I believe one of the reasons why only 5% of people who lose over 10% of their body fat keep it off is because those of us who have done it know it is not a quick fix and we accept that we will need to focus on our weight for the rest of our lives.
As someone who has struggled with weight my whole life, I always believed that the key to keeping the pounds off was simply eating less and exercising more. Believe me when I say I have tried every fad diet, hit the gym obsessively, and tried every weight loss supplement on the market, but no matter what I did, I always found myself back where I started: carrying excess weight that I couldn't keep off.
I believe we all need a dose of therapy in our lives or at least someone to hold the mirror up for us the blind spots we say we want to heal but would honestly prefer to ignore. My choice of therapy came with a twist of insights into who I am through archetypes, astrology, and numerology. No matter which route I chose, eventually I needed to hear a very clear message. The root of my weight problem wasn't just about the food I ate or the amount of exercise I did. It was about something much deeper than that.
It took staring at myself in photographs on social media and being deeply embarrassed by what I saw to get to the point of knowing something needed to change.
There was a greater motivation and humiliation though. I love to travel and when I couldn’t keep up with my friends in the streets of Belgium and cried my way to the top of 300 stairs to see the most beautiful view of a small town, I knew something had to change. I was done with feeling defeated and hopeless and I knew it was time to ask myself a tough question: why do I keep gaining weight back even when I try so hard to lose it? The tougher question was, how do I keep letting it be more weight that I gain than the last time?
After one last attempt at a dietician and a psychologist, something else hit me. If I believed in all the modalities of understanding myself that I had studied for so many years, why wasn’t I giving them a chance to work?
I have wanted to write this post for a long time, but a nagging part of self-doubt needed me to wait until I was sure there would never be a change I would return to the old habits and that I have truly dealt with the reasons why I was safer in my overweight body.
I had been using food as a crutch to deal with my emotions for so long that it has taken me many years to trust my way of living a healthy and balanced life. I believe one of the reasons why only 5% of people who lose over 10% of their body fat keep it off is because those of us who have done it know it is not a quick fix and we accept that we will need to focus on our weight for the rest of our lives.
I still feel sad, anxious, or overwhelmed and I still turn to food for comfort. The difference is that I understand why I am feeling those emotions and I deal with them through greater self-awareness. I have also worked hard to discover how to eat healthily and still feel like I’m comforted by food.
That is another reason why people don’t keep the weight off. You can’t do the same thing and expect a different result. No matter how you try and lose weight, if you don’t change your physical habits and bravely address this underlying issue, you are never going to lose weight and keep it off. I say that with such empathy!!
If you haven’t been following my journey, I have lost a noticeable amount of weight. 47kg to be exact (well, that is dependent on the scale I stand on, but that’s another blog post, for sure). So many people ask me how I do it and they expect me to launch into what I eat and how I keep fit. My story isn’t helpful there. I want you to know that my weight started to shift when I began to dig deeper into my emotional state and started addressing what triggered my emotions and how I unconsciously dealt with stress and anxiety.
They say to cultivate a positive relationship with food, where you see it as nourishment for your body rather than a coping mechanism. If you don’t realise that there is emotional and physical nourishment that the body needs, you will only try and solve the food problem.
It wasn't an easy journey, but slowly and surely, I began to witness myself with a consciousness that took a depth of bravery I didn’t know I had. Watching what triggered my eating and then dealing with it by understanding that I was feeding either the scared inner child or the defensive victim. I dug deep into my astrological profile and worked on the soul contract I have with my body as a way of affirming for myself that I am meant to overcome my poor body issues and my lack of worthiness to love the skin I am in.
I was that cliché of 5 pounds lost and 2 pounds put back on again while I faced one triggering emotion at a time. It sounds awful, but I can’t tell you how freeing it was to understand why I had been trapped in my own loop of weight for so long. Slowly, I started to lose weight without even trying, because I was no longer using food as a crutch. I was nourishing my body with healthy foods, and I was no longer turning to food for comfort.
This is, even more, cliché, but I am in the best shape of my life just before I turn fifty. Today, I’m nearly 26,46 pounds/12 kilograms lighter than I was in high school (over 30 years ago).
I feel healthy, happy, and confident in my own skin. And I know that I will never gain the weight back, because I have addressed the root of the problem.
The lesson that I learned is that weight loss is not just about physical habits; it's about addressing the underlying emotional and mental factors that contribute to excess weight. And once you address those issues, the weight will naturally come off and stay off.
This is one of the reasons I became the Personal Transformation Coach I am today. I went before you and braved the work, mastered using the modalities as a guide and created the tools to overcome the reasons why you carry the weight finally.
I’m not a dietician or fitness instructor, so I’m not promoting my lifestyle at all, but I happily work alongside the people you choose to guide you with your food and exercises!
Candice’s story:
Jodene helped me discover and resolve the root causes of my emotional eating, closet eating, and overeating. Because she has done the work to lose weight herself, she guided me from a real space of understanding and support.
Please either drop me a message on WhatsApp or Telegram: at +27827817570 or email me jodene@lifeology.biz for a chat. Otherwise, book a 30-minute complimentary consultation with me and let’s chat to see if I can support you.
Beyond weight loss, I am here to help you with:
Lack of direction or purpose
Limiting beliefs
Building confidence
Managing anxiety
Career direction
Improving relationships
Financial worry
Low self-esteem
Fear of change
Be kind to yourself ...
