Weight Loss Focus
( WLF )
This page will give you some ideas about how to deal with a recurrent hankering to shed weight.
In this work, we are focus on your thinking, feelings and behaviour around food - making permanent, sustainable changes that empower you?
We are defocusing on the number on the weighing scales.
However, it is not uncommon for clients to tell me that they cannot rid themself of this emotional attachment to the idea of weighing less. Let’s call it Weight Loss Focus (WLF)
With this in mind, here are some ways to challenge that kind of hankering...
#1
Ask Yourself: What Is The Track Record of Weight Loss Focus For Me?
How has WLF worked out for you in the past? My guess, based on every client I have ever coached, is not very well.
I am, of course, talking about sustainable change. Not the 10lb you shed on that crazy celery fastathin that you promptly regained the following month.
Have you ever bought a brand of appliance that broke down? Say this brand has a no refund, no returns policy. Not looking very good, is it???Would you continue to buy their products in the hope that maybe *this* blender/ hair iron/ drill will be the one, and that probably it is all your fault for not using it properly?
Of course not.
As Einstein said, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.
#2
As Yourself: Be Open to The Possibility That The Ideas in This Coaching Programme Will Get You The Sustainable Results You Crave
Macronutrient balance. Slow eating games. Retraining your brain with things like theta work to make exercise for example something you do automatically. Eating Rhythm. Channeling emotions so you don’t have to manage them with chaotic eating.
The list goes on...
These ideas are diametrically opposed to WLF, but ironically are a far better route to actual weight loss. Don’t you think it is worth trying to continue with these strategies and give them a chance to become embedded in your life?
#3
Ask Yourself: Would I Recommend Weight Loss Focus to a 13-Year-Old?
Did you watch the Pink video at the top of this page?
I think you’ll agree that far, far too many teenage girls think this way about themselves; Don't let me get me; don't wanna be my friend no more
Could it be possible that not only is WLF no solution for this very real pain, but that the bloody thing is actually one of the causes of that pain?
If you would not recommend it to that girl, why on earth are you allowing it any houseroom in your head?
#4
Ask Yourself: Is WLF A Way For Me To Express Shame That Doesn’t Belong To Me?
The thing about inappropriate shame is that it makes you want to escape yourself. You are Pink in that song.
WLF is a way to weaponise that inappropriate shame that gets brainwashed into us before we have matured enough to stand up to it.
As I talk about in this page, culture is all about telling women to be less. It is part of the scaffolding of that shame.
This work we are doing in coaching is all about dismantling that shame. Unbrainwashing yourself.
So why on earth would you keep the scaffolding up?
#5
Ask Yourself: Is Weight Loss Focus Actually The Novelty Wearing Off?
I have noticed that quite a few clients experience something after a few weeks on this programme: the novelty starts to fade.
This is to be expected. Like the first infatuated flush of a relationship, things won’t be exciting forever. You feel great changing your breakfast and lunches for a few weeks, then it all gets a bit ....meh.
This is nothing more than chasing after the next shiny new thing that consumerist culture has encouraged us to embrace.
This programme is designed to get you to feel empowered early on, in order to give you the confidence to make this life changing transformation.
Accept the novelty fade, and treat the approaches described in Q2 like the material of an enduring relationship. You swap the infatuation for a less exciting, but ultimately more fulfilling, long term relationship.
#6
Ask Yourself: Could Weight Loss Focus Be An Attempt To Escape The Necessary Discomfort of This Work?
And now we have arrived at the heart of your WLF hankering
We have arrived at the paradox of reclaiming your life from food.
Here it is:
The path to freedom from food is paved with your resistance.
Slow eating means you have to be present, which is just a fancy term for being with yourself. It is how Pink (and all of us) makes friends with herself. To be with that imperfect person who has been her or his own harshest critic for years.
I’m not doing that! screams your compulsive self.
Macronutrient balance and meal planning means self care, which is just a fancy term for stopping the self abuse.
I’m not doing that! screams the addict in your head.
Building boundaries means you have to stop indiscrimately seeking approval from any tribe out there. It implies you are enough.
I’m not...!
You get the picture.
All this resistance comes wrapped up in a package called this is hard.
Yes, of course it is.
If it was easy you would have sorted this out years ago.
It also comes wrapped up in the toxic lie called I can’t do this.
To that I say: yes you can. It is just that roads paved with resistance don’t tend to be nice empty motorways that reach their destination as the crow flies. There are dead ends, diversions, blind spots.
But the road will always be there. It leads to the destination that is most empowering for you.
You just have to accept that the roadmap is uncertain.
#7
Replace WLF with Developing Body Confidence
I know how challenging this will be for some of you reading these words.
But isn't your life challenging anyway?
Would you ever say to a child who is struggling to learn to read: Ok, I can see it's hard. Let's put those books away forever. I don't want to challenge you too much here. After all, you don't need reading to stay alive, do you?
Of course not.
So why shy away from liberating yourself from body shame?
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