Why YOU Can’t Maintain Weight Loss

A successful (because she’s making lots of money- not because her clients are maintaining lost weight) weight loss doctor did a three hour program explaining how the reason you can’t maintain weight loss is all in your brain: your lack of will power. I listened for a while, but got so angry that I wrote this letter to her. She even suggested that instead of eating you should help the hostess serve and clean up the food at a party to keep your mind off eating.

This program is not only flawed, but it’s insulting. Do you REALLY think that over 95% (the speaker quoted an even HIGHER percentage) of people have no willpower?

Yes, will power is a factor to help make choices in life- but it’s not the factor in weight loss. I’m so saddened for Dr. Susan Peirce Thompson who believes that having a slender body is worth giving up the part of her life of enjoying food, eating with her friends and every other aspect that thin people don’t have to compromise about to maintain a thinner body.  Is it her belief that only thin people have will-power? 

Our society has developed a bias against people who don’t conform to being the “right size”. It is such an internalized preference that it makes them unable to SEE truths! “Believing is seeing”. They will argue unceasingly, that being past this acceptable weight limit is unhealthy- DESPITE REPUTABLE research that is done by actual scientists who don’t “gain” monetarily by finding that being fat is bad. Yes, the diet industry makes at least $60 BILLION a year marketing a product that has a success rate of less than 5%!

“Studies from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention repeatedly find the lowest mortality rates among people whose body mass index puts them in the “overweight” and “mildly obese” categories. And recent research suggests that losing weight doesn’t actually improve health biomarkers such as blood pressure, fasting glucose, or triglyceride levels for most people.”

But women, primarily, are willing to starve themselves to achieve these standards – that they will NEVER be able to permanently maintain! In fact women questioned about the importance of being thin said that they would be willing to shorten their lives 10 years to be 10 pounds thinner! This is a disgrace.

Besides genetics and epi-gentics being a fundamental issue regarding adult weight, there are many studies showing that conditions that a child 0-age 6 lived under will also be a large contributing factor in weight in their lives (ACE long term studies). Twin studies show that twins separated at birth, never knowing the other twin, weigh within a pound of each other and not the family with which they were raised. Even economic factors play a large part in an adult’s weight. You don’t see many “over weight” rich people do you? And they have not only access to, but exposure to fine foods, parties and events where they are not helping the host clear away dishes in order to prevent themselves from eating!!

And finally the real issue: Although it is CLEAR that stress affects the metabolism: (for examples see studies from Robert Sapolsky, Ph D. regarding stress with baboons); and stress is a primary factor in economically challenged or poor people; and stress is the factor in epi-gentic findings that the pregnant mother’s stress level affects the fetus; and stress is a factor in the ACE studies of childhood upbringing; and stress is the factor in people being rejected and scorned and laughed at by society – and of course I could go on…. Dr. Thompson thinks we should just “say no” to nurturing ourselves with food – even though life doesn’t offer nurturing of any kind to the person who is plump.

There are programs that deal specifically with STRESS RELIEF that impact people with weight issues: but promise no guarantees of weight loss, no dieting, no foods to avoid, no denying oneself when hungry. For some people, they will lose weight. But for many, their bodies are their bodies, and they will never be thin. The profound stress that is relieved is from trying to fit into other people’s standards in order to feel like a worthy human being. For me, I think that is the most important thing in life- accept yourself the way you are. The people who judge you are mean and shallow – or seeking to make a buck on your misery. Don’t become like them and judge yourself harshly because your body doesn’t conform to society’s standards of beauty.

 

Is dieting a stress in your life? Is dieting contributing to your inability to manage your weight and live a happy, productive, and successful life? Let’s talk about it and end that issue!