Since March of 1988, I’ve lost count of how many times that I’ve heard a patient say, “I just don’t have time for myself”. At the same time when these same patients do come in, they often feel guilty that they are taking time for themselves or are spending time and money that could go towards other obligations (e.g. kids, spouses etc…). As well, I have caught many patients nodding off to sleep while they wait for me, because often their visit to see us is the only time they have to themselves. When this type of dialogue or situation takes place during an office visit, I pull out the following little diagram from my desk drawer and start to talk about taking care of “Numero Uno”.

The diagram pictured above represents you (“Numero Uno”) and your five dimensions of optimal health. The physical triangle, of course, represents our body and the other four triangles […]

For most of us, who are working at controlling our weight, the most difficult days to get through are often the weekends, starting on Friday afternoon. We often do well following our “diet plan” and exercise routine throughout the week, then along comes Friday. I have a few ideas that I believe will help you with your weekends.

First of all, we have to realize what the weekends are. They really are societies’ reward system for working hard at our job or going to school for the previous 5 days. One of the hardest things on a “diet plan” is to get over the idea that we are depriving ourselves of our favorite foods, etc. The same goes for weekends. We get to Friday afternoon and we feel that we can’t have any fun because we’re on a diet and can’t go out for a few drinks, or out to our favorite restaurant to unwind […]

How often have you said to yourself that you “cheated” on your diet because you had a piece of cheesecake? No doubt this resulted in guilty feelings, self-punishment and contributed to lower self-image thoughts about yourself. In fact, I’m sure that many times the self-punishment ended up leading to more over-eating and a vicious binging cycle. These negative thoughts and actions stem from the guilt that arose from the fact that you felt that you “cheated” on your diet. It is a fact in life, that when you cheat someone or do wrong, and you are caught, a form of punishment is handed out. This is what you do to yourself when you feel that you “cheated” by having a piece of cheesecake. I have told countless number of patients over the years that when they would like to have a little dessert, for example, change the word “cheat” to “treat”. This will break the […]

How many times have many of you said to yourself –“Here I am 50 pounds overweight-if I had only done something when I was just 20 pounds over”? Obesity over the years has often been described as a disorder, or a disease of procrastination. Why do humans often procrastinate and in particular, why do overweight individuals put things off and not fix their weight problem “sooner than later”?

There is no one easy answer, but there are common thinking patterns.

UNREALISTIC VIEWS FOR SUCCESS

People who procrastinate often do not have a realistic view of how a successful person was able to achieve their goals. They think that it was easy for their friend to lose 50 pounds. This is unrealistic, as anyone who has lost 50 pounds knows that there are ups and downs, stresses, etc., that they went through in their journey. To be successful, one has to accept that there will be […]

After an absence from attending our office, many of you are holding back returning because of guilt or embarrassment that you have regained some weight. At our clinic, we are quite aware of this and as a result, we continue to pass on many reassuring ideas that have helped our restart patients deal with much of their guilt and negative self talk- which in turn has helped steer them back on the right course. Many times I have said that I should have a blinking neon sign at our front office door that says: “LEAVE YOUR GUILT OUTSIDE AND COME ON IN.”

Following are key concepts that will help reassure you, decrease your guilt and get you back on the right track:

REMEMBER:

It takes a lot of courage to restart. It is human nature to feel guilty to think that we have let ourselves or others down. Therefore, taking this first step is a […]

This might come as a surprise to most of you, but the scale is the number one contributing factor for people quitting their weight control efforts. Yet the factor that leads to most failures is the single most important measurement that everyone focuses on.

I know in our office that we weigh patients weekly, but after their weigh-in I bet I spend a third of my time de-emphasizing the scale in an effort to help patients deal with their negative reaction to the scale. I have said countless times to many patients that I would have liked to have run my program without a scale and instead go by improvements in their behavior and feelings, along with improvements in their clothing (i.e. passing the “blue-jeans test”). If I would have done this back in 1988 and not had a scale, people would not have understood and most likely my program wouldn’t have gotten off the […]

Once patients have reached maintenance, “calorie banking” is a concept that is a very practical approach in helping them balance their food intake for life. It stems from the idea that we live in a society that is basically 5 days on and 2 days off (referring to a work or school week).

Once a patient has lost weight and wishes to go on maintenance, their caloric food intake is slowly increased to1200 calories for ladies and 1500 for men. At this time we start to talk about the calorie banking principle.

Let’s say that a female patient has lost down to 130 lbs. Her approximate caloric needs to maintain this weight would be 1700-1800 cal. If we were to increase her intake to that level, there would be no room for extras (as we all know, it is usually the extras that are responsible for weight gain). Once we outline the 1200 cal. plan […]

How often have the following examples happened to you? 1) You’ve lost a lot of weight and suddenly a co-worker brings in donuts to the office. 2) Your husband brings home a box of your favorite chocolates to celebrate your weight loss. 3) Your mom bakes your favorite pie and tells you how great you look. 4) Your friend tells you not to lose any more weight because your face is looking quite gaunt. 5) A cousin, who hasn’t seen you for months, makes a big fuss over your weight loss in front of a big crowd at a party. After that you notice a drop in your motivation.

Believe it or not, the above examples are constantly taking place. Since the opening of my clinic back in 1988, I have found the area of diet sabotaging to be one of the most intriguing challenges a “dieter” has to face and a subject that caught […]

This topic is somewhat of an overlap to previous articles (setting success goals, dimmer switch and coping with a lapse), but setting day to day realistic goals warrants its own discussion.

Humans in general and dieters in particular, tend to be perfectionists and as a result try to be perfect all the time. If they slip on their diet they feel guilty and suffer from a loss of self worth, which often sets off a negative viscous cycle of overeating.

The negative emotional response usually occurs as a result of initial goal setting. If we say that we will never slip on a diet and a slip occurs, we feel guilty which often leads to thoughts about giving up and quitting. If we expect to exercise every day and we miss one day, once again, failure thoughts occur, leading to wanting to give up exercise altogether. In addition, expectations to lose weight each week sets […]

I don’t know how many times I have heard patients say, “I wonder why I can’t get my weight under control” or “I can’t figure out why I can’t lose weight”. They then go on to say that they quit smoking, they gave up drinking and that they are successful in most other areas in their life (their marriage, family life, their careers, etc.). They are just unable to come up with the answer.

My first response is to mention that a smoker has to use the all or nothing control method- they stop smoking (you are either a smoker or a non- smoker). An alcoholic must stop drinking. However, you just can’t stop eating. We have to use other methods to control our weight (please refer to my Dimmer Switch article) and this is generally harder than the all or nothing method described above. Secondly, I will often remind them that losing weight might […]