It's important to share challenges

because let's face it, learning new stuff kind of involves doubt and discomfort

As I go about updating and refining the new book and trying to keep it as simple as possible, I’m shedding the material that’s not absolutely directly related to the actual program and putting it here as an extra, free resource. There’s a lot more to come so if you haven’t already subscribed here, make sure you do!

Anyway, thanks for joining this SANE approach to weight and health. Not only are you assuring yourself a wonderful, healthy life, your children and your grandchildren and your great grandchildren will thank you for it!

The weight loss journey isn’t linear and of course there are ups and downs as people learn the various strategies and techniques to completely change their conditioned thoughts, feelings, perceptions, tastes, and behaviour around food, so that the weight falls off automatically and permanently. Because this is just “who they are” now, it’s not possible to fall back into old habits and that’s something that no diet or other program has been able to achieve previously, even bariatric surgery for a lot of people.

So this is all very exciting, but, have you ever learned anything completely new that didn’t involve doubt, confusion, and challenge? It’s part of the territory and this program is very new and very different.

So rather than just sharing all the “wins” I’d like to share with you some of the questions that people have had and things they’ve come up against as they’ve gone through the experience of fat-proofing their bodies with the WeightChoice^TM program. This might also give you an idea of the type of support that will be available right here, for free.

Questions and troubleshooting

“Whenever I feel “hopeless” (which can be quite often) or have been hurt by someone, I find treating it harder because sometimes it just makes it worse. How do I get over this?”

Sometimes the apparent problem serves as a sort of decoy for deeper, more complex or more painful issues. This is one of the reasons I am so very much against untrained people “doing therapy” with others. If you have a sense that the “hopeless” feeling is in some way overwhelming this is a sign that it’s possibly not useful (or maybe even safe) for you to proceed all on your own and that professional help from someone who can support you comfortably and safely through the process may be a good idea.

There is a lot that could be happening here, but just a few could be:

1 When it “gets worse” does it still feel like hopelessness or in fact has it now become fear, or sadness, or some other more distressing emotion. If so, it is not really the hopelessness that needs treating, but the emotion beneath it.

2 Consider in what way it “gets worse”. Does that mean more painful or is there indeed a sense of feeling overwhelmed by it? Often with overwhelm a person feels like there are many things going on, too many to deal with at one time. In the program section of the book you’ll find a step-by-step protocol for dealing with overwhelm that helps people get back to feeling comfortable quite quickly.

3 The hopelessness may be quite complex of itself and require persistence in order to get a satisfying result. The particular treatment process you’re using may not be the most appropriate one. There are so many tools available that it isn’t necessary to keep using one which isn’t getting you the result you want. In fact, continuing to use an ineffective strategy, hoping to somehow get a different result this time, is a good definition for insanity, isn’t it?

“Guilt is a huge issue for me. My guilt is with my sister (who looks fantastic by the way). She gets very down on herself, which gets me down because how could someone so beautiful feel so poorly about themselves?! So in order to identify with her, I find myself feeling guilty if I don’t let her see that I feel as bad as she does. I’m one of those people that, if someone close to me has a headache, I get sympathy pains! I seem to take on everyone else’s troubles.”

Guilt is a huge issue for many people, especially women. One of the member bonuses is a really interesting piece on guilt and sabotage, including self sabotage. Most guilt can be treated using The Disruption Triangle, or NeuroStim, even anchoring. We also need to treat any belief that we wouldn’t be nice people if we didn’t feel for other people. That’s easy enough. There’s a certain amount of behavioural modification required also because some of this guilt stuff definitely involves co-dependent behaviour (also discussed in the guilt/sabotage article). I also highly recommend reading books on co-dependence and further study of the community bonus article on deflecting manipulation and criticism!

“Sometimes pure embarrassment is enough to turn me into a puddle! For instance, I asked my husband if we should have dessert and his reply was a very condescending “okayyy”. This one word threw me into a very lonely pit in the bottom of my heart. Why should I react like that?”

The way you’ve described embarrassment is like it’s an automatic reflex when you feel judged. And to you that means you then feel lonely and maybe quite sad, yes? What a lot of stuff happening all at once. This is great fodder for The Disruption Triangle, which is great for treating “chunks” of things. The “U” could be your husband saying “Okayyy”. And then where is the root of all of this? Are there childhood memories of being judged, embarrassed, isolated and sad? Each of these can also be treated, and as is usual, you’ll probably need to treat 3-5 of them before that effect generalises across similar memories.

You might need to keep coming back to the community to get specific help on each of these as you work through and free yourself from them.

“I have an issue around fear which I would like to treat using The Disruption Triangle but when I try, I find it very difficult to "break state". I have tried the counting back from twenty in fractions but even this takes a while. Any suggestions?”

There are two reasons why it might be difficult to break state:

1 The issue could be so contentious that you find you just automatically get drawn into the feeling of it too deeply instead of just getting the tiniest “whiff” of a reaction. In this case, you might actually need someone there to help you come out of the state more quickly and cleanly. The Disruption Triangle doesn’t work so well if the break state isn’t both rapid and clean. Alternatively you could have a photo to look at which automatically gets you to a neutral state (picture of family pet, picture of tree), or maybe an ice cube to rub over an arm. If you can’t get the break state happening then I’d suggest an alternative SDR technique which may suit you better.

2 You could be getting into the state too deeply. The “U” (for “unwanted conditioned response”) requires you to merely get the trigger to the very beginning shred of the unwanted response before leaping off and going neutral. It’s absolutely not necessary to fully get the unwanted response – in fact that works against the method. You may have to think about the unwanted response and decide where the very initial trigger is and just treat that. The very initial trigger is what you think about on the “U”, and you “get the hell out of there” the second you feel it.

“I find I am strongly resisting treating issues. What is best way to treat this?”

This could be sabotage and might relate to self-image (if your unconscious mind has identity definitions that don’t match your desire to lose weight then certainly it will find ways to stop you), or slimness may not “fit” for your unconscious mind because of secondary gain issues relating to consequences of being slim or consequences of being overweight. It pays to revisit the section on identity and to keep examining our gut reactions to thoughts of ourselves being slim or being overweight. The gut reactions are really the unconscious mind “speaking” to us to let us know what’s going on.

Also, it could be that you’re intending to treat yourself at times when frankly you are tired and really just need to chill out.

Why not pick a specific thing you want to treat, and see if we can help you with that in the community? Experiencing success could be all you need to fire up your enthusiasm to keep decimating those problems!

“What is the best method to stop snacking in front of the TV? (still doin' it!)”

There’s not really a problem snacking in front of the TV as long as it’s now and then and as long as it’s mostly stuff like fruit, for example. If you’ve successfully treated any desire for unhealthy food, you’ll mostly choose the stuff that’s best for you.

This could also be a sign that you’ve been trying to control the snacking by willpower, thus creating resistance and a feeling of deprivation. Resistance is a sign that we haven’t dealt with something sufficiently and have been trying to “force” it.

Additionally, to maybe help gain some more insight into what could be happening for you, try sitting in front of TV with the snack and saying to yourself “I’m going to put this back now”, imagine putting it back or putting it in the trash uneaten, and see what feelings come up. This can help bring up the real reason you have the desire to snack in front of TV.

Let’s talk about this some more in the community and see if we can resolve it once and for all.

“I have reached a plateau with my weight, is this normal? How do I move on from here?”

It’s normal to reach a plateau with weight because weight loss can influence metabolic rate and we already know that weight loss isn’t linear. The body has to acclimatise to new eating preferences and this can take a little time. That’s why it’s so important not to go hopping on the scales every 5 minutes – it’s not our weight that’s relevant, it’s our habits and preferences which are the benchmark for our progress because that takes care of the weight automatically.

Of course we have to be willing to consider and admit to things we may be doing that work against healthy weight. If we’re not eating well, if we’re not getting enough activity, if we’re not doing the things that support our metabolism, then we will reach a plateau that has nothing to do with our autonomic nervous system adjusting to a new way of living and everything to do with the fact that we still have work to do to effortlessly change our conditioned thoughts, feelings, perceptions, tastes and behaviour around food.

If you’re doing everything right, it’s just a matter of time and you need to treat any feelings of impatience. On the other hand, if weight remains plateaued for over 2 weeks, it’s time to check what might be happening.

How long have you actually been on this plateau, and does it co-incide with your menstrual cycle? Would it be a good idea to revisit your calculations and food diary to see whether you’re getting the “most bang for your buck”?

“I have lost a few inches from my thighs and the skin is a bit wrinkly, any good toning tips?”

This one’s outside the ambit of the book but nevertheless very important! If we’re dehydrated then the skin can be wrinkly, but for toning tips the best person to talk to is a properly qualified personal trainer. Rapid weight loss doesn’t give the skin a chance to recover very well and where people have been extremely obese often the only choice is surgery to remove the excess skin. Those people have to be very careful because they have little elasticity left and if they put back their weight they run the risk of splitting that stretched skin. That’s also why it’s so important to avoid rapid weight loss routines and instead focus on changing habits and preferences unconsciously.

“If I eat something that is not good for me, I think I have ruined all of the good I have done.”

Is this a conscious piece of logic, or is it a “feeling” of having ruined all the “good” you’ve done? If it’s conscious, then it’s something that can be debated with yourself. You only have to look at all the cultures that use ceremonial feasting and yet have no or little overweight. You only have to think of all the slim people you know who occasionally eat chips or pizza or chocolate or whatever. Since we can only add 0.5 to 1 kg of fat in a week (constantly eating enough calories to do so) it is literally impossible to “ruin” anything by occasionally pigging out or occasionally eating something that’s overly fatty or sugary.

If it’s a “feeling” that means it’s coming from your unconscious mind and definitely needs treating. NeuroStim could be a great way to go about that: “Even though I’ve ruined all the good I’ve done”. Thinking of what you’ve been doing as “good” that you’ve had to work at could be a sign that you’ve been using willpower, and have more work to do on preferences etc.

Will you try this and get back to us on the community so we can help refine as you go?

“How do I deal with the "It is taking forever to reach my goal" feeling?”

That fact that you’ve got that running probably means that there’s impatience about reaching your goal. Anticipation, excitement, expectation are one thing, impatience or struggle are altogether another. This type of thinking means that you might be focussed on not having your goal and is unhelpful because our minds tend to take us where we focus. NeuroStim or the Disruption Triangle would be great ways to attend to this issue. Also, if we are impatient, it can mean we don’t like ourselves as we are. The more we focus on our “deficiencies” the more our “deficiencies” remain. That’s the nature of our mind: it tends to take us where we focus.

In addition, have you looked at your self-motivation patterns? Are you motivated “toward” or “away from” or a combination? Let’s look at this and together devise a great automatic propulsion system to take you exactly where you want to go!

“What if the goal doesn't really seem in sight?”

Even though a goal might be quite realistic, and meet all the important conditions for skilful goal setting, we know that some people will still have a feeling that it’s not “in sight”. For that reason we’ve added a further condition to the goal setting process which I think you’ll find quite exciting! Take a look at the separate article here “Goal Setting and Goal Getting”.

You need examples of where you’ve succeeded with ease in the past and so you can modify those examples and apply them to the goal.

Let me know if you need help with this.

“What do I do if I feel that I am just dieting again?”

While we need to reduce calories to a particular (and safe) level in order to get noticeable fat loss, we do that in the context of creating permanent, effortless change to who and what you are around food and exercise, so that at the end of the program, you are a person who desires only healthy things.

If you’re hungry, your program needs to change!

On the other hand it might be that you’re using willpower to deny yourself and in that case you need to STOP because deprivation causes cravings and will delay your progress.

If not, and the changes you’ve made are because you have genuinely changed your tastes and preferences, then you may be being triggered by similarity between what you are now choosing and when you have dieted “healthily” in the past. That needs to be treated again and the SDR technique NeuroStim may be a great way “Even though I feel like I’m dieting again (and maybe I’m just kidding myself)”.

“I’ve been good all week, and yet my weight has increased and so have my measurements. What gives?”

Contrary to popular opinion, fat loss doesn’t occur at regular intervals, and doesn’t occur evenly over the body. Weird stuff can seem to happen on a weight loss program:

· Weight may decrease, but the tape measure, and dress size, shows no difference

· Weight may increase, and the tape measure may or may not show an increase (could easily show a decrease if you’re losing fat and building muscle)

· You could be faithfully keeping to the program, but NOTHING seems to happen, and then suddenly you drop a kilo out of nowhere – ditto again and again

These seemingly crazy things all have logical explanations. Because muscle weighs MUCH more than the same VOLUME of fat, you can easily weigh more, but be considerably slimmer.

If you’ve lost weight but your measurements remain the same, have you measured your face, wrists, fingers, and ankles? Not everyone loses fat evenly on their bodies; for a lot of people it’s lost in places they don’t normally measure, including the toxic fat that hides amongst their internal organs!

Likewise, your fat may still be present, and therefore weigh the same, but may now be of a different nature. I’ve heard this described as “softening” of the fat, so that at a critical point it breaks down and is excreted quite suddenly, rather than evenly over time.

So as difficult as it may be, patience is a requirement if you really want to eliminate that excess fat on a permanent basis, and you really need to place yourself in a caring and nurturing support community in order to sail through those disappointing times. One more good reason to become part of our lovely community.

Once the book comes out, this community will be THE place to be to get support and share the journey to effortless weight loss.