Many of my new clients panic when I suggest that they eat whole healthy foods for fast weight loss. I can sympathize with them. As a child I would feel guilty if I ate a second apple in one day or if I wanted a second glass of milk. I had a bigger appetite than my thin siblings, but knew that to eat more than them proved to the world I deserved the extra weight I carried, even if that food was a couple of cucumbers for a snack in the summer. By the time I met my naturopath I weighed 256 pounds and was in a deep depression. I had gone armed with information and demanded blood work to see if my problem was liver/nutrient based. I made some great discoveries and was able to shed the depression and start a raw foods diet that let me lose 136 pounds in 9 months. When I returned to see the naturopath for my final blood work, she showed me the notes she took the first day we met. They said: “Patient views food as poison.”
For the woman I was when I first met her, that statement was very true. After working with so many other obese women, I have learned that is actually a very common idea. Food has been our lover and our enemy. Most of us don’t really know how we feel about it, but we all fear our relationship with it. The most common complaint I hear from dieters on why they quit most diets is that they just wanted to eat like a normal person.
The problem is that for those of us who have grown up with obesity the idea of how to eat like a normal person is outside our realm of understanding . We only know two modes of eating: dieting and overeating. The only time we seem to be able to control our eating is when on a structured diet, but that structure soon becomes a prison and we run to our other method of nutrition, the one that keeps us obese. Food has just never worked for us.
When I ask my new obese clients how they would eat if they were a normal person they either tell me that normal people can eat anything they want, which of course we all know is not true, and then they shrug. They have no idea how to eat in moderation or even wat to eat. My program requires obese clients to start off with a diet of 1800 calories. Without fail, they each tell me that is way too many calories and that they will gain weight. It takes me the two weeks of discovery that I require to convince them otherwise.
I check their food every day. The first week is always predictable. The food logs are packed with diet type foods in quantities that wouldn’t satisfy a child. The calories rarely come close to the 1800. For that matter they rarely reach 1500. When I start to question the choices they actually defend the food saying they prefer it to other “real” food. After a long lecture on what we are trying to accomplish the second week is better, but it still takes a while to get them to give in to foods they feared all their lives and to eat enough to feel sated before leaving the dinner table.
We are all different. Our bodies respond to different types of food and our personal likes and dislikes are highly varied. Some people can lose weight with higher fat, some people can’t. Some people have no problem eating lots of salt, others like me, have to be cautious. Some people need fewer, larger meals to feel sated, others need to graze through the day. Understanding who you are as an eater becomes paramount in defining a diet that will bring weight loss and then let you adjust it for life-time maintenance.
Dieting is exactly what has made us all afraid of eating, yet to lose weight and keep it off for life, learning to eat is imperative. That’s no brainer you are thinking, yet in my experience getting people to eat is more difficult than getting them to diet. When they do eat foods that they thought were only available during the overeating phase of their life they feel guilt and have a hard time enjoying it.
New obese clients are always tentative with their food the first week. When we go over their food list it is always filled with the typical diet foods in quantities that are not worth the bother. When I question them about their choices they will defend the food stating that they really like it. I mean really? Who honestly likes sugar free anything or those rice cakes? For them these foods are treats. What happened to us? Who filled us with so much fear of real food? Breaking through these old habits is tough and it can take weeks.
It takes time and effort to move into a healthy diet, one that is satisfying and can last a lifetime, but it is worth it. Anyone can be successful if they open their mind and fight the fear and guilt associated with eating. Once I convince them that they can eat real food to maintain their weight with real food, shedding the pounds is easy.
Making the decision to not let food, or the fear of it control you is freeing. No longer will you give in to cravings because you believe the food is stronger than you. Food will become what it is meant to be: nutrition and fuel. It is when that happens that the obese can step away from their fat suit for life.
