“Hi Roger, on Friday night I was playing cards with the boys. I had a big salad and a small piece of salmon, then a few (10 maybe) corn chips and a slice of store brand cheese cake, yuck. I have been working very hard to burn those calories but can’t seem to get the pound gained released. My birthday is Saturday and was looking forward to a treat or two to celebrate. My weakness on Friday is making me feel like I can’t play on Saturday. I am looking up Mary’s Diet now. If you have any other ideas let me know. I’m not ready for the scale to go up! Thanks so much.”
I received this email this morning from a client who has been working diligently at losing weight. She has already lost 23.5 pounds and is, in my opinion, doing beautifully. One of her character traits is that she is so hard on herself and judges herself harshly. She has strong tendencies of perfectionism and allows little room for herself to be less than perfect.
As a student at the University of Santa Monica I remember Dr. Ron Hulnick telling us about Stackers. He said that there were Stackers in the heavens that delighted in stacking things against us to see how we responded to challenges. He told us that we work with an issue, we heal, we do well with it and then the Stackers decide its time to toy with us and they zing a challenge to see if we handle it or if we go back to old behaviors. Sometimes in life we do really well with the gifts from the Stackers and sometimes we struggle.
That is how it is with weight loss. Sometimes we do really, really well, and then the Stackers zing us with chips & cheese cake. To me that is not the issue, the issue is do we forgive ourselves for any judgements that we make about our behavior, learn and move on, or do we judge our-self as a failure and give up.
One of the things that I feel so strongly about is staying with a client throughout the time it takes them to release the excess weight. So many weight loss programs only offer a few sessions and then sends the person on their way without support to reach their goal weight. My recommendation for Slender For Life clients includes working together until the client reaches goal weight and even some experience with weight maintenance so that when life happens the client has a support system to back them up. If you are considering a weight loss solution that is only a few sessions, I urge you to run the other way!
To my client, I wish you a Happy Birthday. Enjoy the special foods of the occasion and stop eating when your appetite says “enough – no more”!
