Is Losing Weight Impossible?

I have been reading several things by folks in the food marketing business and in the marketing psychology fields who feel that anyone trying to lose weight is fighting a losing battle. The argument is that Big Food has set it up so that we are unconsciously set up to eat the wrong things all the time and eat too much. We now have these eating "cues" that we follow without even realizing it.

I agree with this because I have seen this in my life and in the lives of my clients and students. I have seen many people try diets, body shaping courses, supplements, and infomercial programs to lose weight. They will all lose some weight for some time but their old habits almost always come back. Why do high percentages of people who get gastric by-pass surgery gain most of it back? The ones that I have seen start going back to their old eating behaviors. These are smart and highly disciplined people with a great motivation stay lean but they tell me that the weight gain "just happened."

When we dissect what happened, it almost always comes back to their cues that they have lived with for years. These psychological cues have been set up by society ("clean your plate!") or the food industry ("Snickers Satisfies!"). Even though they make a couple good decisions, they FEEL like they are being deprived and start to make a couple "cheating choices" which starts them down a slippery slope that they do not recover from easily if at all.

What is the message you can take home?

Be ready for the battle of your life because it is not just about the diet or the workout. It is about how you talk to yourself about food. You have to live every second of your life with those little voices in your head and learn how to turn them off or re-program what they are saying to you. It takes some thought and planning but you can do it. It will take a strong commitment to exercise, eating right, and changing habits by changing how you think and FEEL about food.