My new client and I had clearly got off to a good start.
Cases like Tanya’s are not unfamiliar to me. She had lost almost all the weight she needed to, and only the last 6 kilos were left now. But due to her slowing metabolism, and the fact that she had already lost a considerable amount, she was finding the last mile the hardest to cross. Based on her blood tests and eating habits, I charted out a meal plan and told her to come back in four weeks.
But when she came back, she hadn’t lost a single gram.I frowned a frown I usually reserve for those clients who have spent their weekends undoing the week’s hard work. I had no doubt that Tanya followed everything I outlined to the T. So why hadn’t she lost weight? And then, she started to speak…
“I weigh myself first thing in the morning, before a bath, after a bath, before lunch, after lunch, before exercise, after exercise. And my weight has not budged. I’ve hired an expensive personal trainer to complement my diet. I’m so stressed out by this that I can’t sleep. What more can I do?”
When someone weighs herself seven times a day, the person isn’t losing weight to look good or to feel better – he or she is obsessed with the idea of losing weight. Tanya has an obsession with weight loss. For her, food equals calories. For her, weight loss was not a way to get to her goal but it was the goal itself. So whenever she ate, her attitude was not “I am fuelling my body and this tastes so good”, it was, “I am eating calories and I need to work this off at the gym”.
I spent almost half an hour talking to her because I had to understand why anyone would weigh themselves seven times a day. I told her that she had to enjoy the same food, without thinking about the calories. And just to prove to her that it was the attitude and not the diet, I asked her to follow the same plan with a happier, positive frame of mind. I told her to go out and have fun. And she was not allowed to weigh herself at all
Two weeks later, the same plan gave her fantastic results. In just 15 days, she lost the 2 kilos she had been struggling to lose for months. Same meal plan, two sets of attitudes.
Obsession is as unhealthy as a crash diet. Tanya’s story illustrates the point I have been trying to make – this is the only body you have. Learn to love and appreciate it. Don’t sweat over the little things and stop obsessing over every single calorie. The results will come. For some, they come faster. For some, they take a little time. But there is no way that eating healthy will not make you reach your weight loss goals. Remember that.
