“Why am I still overweight?”

‎I see so many frustrated people in my line of work, who just cannot dial in their eating habits.  And I can totally relate.

Think about the very first time you went on a diet. It may have been decades ago but try to member what you weighed before you chose to diet; what size you wore.  Chances are, many of us would be more than happy to be that size now. But we’re larger, despite numerous attempts to lose weight. Why?

I believe the majority of us have DIETED ourselves to a larger size.

I was 13 years old, 5’3 in height and weighed about 110 lbs when I bought into the notion that I was fat. I dropped 10 lbs through a near-starvation diet, only to quickly put the weight back on, plus more. Thus began a long-term cycle of trying to eat as little as possible in hopes of shedding fat and then bingeing it back on, always with a couple additional pounds tacked on. By the time I was 20, I weighed almost 140 lbs and was still repeating the cycle of low-cal eating/over-eating. It was miserable, time-consuming and took all of my mental focus and energy. Dieting was, without question, my obsession.

Luckily, that is as far as it went for me. I got a job where I was very physically active, fell in love, and food was no longer my focus. I was too distracted to fret about fat! Sure enough, the pounds came off on their own, I chose to eat smart without going hungry, I began to exercise, and I settled in at a comfortable 125 lbs, which I maintained WITHOUT DIETING for the next two decades.

But I still have to fight the temptation to diet, even at 41 years of age. If I put on 5 lbs, that teenager in me panics and wants to diet. It’s hard to resist, even though I know the outcome.

For those who have spent years struggling with weight gain and yo-yo dieting, I think the first step towards successful weight loss is moving out of the diet mentality. This is a very difficult step to take, as we are convinced we’ll balloon to enormous proportions if we DON’T diet. But ask yourself this: Have your years of diet attempts worked for you thus far? If not, what is there to lose by trying a different approach?

I’ll share more ideas on this later.  Stay tuned……
-Catherine Bongiorno