Outdoors Talk

Many of my new clients panic when I suggest that they eat whole healthy foods for fast weight loss. I can sympathize with them. As a child I would feel guilty if I ate a second apple in one day or if I wanted a second glass of milk. I had a bigger appetite than my thin siblings, but knew that to eat more than them proved to the world I deserved the extra weight I carried, even if that food was a couple of cucumbers for a snack in the summer. By the time I met my naturopath I weighed 256 pounds and was in a deep depression. I had gone armed with information and demanded blood work to see if my problem was liver/nutrient based. I made some great discoveries and was able to shed the depression and start a raw foods diet that let me lose 136 pounds in 9 months. When I returned to see the naturopath for my final blood work, she showed me the notes she took the first day we met. They said: “Patient views food as poison.”

We both laughed at that, but it was not far from the truth. Not just for me, but as I have learned from helping so many other obese women it is a common theme among the obese. None of us feel that we can trust food because we cannot trust ourselves with it. It has been the cause of all our weight problems, not actual food, but our unhealthy relationship with it. For this reason we come to fear it.

One of the biggest concerns for the obese in our relationship with food is that we have no idea how to eat “normal.” We are great on diets, but outside that structure, all we seem to know is how to overeat. It is that overeating that makes us obese and ill, so in our minds even though we love food and go to it for comfort and joy we know that it is killing us.

One of the first things that becomes very clear when new obese clients start my program, and what they actually all voice is: “I don’t know how to eat like a regular person.” When I tell them I want them to eat 1800 calories their first two weeks to find out what their true maintenance diet will look like, their eyes pop, their voices quake, and they stammer: “1800 calories, that is insane. I will gain weight.” It takes me a while to convince them otherwise.

I check their food every day. The first week is always predictable. The food logs are packed with diet type foods in quantities that wouldn’t satisfy a child. The calories rarely come close to the 1800. For that matter they rarely reach 1500. When I start to question the choices they actually defend the food saying they prefer it to other “real” food. After a long lecture on what we are trying to accomplish the second week is better, but it still takes a while to get them to give in to foods they feared all their lives and to eat enough to feel sated before leaving the dinner table.

No one person is like the next, so no one diet is perfect for everyone. Each person must find the foods that appeal to them without causing them to overeat. Eating foods that are meant for dieters doesn’t work for the obese, but it is all we know. Knowing when and how much to eat is not something left to the diet gurus to tell us, but for us to determine based on what works best for us. This is the only way to lose the weight and maintain it for life. Yet few have the courage to believe it.

That fear of eating that has been hammered into us all these years has to be tackled. The only way to do that is to eat. Sounds simple enough, but in my experience I have found it is harder to get people to eat then it is to get them to diet. Why? Because all we know is deprivation or guilt.

New obese clients are always tentative with their food the first week. When we go over their food list it is always filled with the typical diet foods in quantities that are not worth the bother. When I question them about their choices they will defend the food stating that they really like it. I mean really? Who honestly likes sugar free anything or those rice cakes? For them these foods are treats. What happened to us? Who filled us with so much fear of real food? Breaking through these old habits is tough and it can take weeks.

It takes time and effort to move into a healthy diet, one that is satisfying and can last a lifetime, but it is worth it. Anyone can be successful if they open their mind and fight the fear and guilt associated with eating. Once I convince them that they can eat real food to maintain their weight with real food, shedding the pounds is easy.

Making the decision to not let food, or the fear of it control you is freeing. No longer will you give in to cravings because you believe the food is stronger than you. Food will become what it is meant to be: nutrition and fuel. It is when that happens that the obese can step away from their fat suit for life.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 21st, 2009 at 9:44 am and is filed under exercise. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.