Obsessively Moderate

Jan came to me to break her cycle of Good/Bad or On/Off dieting, otherwise known as YoYo dieting.

Jan is highly educated, very capable, and works as an Executive Coach. A graduate of a top University with an MBA and a Masters in Engineering, Jan is tall and attractive. Although you would never think she had a weight problem, she has actually obsessed about food most of her adult life, and has either been uber fit (a one point she was a professional dancer), or uber bad, eating sweets multiple times a day, and avoiding vegetables at all costs.

Jan came to me because she had recently exceeded her lifelong weight ceiling. She wanted to drop 20 pounds, and even more importantly gain a healthy, balanced relationship with food.

In our first session, she described to me her pattern. She would be the Bill Philips poster child, dropping her extra weight and building muscles at breakneck speed during her 12 week bursts of enthusiasm. Then, a party or special meal would come up, she’d indulge in some ice cream or chocolate, and her body would become a temple of indulgence and her refrigerator a shrine to neglect.

As we talked, I realized that Jan was really good at being extreme with her eating and exercise patterns, as well as with her life in general. She had recently realized that her life somehow was always crazy, and she had a habit of saying that she would change “when things settled down”. Of course, they never did.

Since Jan was so good at being extreme, I asked her to imagine what it would be like if she were extremely moderate? What would zealously middle of the road look like?

She was taken aback by this idea, and I could almost hear her thinking shifting. Later in the conversation, I led her through a process that ended with a symbol from her subconscious mind. Her symbol was a turkey sandwich. She explained “I never ate turkey sandwiches because the bread was bad according to the Zone diet, but it wasn’t indulgent enough to qualify as a treat. It’s a very middle of the road food for me”.

Now, after a couple more sessions, she’s been eating turkey sandwiches daily for lunch, and has found herself enjoying four or more servings of fruits and vegetables a day. Every few days she eats a small scoop of Hagen Datz ice cream after dinner and feels satisfied. I am impressed. She’s already overachieving at moderation.