Weight Loss and Happiness

I love to coach people on feeling good.

But I am not a weight loss coach.

However in preliminary sessions, weight loss may be the most common goal I encounter, especially with women over 35.

And yet when we take the time to dig deeper, what they really want is to feel good. About themselves, and IN themselves. They want to feel healthy, energized, and just love the body they are in. They want to feel lovable. And weight loss becomes the scapegoat.

I can’t blame them, we all know the pressure to lose weight is everywhere. It is easy to equate it with happiness and re-direct all our energy there.

But no matter what those Facebook ads about cardio, weight training and calories tell you, traditional dieting and obsessing over physique is often a losing battle. And thinness does certainly not equate to happiness.

And anyway, if you truly want to lose weight, the best way to get there is to focus on feeling good. It’s the way our body works.

Here’s what I mean…

For many of us, insatiable appetite and/or emotional eating often follows intense stress. Ever notice when you’ve had a stressful day and you FINALLY land at home (or in the car), you go straight to whatever food is available and unconsciously eat. This is because the adrenal stress response spikes your blood sugar, till it comes crashing down triggering intense appetite.

Stressors come in many forms, but one in particular is particularly damaging partially because sometimes, it just never turns off. I call it self-judgement.

While a harsh word from someone else can certainly be stressful, it passes after the conversation does, allowing your nervous system space to regulate. But those shoulds, those I’m not enoughs, that trance of unworthiness…it can be like a broken record. This includes body shame, eating guilt, exercise obsession, and dieting stress. They are all great at accumulating fat.

Not only does chronic stress cause our blood sugar to crash and appetite to sore, but it also signals our body to hold on to fat (got to hold on to those reserves when you are in “fight or flight” running from that proverbial tiger).

One of my favorite teachers from my nutrition and health coach training shared that when she was a chronic dieter and marathon runner (one a form of mental, the other a form of physical stress) she couldn’t seem to lose her belly fat. It was only when she moved to New Zealand to a retreat center, and did Tai Chi and slow melo walks for her movement practice that she lost it. Indeed, stress has been linked to abdominal fat in otherwise thin women (Epel 2000).

Let’s look at the evidence on a collective level…when did dieting culture really take off? The 1980s. When did we progressively start to get more obese and depressed? The 1980s. Hmm.

If I honestly ask myself if I was happier when I was at my thinnest (i.e. too thin for my body)…my answer is, well maybe at first. Or at least on the surface. But it was all sourced in a longing for love.

You see, it was true, I DID get attention. People told me how good I looked, which boosted my ego and made me feel good about myself. However, it also made me obsessively exercise  and restrict all the more.

Because like my thinness, that self acceptance was on a surface level and depended on the approval of others, and thus was not true self love, which is unconditional. Furthermore, my hormones were crashing, I was fatigued, and plagued by self judgement and not-enoughness.

When I gained weight, it was hard. I didn’t like how my body looked. The fat went mostly to my belly. But it sent me on a journey of finding true self love.

Now? I am the same post gain weight, but I move because it feels good, I run because it feels good, I climb mountains cause it feels good. If and when that self-judgement comes creeping back, I pause to investigate, and don’t stop until my inner child and I can hug it out and come back to love. And although I AM the same weight, I’m happy to report it’s more in my boobs and butt then my stomach (rather than in my “stress belly” as I like to call it).

So when I encounter women on their first coaching session hyper focused on finally loosing that post-menopausal belly fat (for example), 100 percent prepared to get back on that diet circling carousel of self-deprivation that they’ve rode for most their lives, I have to take a deep breath, resist telling them all of this in the first session, and begin gently and with true compassion. This “weight loss is the path to love and happiness” paradigm has been stuffed down their throat their entire lives. But gosh, not only does the do what feels good path often work better anyway, it is so much more fun.

 Still, I can’t help it – I am so excited to show them the whole body benefits of pure self love. I’m so excited to show them that when they focus on feeling good, instead of weight loss, not only can they experience more serotonin but they just might inadvertently lose some weight too.

I don’t want to be your weight loss coach. I want to be your self-love coach. Your lean back into peace and prioritize yourself coach. Your eat nutritious foods (and take out the guessing) because they nurture your phenomenal body and make you feel good coach. Your move for pleasure coach. Your connect to your innate vibrance and natural energy coach.

Take a deep breath. Notice what you are feeling, the thoughts in your mind. Put a hand on your heart and give yourself a loving word or two. You are worthy of so much love. It starts here, with yourself.