Tough Talk about You and Weight Loss
By Dr. Matthew Anderson
I want to have an in-your-face, heart-to-heart, conversation with you. If I can get my point across then you will make some significant progress on your journey to complete weight loss. If I fail at this then you might just stay fat for the rest of your life.
Here are some hard facts about people who are consistently overweight. Are they true about 100% of overweight people? Of course not. Are they true about you? Probably.
If you decide that you are an exception to my rule you will be just like most people who are overweight and have a hard time losing it. They imagine that the rules do not apply to them. So they get to stay fat. You get to decide for yourself. Are you one of us (consistently weight-challenged persons) or not? Take a chance and join in. You only have fat to lose.
Here are some tough facts about many overweight persons.
- You are overweight because you eat too much -- and you eat too much because you would rather eat than deal with yourself and life.
- You frequently feel one or more of these feelings: inadequate, incompetent, afraid, overstressed, or angry in relationship to normal life. When you feel these and related uncomfortable emotions, you eat whether you are hungry or not and most of the time that food is comfort (fattening) food.
- If you attempt to take the weight loss journey alone you will probably fail. Losing weight can be tough and most of us, including you, need lots of support. If you join or create a weight loss support group you will greatly increase your chances of succeeding. Tell your Ego to shut up and get support.
- If you are chronically at least 20 lbs overweight you are a food addict. If you think of yourself this way you will become far more serious about how and when you lose weight. Admit it and get on with the process of recovery.
- Successful recovery from addiction of any kind (especially food addiction) requires a relationship with a Divine Source. Develop one immediately. I know I sound like a 12-stepper, but what can I say except that they really got this part right.
- Always remember that the idea that you can simply “eat less and exercise more” and lose weight is a mantra of diet morons. There are four basic and required ingredients/categories for long term healthy weight loss -- Physical (diet and exercise), Mental, Emotional and Spiritual. And the “eat less and exercise more” mantra lacks the other three.
Enough tough talk. Make the appropriate changes in your weight loss practices and you will be well on your way to success.
[Ed. note: Dr. Matthew Anderson is an author (The Prayer Diet), counselor and national columnist/expert on weight loss, motivation, self-management and relationships. To find tough-minded, outside-the-box guidance for taking charge of your life and/or your weight including Eating to Kill, click here.]
