You want to lose weight.
You’ve tried many ‘diets’.
You have plenty of knowledge of what healthy eating looks like.
You like to be guided by research and follow good practice. Although you have tried some, you don’t get along with those strange ‘only eat crackers and apples for a week’ diets. You’ve tried them because, well, what else is there to try?
Despite all this, it just doesn’t work. You achieve some weight loss but can’t keep it off. You are tired of yo-yo dieting and weight cycling.
Unfortunately, knowledge is not enough, otherwise, we would all be the weight we desire and wouldn’t struggle with food and eating habits.
If you are around the menopausal transition, you may be thinking that weight gain is inevitable. Most research shows that women gain weight around this time.
This is what many of you are thinking. I know I was.
However, weight gain during menopause or as we get older and therefore weight cycling to try to shift that weight is not inevitable. Dieting is not the solution to gaining control over what you eat, and is certainly not a long term fix.
The problem with ‘diets’ and why you need to focus on stop overeating
‘Diets’ don’t work. Actually, that’s not exactly true. They work for a while. The research shows that most people lose weight initially with most diets (JAMA. 2014;312(9):923-933. doi:10.1001/jama.2014.10397). The specific type of diet doesn’t really make a difference. Equally, research shows that most people cannot sustain the weight they have lost for long. I call this not working.
We need to reframe the problem. It’s not about losing weight. The problem is overeating and overeating is a behavioural change question. However, most ‘diets’ approach this challenge with a ‘how to’ solution, a list of foods that you can or cannot eat. It may be valuable information (probably the knowledge you already have) but it is not effective like the behavioural change approach.
To eliminate overeating we need to understand the behaviour behind it, to understand why you are overeating.
I have the medical and scientific knowledge to guide you through healthy eating (again, most of my clients already know this knowledge). However, alongside this, I use cognitive and behavioural coaching methods to understand and change behaviour. (About me). Because if we address the cause of your overeating, the result is long term weight control.
That’s the aim of the work I do: to lose weight by putting a stop to our overeating habits for good.
Once you understand why you overeat, you can’t unlearn it. The solution will always be available to you.
What’s even better is that once learnt, you will be able to apply the same principles and tools to other behaviours that you wish to change, such as drinking, exercising, procrastinating.
How you can use this blog series on ‘Weight loss’
In this blog post series (search for #weight loss), I will give you the essentials of my approach to ‘Stop overeating’ which I practice with my clients. You might be able to lose the weight with just this. If you can solve the reason you overeat, then the rest it’s just putting it into practice. This awareness alone is a huge help.
Get in touch if you have any questions. I will answer them as we go along.
Some of you may need additional help. You can always book a free session to get more information and discover what coaching with me would feel like.
Either way you can achieve it. I know you can. Before the end of this process you will believe it too. Right now, you just need to be intrigued and ready to do the work. Yes, it does require some work.
Note: Aim to maintain a healthy weight (Body Mass Index between 18-25). Consult your doctor if you experience a non-intentional increase or decrease in weight (you are not trying to change your weight).
