If a client comes to me for weightloss, the first part of the goal is finding out how much they want to release. That is the easy part. The next part of the goal is finding out how they are going to maintain that weight because in the end that is what they want, isn’t it? By far most clients only focus on the weight loss and forget about maintenance. In fact, statistics state that 90% of people gain their weight back. Why? We go back to our old habits and behaviours and blame the diet instead of looking at ourselves!

Stop that now and start taking responsibility for your life and health because the real goal is not about losing weight. The real goal/outcome that you want is how to keep it off and maintain it. In my next blog, I will show you how.

A client who had released at least 30 lbs came to me and told me that she was struggling with a constant fear of putting her weight back on. I asked her: “You have done well by releasing the weight so what makes you think that you will put the pounds back on?” She answered, “I find that now I have achieved my goal, I am going to my old habit of rewarding myself with sweets!”
“When do you find you are rewarding yourself?” I asked. My client found out that she wasn’t really consciously aware, but as soon as I asked her this question, she realized it was during the times when her workload had increased at work or she had to accomplish something by a deadline and she craved for sweets after the deadline had been met.

I then asked her, “What are you trying to gain by rewarding yourself with sweets?” She replied, “It is two-fold – I feel a sense of accomplishment that I got it done, but I am also so wound up when I get home that I find the sweets calm me down.” I explained to her that even though a part of her was fighting the behavior of eating sweets, a part of her just wanted to calm down and the only way it knew how was through sweets. Later on we worked on how she could resolve the internal conflict and replace a limiting belief around putting back on the pounds again so that she could maintain her current new weight.

I asked her: “What was it about the dessert that you liked so much and what made you decide to have 5 and not 1 or 2?”

She replied: “It’s delicious, it was one of my favorite deserts growing up and my step mom would make it all the time.”

I asked: “How often do you remember having it?”

She replied: “That is the problem. I never got to have any.” She continued, “When my step mom would make it, her child and any guests were allowed to have this delicacy. Her step kids were no allowed until the desserts started to rot.”

I asked: “Would you eat it when it started to rot?” She replied, “We (the client and her siblings) would remove the parts that had started to rot and eat the rest?”

Note: I usually ask my clients permission to share their story before I blog it, and this client is non other than my mother! Now, why do you think she ate 5 desserts that day at the event? What was she thinking and feeling?

Let me ask you this: “I do not want you to think of the statue of liberty!” ……….Did you picture it! You see, you still pictured it even though I asked you not to.

A client of mine has attracted her healthy weight – she went from a size 16 to a size 8 – and when she came to see me for her session, I asked her what she did with her old clothes or fat clothes and she replied, “I put them away in a box in my basement.” I asked her “What stopped you from giving it away or getting rid of them?” She replied, “What if I need them ……again?”

I explained to her that she was still giving attention, energy and focus to gaining weight because she had held on to her old clothes and she is now training her subconscious mind to gain the weight back. I asked her, “What makes you think that you will not be able to maintain this healthy weight?” She replied, “Fear of failing.”

This is a common limiting belief with people who have released weight and are scared of gaining it back, so we worked on replacing her limiting belief with an empowering one, but I asked her to get rid of her fat clothes so she could let it go and stop giving attention to gaining weight.

“What I am getting out of overeating at a social gathering?” or “What I am gaining by eating that candy apple with my family when I am watching my diet?” or “What am I getting out of snacking with my husband in front of the TV when I know I am not hungry and its not healthy for me?”

Usually the answers I get regarding social eating are:

I want to feel comfortable in a crowd;

I don’t want to feel left out;

It is one way of connecting with my (spouse/friend/etc).

I then ask:

If you are not comfortable, what would that mean?

If you are left out, what would that mean?

If you are not connecting, what would that mean?

Usually the answers lead to an underlying fear or limiting belief we hold about ourselves. I then ask:

“What would be better than this fear?”

The answer we get is the positive intention behind the behaviour! Once my clients realize that, they become more consciously aware of their habits and behaviours.

As a success/life coach specializing in helping clients release weight, I often hear about my clients struggles around the notion of socializing with food. For example, some of my clients tend to think that they have to eat what their friends are eating. I had a client who stated: “I seem to put on weight the most when I find myself eating out regularly with my friends.” However, the most common one  I have found is between life partners – when one partner is watching what they eat while the other partner is thin and “can eat what they want”. I will often hear, “My spouse is thin and how come he/she can eat what they want and I feel like I have to watch what I eat, and my weight is constantly on my mind.”

I have had the same scenario concerning whole families – when one member is watching their diet, while the rest of the family “are enjoying all the goodies”. In my next blog, I am going to share how I helped clients re-frame their thoughts and find the positive intention behind their thoughts and emotions.

Would you like to share anything about food and socializing…I would like to hear your experience?

For example, my husband smokes and so I asked him – “What do you get out of smoking or out of taking that large inhale of nicotine.” He had to pause for while and think about the answer because no one had asked him that. He said, “Whenever I smoke, just for a moment, I feel like I am stress-free that everything is alright. I feel I am getting some space to reflect and calm down and I then feel better to get back to business.”

Wow, what an answer to a simple question! That made me understand why he smoked and that he was using this habit to find that feeling of calmness and as a moment of reflection.

Now you try to find a positive intention on one of your behaviours and ask: “What am I trying to get or gain out of this?”, “What is my (his/her) positive intention?”

I remember in my childhood when I had a respiratory illness or the common cold, my mother would make me a drink that would help me feel better and, according to her, fight the cold. This drink contained: millet flour cooked in a lot of butter, milk, brown sugar and cinnamon. Yes, it was sweet, aromatic, tasty and very comforting. My mother is in Kenya and I only see her every couple of years, but when I do visit, I will ask her to make this drink for me! There are times that when I am in my own home and suffering from a cold, I will crave that drink and I have even tried to make it, but it never turns out like my mother’s. To tell you the truth, I am not sure if this drink has anything to do with the common cold but for that little time that I would sip it to completion, it sure made me feel good.

However, you will agree with me that some of us eat foods to comfort us or make us feel better – almost everyday! What are you doing? You are numbing out how you feel and not acknowledging your feelings. We are human beings – a being is person who feels in the moment – we will always have feelings and always come up against our emotions. Are we always going to go to food? Food will always make us feel better only in that moment, but will not offer a solution on how to deal with your feelings. Isn’t this behaviour similar to an alcoholic? If an alcoholic numbs out his emotions with alcohol, he is just enabling the behaviour. Similarly, when we emotionally eat we are enabling the behaviour.

What can you do?

1) Become aware of when you are reaching for the pantry or refrigerator when you are not hungry and stop. Ask yourself: What am I feeling? Why am I feeling this way or what is the cause of this feeling? What does it mean? By asking these questions, you are exploring your feelings and troubleshooting. Then find an alternative way to deal with your emotions other than food.

2) Start keeping a journal or a list of the foods you eat when you have certain emotions and then explore what that food does for you. Again, once you figure this out, find an alternative way to deal with that emotion. Thanks to Sophie Ciche for this idea.

You could share the above (#2) on this blog by making a comment.

“What if I did block/stutter as I went through with the task or situation – like going through a drive-thru?”

Well, there is a couple of pieces to this question – one is about the action itself (going through a drive-thru) and the other is about the stuttering behaviour itself. I had signed a contract with myself (mentally not on paper) that I would do the action regardless and I also remember telling myself that I am doing this to improve my communication skills so it will take time. This is similar to planting seeds – the seeds will grow into healthy plants in time and when nurtured. Similarly, I had made the contract with myself and some of the conditions in the contract were:

• to keep doing my best
• to have patience
• to nurture myself even if I had slip-up
• to have a goal(s)  – to work on task that I had avoided before
• to have the intention (comes from latin word “intendo” which means “to stretch forward”)

The second part to the question is what if I stuttered even after I practiced and visualized? How did I feel after?

I would feel sad, but then I would remind myself that I could not do this before and now I am doing it for myself and it feels good. I accomplished a goal! I would then reflect back on my conversation and notice what happened before, during and after. If I stuttered/blocked on a certain word, what thoughts or images were going through my mind, could I have used one of my fluency techniques, etc?  And yes, after I had figured out what had happened, I would repeat the same action (going through the drive-thru) so I could test what I had just deduced and desensitize my fear.  These experiences started to change my belief system about stuttering/blocking, my thought patterns and my behaviours.

I do not even think about stuttering like the way I used to. It does not control me.

Intuitively or unconsciously, I knew I started the behaviour when I was in the process of completing Kindergarten and some of us in KG had shown a higher IQ or something like that. The board of the school had approached my mother and other parents to allow their children to skip Grade 1 and go straight into Grade 2 from Kindergarten.

When I think about that moment, I can see myself at 5 years old listening to the conversation between the board member and my mother and watching my mother’s reactions and behaviours. I can see her feeling pressured to make a decision, having a lot of concern for me, but yet wondering that maybe “my daughter is capable”. I can see my little self – worried, scared, wanting to stay with her friends and peers and hoping that her mother would say “NO”.

You can guess what happened next – I did go into Grade 2. Now imagine a child at 5 years going into a class of 7-8 year olds. Imagine, a child leaving her friends behind and finding new friends. Imagine a child having to catch up with grade 2 work and feeling lost and frustrated. Imagine the belief systems the child acquired at that age.

I cannot remember the exact number of children, but I think there were 3-5 of us that skipped grade 1 and two of us ended up with the stuttering behaviour!

How did I stop the stuttering behaviour? You can read that on my other blogs and the strategies I used.  My family is in Kenya and I visited my mother this year. While having a deep conversation with her about life and our purpose and so on, she apologized for the decision she made when I was 5 years old. I looked her and told her not to apologize that that was the best gift she has ever given to me.