Who I can't help

The longer I have been doing this work, the more clear I become on who I can and cannot help. I had a client recently who wanted to lose weight. That may seem normal, given what I do, but this woman really, really wanted to lose weight. In fact, she was completely convinced that she couldn’t be happy until she lost the weight, so she wanted to lose it immediately, if not sooner.

I should mention that this woman had gained and lost 40 lbs twice a year for each of the past 15 years. She associated the major holidays with where she was in her gain/lose cycle. If it’s April, I must be losing weight. If it’s October, I’m gaining.

We worked together a few sessions where she reluctantly agreed to follow a balanced, moderately reduced calorie diet and we began to address her overeating triggers, which were many. The first thing she lost was her desire to overeat pasta, and she was briefly pleased by the shift. I also attempted to guide her to the core causes of her struggle to help her heal them.

Yet while she was making great progress in the foundation pieces for lasting change (addressing triggers, adopting specific practices of positive thinking, etc.) her frustration was growing. The weight just wasn’t coming off fast enough.

I later learned that the only reason she had decided to work with me was that her old pattern had broken down. She just wasn’t able to lose the weight quickly anymore. She had tried every diet pill on the market, prescription and herbal, and nothing worked, so she was left with me. What she most wanted, was for me to restore her to her old quick loss pattern. Even though she knew from 15 years of experience, that quick loss equals quick gain, she didn’t care. All that mattered now was to get rid of those excess pounds, and fast!

In the end, we realized we were a poor match. Ethically, I’m not willing to help someone go on a crash diet. The “I’ll get healthy once I lose the weight, and figure out how to maintain it then too” mentality just doesn’t fly with me.

Mine is not the quickest program around. There are many other weight loss programs that are faster. What I offer is an opportunity to address and heal the underlying causes so that when the weight easily comes off, it stays off. Overeating becomes obsolete, daily healthy practices become the norm, and maintenance is just more of the same healthy practices. To quote Oprah, “This I know for sure”.