There is often a significant disparity between what overweight women want for weight loss and what they truly need. We humans often struggle to identify our true needs in solving a problem, primarily because it falls outside our area of expertise. And most of the time it’s exactly our wants that lead us astray on the wrong paths.
Women’s wants on a weight loss path often align with the outdated belief ‘of eating less and exercising more’.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 and their habits.
Now, let’s explore three lists that outline what overweight women typically desire when it comes to their weight loss journey. Some beliefs are inherently wrong, some women’s beliefs are partly wrong, and some are correct.
LIST 1:
Things overweight women believe to need that are basically wrong
“I need to learn how to count calories to make better food choices.”
Counting calories is not the most effective or sustainable approach for long-term weight management. First of all, it’s a flawed system that 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 or crave the wrong foods. 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 with 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 healthy eating choices will be the most natural thing for you and you will not need a structured meal plan but eat what your body needs.
“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, your body might be deprived, or this is a sign of a deeper problem, a psychological problem, or maybe it could even be 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 exercising more. On top of that, the problem is seen in the person’s busy schedule, and that is a false mindset of setting 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 your needs. It’s something that has to get squeezed in, and thus you will never have fun with your exercise/workout routine. Of course, there is nothing wrong with 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. This is a sign that you have been brainwashed into believing that you don’t know what’s good for you, which is an insult. Here too, if you need tips for eating healthy…regardless of 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’s not. You’re focusing on outside solutions instead of what your body 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. Believe me, YOU know what is good and healthy! Don’t allow anybody to tell you otherwise.
“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 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. Maybe you’re just naive, believing the nonsense that something with a food label could ever be healthy. The simplest guidance I can give you is, to 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 lies 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, eating foods with a label, which we know that they contain toxins, does not save you time but takes precious time away from your life…you win nothing. therefore, may I suggest making your health a priority and seeing where else you can free up some time? Maybe you could stop counting calories or learn to read food labels which 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 traveling. You can only spoil the weight loss process when you’re on a restrictive fad diet, which as we know, leads to yo-yo dieting. I have clients who lost weight during Thanksgiving week while eating everything they had on the table (including pies) and enjoying 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 traveling will ever be a problem for you anymore. Eating has always been a natural process because your life depends on it. As soon as something so simple and joyful like eating becomes complicated, there is something wrong with 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. Everybody knows deep within what healthy food is. Everything boxed, bottled, or canned is NOT.
“I need practical tips for meal prepping and planning ahead.”
If you are so used to feeding 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 taking a few cooking classes and finding 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, Greek cooking, etc? These are all healthy ways of eating. Just add a lot of fresh produce.
“I need resources on creating a healthy and supportive environment at home and work.”
This too is a matter of setting healthy life priorities. Yes, a healthy and supportive environment at home and work is 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 or work. Only you can tell what a “healthy” environment means for you and your loved ones. Besides, you have to feel comfy and at home. Nobody is holding you back except yourself. If you feel that way, you’re living in kind of a prison of an old paradigm that has led you to create the environment you currently have. Then it’s your paradigm that is holding you back, not the environment. The real resources are not somewhere out there, out of your control. They are inside of you.
“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 may need is the 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. This is a way to get you hooked for life. You did not wake up one morning and say to yourself, “Gosh, I need to find something that helps me handle food-related triggers.” This is information that 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 all have our blind spots), 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, you 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. It stems from a paradigm that tells you that food is the enemy. 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 imperative. If your situation has gone so far astray that you feel you need gastric surgery, then I highly recommend to join me in one of my free one-on-one coaching sessions where I create an individualized weight loss strategy together with you. This will give you a good idea of what 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 their patients gain the lost weight back after 10 years. Before you make such a decision, please check with me what healthier possibilities you have to lose weight for good instead of doing something so threatening with questionable results that can’t be reversed.
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Once you understand the subtleties between your wants and needs, and between your questions and the answers you will receive, your weight loss journey becomes easier and more focused.
Happy slimming! 🙂
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.
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 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.