The weight loss industry was estimated to be worth over $223 BILLION in 2021!
If you are someone who has struggled to lose weight, that industry is targeted at you.
And yet, anyone who spends time thinking about obesity and overweight problems will notice that food is not the problem for most people.
And if we dig even more deeply, we will discover that extra body fat is not the problem either.
Extra body fat and eating challenges are not problems, they are symptoms.
Why is this important for you to know?
It is important because the weight loss industry has most of us focusing on the wrong thing!
As long as we demonize extra body fat and blame ourselves for having a bad relationship with food, we will not solve the problem.
This is why so many people gain the weight back!!!
We are focusing on the wrong thing!
If you have an unhealthy relationship with food, no amount of dieting, restrictive eating, or exercise regimes are going to fix that.
If you hate your body and feel shameful about how you look, losing weight is not going to fix that.
WAIT!
That doesn't make sense right?
We've been taught that if we lose weight we will look better.
And if we look better, we'll feel better.
Yes, that is true for some people.
Feeling lighter, looking more fit, and feeling a sense of accomplishment often come with lower body fat.
But if you hate your body and feel shameful about how you look, that is an internal job.
There may be obsessive thoughts or highly negative thoughts, even if you reach your weight goal.
Then what happens?
Often, people regain the weight.
Other people may transfer that negativity somewhere else and start other bad habits or just continue to feel bad.
I'm all for better eating and healthy physical activity.
But if you are doing it because you want to lose weight so that you like or love yourself more, that can lead to trouble.
My suggestion is to start by liking yourself more first.
But many people say they cannot feel good or like themselves or love themselves UNTIL they lose weight.
That is where the work is then.
If you can't love yourself as you are, no amount of weight loss is going to change that.
The reason for this is that your "lovability" is not dependent on how you look or physically feel.
Your lovability is inherent.
You were born with the right to love yourself.
But that's tough to believe because we have been trained since a very, very early age to believe that our lovability is conditional.
In other words, we have been taught since childhood that if we want to be loved and accepted we have to do things to please others.
This is a human condition.
As humans, we associate our survival with being accepted by our "tribe".
This goes way back to the days when our survival was dependent upon acceptance by the tribe.
Without that, we were pushed out and it was almost impossible to survive on our own.
So, we still have that inner drive.
We have to give respect to that instinct but we don't have to let it rule us.
We can choose to accept and love ourselves unconditionally.
No one or nothing can take that right from us.
Accepting and loving yourself unconditionally may take some time and focused effort.
But it is possible for everyone.
It is a practice.
Very few of us will naturally just accept and love ourselves without any effort.
But dieting and working out hard take a LOT of effort.
Loving yourself will help you be much more successful at weight loss and anything else you desire.
And if you decide to do that without accepting and loving yourself unconditionally, you may find yourself dieting and gaining back over and over again.
Book a call with me:
- If you want to get off this treadmill of dieting and regaining
- If you want to start feeling good about yourself even before you lose weight
- If you want to feel good and therefore start to WANT to take care of your body better
