The diet hobby

After speaking to lots of serial dieters I wonder if dieting is their main hobby in life?

They talk about it all the time, they read books on diets and dieting, they buy magazines on dieting and they buy all sorts of dieting paraphernalia over the years. The only thing is …  I thought you were meant to enjoy your hobbies.

Time for a different one?

Posted by Stephen

February 19, 2010  Tags: , ,   Posted in: Attitude & Approach  No Comments

What are you giving up?

Many of my Facebook friends are giving something up for lent. Most say that it will be chocolate that they won’t have, but of course it could be anything.

Now whether they’re doing it for religious reasons or because it’s a way of helping them diet I don’t know, but what strikes me is that they often follow the public declaration with a moan about how much they don’t really want to, or with a comment about how hard it will be.

Either way it shows how much power they give to this food and how much it will be in their thoughts right up to the time they allow themselves to eat it again.

No food should have that much control over anyone.

Posted by Stephen

February 17, 2010  Tags: , ,   Posted in: Dealing with Events  No Comments

Another Monday, another diet?

Are you starting another diet again today?

What will it take before you accept that being slim has nothing to do with the latest diet you decide to temporarily go on?

Recently I was working with a client who insisted that all they needed was to be able to stick on a diet and they would get to their goal. What they really did not want to recognise was that they were the one who did not stick to the diet.

I asked them how the diet was meant to do it for them as they seemed to want to think that it was the diet’s fault.

Owning up to the fact that we are responsible can be tough but it is the only way to change anything.

Shall I ask the same questions next Monday?

Posted by Stephen

February 15, 2010  Tags:   Posted in: Myths & Excuses  No Comments

Sweet temptation

I was getting petrol today in a supermarket petrol station and as I was standing in the long queue I had a good look around the aisles on either side of me and my fellow captives.

Rows and rows of sweets and crisps lined the route to the till, which you would expect because they make so much money from them.

So we are fair game but as usual I was paying attention to who picked some of it up.

One guy picked up a sandwich and a drink so he was probably hungry and guess what he was a good weight.

Another lady picked up a chocolate bar and she was slim too.

Another lady went to pick something up but then changed her mind, so I guess she is on a diet and is prone to yo-yoing.

And one young lady walked out with two packets of crisps, a bag of sweets and two bars of chocolate. Guess whether she was overweight or not?

So is it the supermarkets fault that the UK is getting fatter? No, of course not, because those few minutes showed we all have a choice.

The supermarkets are good at tempting you, but you have to pick the stuff up, pay for it and eat it.

Posted by Stephen

February 8, 2010  Tags: , , ,   Posted in: Dealing with Events, Uncategorized  No Comments

Fat because you care?

A client of mine asked for some help a few days ago because she was slowly putting weight back on after being really happy with how she looked.

She had been over weight for a while because she was in a very controlling relationship and her partner, although loved how she looked, could not handle her being attractive to anyone else. So in fact he was a massively jealous guy who would give her food to show her ‘how much he loved her’.

So after leaving him in a traumatic break up she dropped a pile of weight but then got caught up in the stress of the change and stopped eating with an “if I’m slim I’ll be happy” belief. So she dropped too much weight too quickly and fainted on more than one occasion.

She finally got the point that this was not good and, as she sorted her life out, put a little weight back on then stayed there for quite a while. Life was good but the weight very slowly crept back on and this is when she asked for my help.

To cut a long story short it was guilt that was doing it. She had dealt with all the other things to do with the break up but what she did not realise was she was putting weight back on to be a good mother. In doing her best to look after her children she would give them treats and nice meals to compensate for the turmoil they had gone through.

So in an effort to feel better about herself because of the guilt from the stress of the relationship break up and not always being able to do everything that she wanted to do for her children she used her own favourite tool of food to make them feel better. And she ate these treats too as a way of bonding with her kids.

Luckily the kids had never learnt to use food in this way and so enjoyed the treats but always stopped when they had had enough and are all slim and fit. She on the other hand became a victim of her own desire to be nice.

So whether you use food to feed someone up because you are consumed by jealousy, or as a way of showing love, it doesn’t actually work for either.

But now she understands what she was doing she has found another way of being the best mum she can be and she can be slim as well for her own self esteem.

Posted by Stephen

February 8, 2010  Tags: ,   Posted in: Weird Behaviours  No Comments


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