that prioritizes self-care.”

“I need support in addressing any underlying emotional issues that contribute to my weight struggles.”

“I need to address my mindset around food and shift towards a more positive relationship.”

“I need strategies to combat fatigue and low energy levels throughout the day.”

“I need resources on understanding the importance of self-compassion in my weight loss journey.”

“I need support in building a strong support network that understands my challenges.”

“I need strategies to overcome negative body image thoughts and build self-confidence.”

“I need resources on understanding the impact of sleep deprivation on weight and overall health.”

“I need guidance on navigating social pressure and comments related to my weight loss journey.”

“I need strategies to maintain a positive mindset during plateaus or slower weight loss periods.”

“I need to address any underlying issues with self-worth that contribute to my weight struggles.”

Indeed, when grappling with excess weight, it becomes crucial to seek support for these various issues. The underlying root causes are complex, making it challenging to identify them independently. I’m a behavioral therapist and even I can’t do it all by myself. Even if you manage to uncover them, transforming them permanently requires professional assistance. This transformation is vital for achieving sustainable weight loss. Alas, there are only very few people on the planet who understand what transformation really is. We are not talking about going through a 10-year psychotherapy or psychoanalysis. We are talking about a few weeks or months the most for the transformation of the root causes. 

If any of the above statements resonate with you or reflect your thoughts and beliefs, then you are on the right path and you have come to the right place. This signifies that your chances of achieving long-term weight loss success are significantly higher compared to the majority of individuals still searching for the perfect diet or quick-fix solution.

The problem lies within your psyche, not in external circumstances. Consequently, the solution also lies within yourself, and that is the only place where the problem can be effectively resolved in a sustainable manner. Thank goodness, I have to add. Because that way you can tackle them much quicker and faster. Would they be tooted in some external circumstances, they would be almost impossible to overcome. We can easily and quite fast change ourselves, but we can never change others and seldom circumstances which involve other people. And if we can, it can easily last years to change outer circumstances.

Congratulations on reaching this point! You have arrived at the right destination. I firmly believe that, together we can accomplish your goals. Please review the information below to learn how I can assist you. Let me know in the comments which topics are most pertinent to you, so I can guide you in the right direction.

For these topics you will find answers in my work and programs:

  1. Stress Management
  2. Emotional Eating
  3. Setting healthy life priorities
  4. Finding and transforming the underlying root causes of weight issues
  5. Finding a positive, supportive community of like-minded women you can share your challenges and successes with
  6. Find out which exercise routine you can enjoy and is best for you – the answer is within
  7. Learn to deal with any kind of stress on several levels
  8. Gain self-confidence and stop judging your body – instead of fearing what others could think about your body, use your energy to apply a sensible, healthy weight loss strategy through which you can transform your fears of being insignificant or not as good as others – feel confidently anywhere, be it at the beach or at the gym
  9. Break the cycle of yo-yo dieting and apply a sustainable approach. You can find that here.
  10. Improve your self-confidence and body image.
  11. Learn how to listen to your body’s hunger and fullness cues.
  12. Develop a positive relationship with exercise and feel how enjoyable it really is.
  13. Find ways to stay motivated and inspired through your entire weight loss process.
  14. Learn how to overcome negative self-talk and practice self-compassion.
  15. Learn easy and simple stress management techniques and relaxation exercises.
  16. Apply healthier alternatives to cope with work-related pressures.
  17. Develop a simple strategy to stay motivated when you hit a weight loss plateau.
  18. Address and transform your emotional attachment to food.
  19. Get support in dealing with unsupportive or negative influences in your life. Detoxifying your life from toxic people is crucial for your lasting weight loss success.
  20. Build a positive body image and cultivate self-acceptance.
  21. Improve your sleep habits and eliminate sleep-related issues.
  22. Overcome your emotional attachment to food as a source of comfort and find comfort within yourself.
  23. Address any underlying medical conditions that may be contributing to my weight gain and find the right help.
  24. Get support in finding the right balance between work and personal life for self-care.
  25. Learn how to develop a positive mindset and believe in your ability to make lasting changes.
  26. Find ways to stay motivated and committed to your weight loss goals throughout the entire process.
  27. Get support in managing your emotional well-being.
  28. Learn to understand the importance of hydration and staying adequately hydrated for your business success.
  29. Learn strategies to overcome the ‘all-or-nothing’ mindset and embrace progress over perfection.
  30. Get guidance on building healthy habits that can be sustained for the long term.”
  31. Learn the most effective stress reduction techniques that don’t involve food.
  32. Learn strategies to overcome the guilt and shame associated with your weight.
  33. Learn how to navigate and overcome setbacks without giving up.
  34. Get guidance on finding a healthy work-life balance that prioritizes self-care.
  35. Get support in addressing any underlying emotional issues that contribute to your weight struggles.
  36. Learn how to shift your mindset around food and shift towards a more positive relationship.
  37. Learn strategies to combat fatigue and low energy levels throughout the day.
  38. Get support in understanding the importance of self-compassion in your weight loss journey.”
  39. Here you can find a strong support network that understands your challenges and which can give you the support you need.
  40. Learn strategies to overcome negative body image thoughts and build self-confidence.
  41. Understand the impact of sleep deprivation on weight and overall health and learn how to develop healthy sleeping habits.
  42. Get guidance on navigating social pressure and comments related to your weight loss journey. One tip I can give you here. My clients never talk about their weight loss goal outside of our support group.
  43. Learn strategies to maintain a positive mindset during plateaus or slower weight loss periods.
  44. Learn to find and address any underlying issues with self-worth that contribute to your weight struggles and how to transform them.

We will achieve that and much more by applying my SheSlimForever system and the 4 Pillar System to maintainable weight loss for women.

Empower your professional journey by achieving a healthy weight and radiating confidence.

Our premium holistic weight loss programs are tailored specifically for busy women like you, providing practical strategies to transform your body fast and excel in your career or business! 

As a gift for my subscribers, I want to provide 10 business women a free Slim & Shine one-on-one Strategy Call. To find out if you qualify, please click the link below to take the following short survey first. 

https://de.surveymonkey.com/r/8V8T5WV

Happy slimming! 🙂 

Weight Loss Psychology – How To Deal With Emotional Eating

Emotional eating is an issue many overweight women are struggling with. The problem is that they don’t understand the real cause behind emotional eating and thus try to tame the beast with willpower.

This is a completely useless strategy because when you do that, you deal with two completely different levels of your being. Willpower comes from your mind (will) and the emotional eating – as the word implies – has to do with emotions. Emotions can’t be dealt successfully with willpower. And Dr. Carol Solomon, one of the weight loss experts I have interviewed – a specialist in emotional eating – explained why willpower is not a good strategy to overcome emotional eating.

Dr. Solomon, a psychologist, has struggled with the same 20 pounds over and over and over again. She said that she was definitely a compulsive eater and that she was really obsessed with food. It occupied a lot of time and space in her head and it just caused her a lot of angst, a state of mind she didn’t like at all. She kept going up and down in her dieting with a lot of yo-yoing, which caused her a lot of problems.

She said that although many overweight women may think, “Only 20 pounds…lucky her,” that to women it doesn’t really matter whether she is 20 pounds overweight or 50 pounds or 100 pounds. The vicious cycle aspect of feeling that you’re going round and round and round with the same issue over and over is always the same, and so are the struggles.

“That’s the frustrating part that it’s so discouraging for people and I think maybe people with more weight to lose feel even more discouraged. But to me it’s just frustrating, it’s discouraging and it’s demoralizing really,” Dr. Solomon said.

When I asked her what the reason for our obesity epidemic in the Western world might be despite of the fact that we have so much food to choose from, she said, “There is definitely something wrong in the system and there are a lot of factors that contribute to that. I think the whole world is feeling so much stress. People who work in corporate jobs are functioning with so much pressure and so much uncertainty. People are so overwhelmed with their lives; and overcommitted. There are so many demands and responsibilities and less support, and less social interaction; which is one of the keys to happiness. Stress is really equivalent to what smoking was in the 50’s. It’s killing us. One of our favorite responses is to overeat and I think that people just don’t make time for themselves and they just don’t pay attention. There is a lot of unconscious eating going on until something happens and then you say: Okay, I’ve got to do something about it.”

Stress is a huge factor regarding weight issues and a huge trigger. Stress leads to a variety of negative emotions which are mostly ‘undigested’, and we have to do something with them. So food is just a quick and easy answer and comes in handy, although it really creates more problems we can’t deal with.

When I asked her what she thinks about diets, Dr. Solomon answered, “Well, I think that we all know that diets don’t work, and that diets result in a net gain. I think there was a study once that showed that people on diets gain back a 107% of the weight that they lost. So, all the weight that they have lost plus 7%, and yet there is a $50 Billion diet industry out there. That’s a lot of money no matter what currency you are talking about. It just shows how desperate people feel to find an answer.”

“Diets create dependency on something that’s outside of you,” she continued. “Diet programs would have you believe that if you’d relax your guard, you’ll devour everything inside. So if you believe that, then it’s natural to start depriving yourself so that you won’t gain weight. So, it’s either one or the other all the time. You are either devouring or depriving; starving yourself or stuffing yourself.”

I have often discussed why diets are counter-productive from a physical standpoint. Now you also begin to understand why dieting for weight loss is even a bad idea psychologically. I think it’s really time to begin questioning the dieting approach for maintainable weight loss. 

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But what is the answer?

If you want to lose weight, you can do it simply by eating when you’re hungry and stopping when you’re satisfied.

Can it be that easy and simple?

“…that’s frightening to many people, because that means taking responsibility and trusting yourself. So a lot of people believe that they have to have this sort of outside structure, this sort of outside control of a diet but it never really works. To do something different; you are going against all the machinery of the culture especially that $50 billion diet industry.”

And, oh boy, can they fight hard to keep you struggling and silence those weight loss experts who dare to speak out the truth. I could literally fill volumes talking about that subject and what tricks they used to get me out of business and stop talking about the truth. They just don’t want to lose you as a returning customer.

To demonstrate what a dead-end road the dieting approach can be, Dr. Solomon explains:

“A lot of people like the idea of being told what to do when they are frustrated; initially; that’s part of the appeal of the diets. ‘I’m tired of thinking about food; I don’t want to spend one more minute thinking about it; Just tell me what to do and I’ll do it; Just give me a set of rules and I will follow them.’ The problem is that the rules are impossible to follow and then people blame themselves. It also brings up resistance in people. Weight loss issues in general they really bread resistance. There is something inside of us, we don’t like being told what to do, even by ourselves. We all have these little 5 year olds inside of ourselves saying, ‘I’m not going to do it! You can’t make me!’ Like a 5 year old, stomping her feet. So dieting really perpetuates that cycle of making rules and breaking them that leads into those bigger issues of craving nourishments and gratification but not really allowing yourself to have it. So we end up feeling deprived.”

By passing the responsibility over our weight and body on to a false diet ‘expert’, we not only become dependent, we also willing pass the power over ourselves and our lives to someone else. No wonder why millions of overweight women feel so powerless. This is a crazy downward spiral nobody can win.

We’re trying to control something, and yet we feel out of control. That keeps us feeling small and powerless and it’s a real downward spiral which gets worse and worse. Women often don’t see a way out of that situation and start feeling very stuck. It’s easy to get into that situation but hard to find a way out. You eat too much and then you feel like you should deprive yourself the next day. So you eat less because that’s what all the books and doctors are saying: ‘Eat less and exercise more.’ But they never tell you how to do that in a way so that you can really stick to it. The reason is that they are not knowledgeable about the emotional part of it, so they can’t tell you how to address these emotional issues.

At the beginning I said that you can’t deal well with emotions through willpower. Emotions are emotions and will is will. Both happen on a completely different level. And it’s the same with diet. You can’t deal with emotions by eating less. That is simply stupid. When it comes to emotional eating, the real issue is emotions. So you have to deal with those instead of oging on the next diet.

Stress causes emotion, tension, fatigue and a lot more…all reasons that are driving us to the refrigerator. A lot of times you don’t even realize what’s happening there and why you are looking for food.

Diets are so counter intuitive; when we really think about what diets are. We are so used to the dieting approach that we have totally un-learned how to listen to our body, to our common sense, to our own intuition. And that’s what surprises me so much, that we really have lost our common sense in all that. Dr. Solomon said that statistics say that we gain 107% after a diet and I think that everybody reading this would agree. Yet people do it again and again, they do something that doesn’t work that has a 107% to fail! That is simply insane.

So what choices do you have during the Holiday season to deal with food? Give in and eat as much as you can and then jump on the next diet in January? Or depriving yourself while everybody else on the table is enjoying the food?

There is a better way. Mindful eating.

Enjoy the food you eat. Eat a lot of salad first. Drink a glass of water before the meal (you already knew that one). Eat mindfully. Be grateful for the food and the company. You can eat everything on the table as long as you eat slowly and enjoy each and every bite. After such a meal you will feel happy instead of remorseful. 

We have to gain back the trust in ourselves, and this starts by taking responsibility over our own emotions. And it also starts by saying ‘Stop’ to the insanity and by beginning a normal, healthy lifestyle and reducing stress.

Some day in January I’m going to start with my SheSlimEasy Habit Transformation. Since I will only work with 20 participants, the group my fill fast. The last time I offered such a program, I was booked for 2 years in advance, and that within the first two weeks of January. So, if you feel that the SheSlimEasy method might be a good way for you as my subscriber can already register now and start with the program. I promise, it will not interfere with your Holiday feasts. I would like you to first go through my free webinar so that you understand what tis program includes and what you can expect. You can access the recording of the webinar here: https://cdm.weightlossexpertsrevealthetruth.com/webinar-truth-weightloss-registration.

Enjoy your Holidays….and happy slimming!

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