Emotional Fitness

Nearly two-thirds of the American population, or 61.3 million people, is overweight. The percentage of people who are obese has increased by 8 percent in the past decade. Americans spend over 40 billion dollars per year on weight loss products. Yet only 5% of people successfully lose weight. That means 95% of people who try to lose weight don't succeed! With such a low success rate, why do Americans keep putting good money after bad for diets that keep failing? Or, maybe a better question is - why do diets fail their users?

Let's start with the word DIET. The word diet brings to mind many other words - restriction, deprivation, tasteless, bland, struggle, guilt, temporary. None of these words inspire a positive feeling. The word DIET needs to be added to the list of 4-letter bad words and banished from our vocabulary.

Here's the best question to ask about those who lose weight - what separates the 5% of people who lose weight and keep it off from those who continue to struggle? For one thing, they are not on a diet. They change their lifestyle. They do not do anything they are not willing to commit to for the rest of their lives. Additionally, they become masters at putting themselves first. It takes time and planning to prepare good foods, measure it out, exercise, cope with stressors and effectively handle emotions.

Most importantly, those who experience weight loss success are also able to change the role food plays in their lives. Food is no longer the soother, the reward, the celebration, the comfort and the entertainer. Successful weight losers have developed ways to express anxiety, pride, achievement, sadness, boredom and a host of other emotions without food at the center. They know and understand their needs and develop effective ways to get their needs met. They make each day count and learn to accept themselves and their efforts as good enough.

Those who successfully lose weight have taken small steps that build up to big results. They have learned new habits they can do consistently so they learn to trust themselves to lead a healthy lifestyle. Self-trust builds self-esteem because they are achieving something that always seemed impossible with a traditional dieting approach.

Addressing your Emotional Fitness through coaching helps you break out of the diet mentality. The Emotional Fitness Coaching focuses on assisting you to make lifestyle changes you can attain and maintain. Coaching uncovers attitudes, habits and behaviors that prevent you from succeeding in weight loss. You learn to manage your emotions, stress and time effectively so these are no longer barriers to success. You build self-confidence and self-esteem as you learn to trust yourself to make the best choices for you and your body. Emotional Fitness Coaching helps you put yourself first, set attainable goals, and holds you accountable to action.

Imagine making healthy changes that become part of who you are. Imagine never needing to diet again. It is possible through addressing your Emotional Fitness!

Here are some specific issues Emotional Fitness Coaching addresses:

• Stress eating - Eating to cope with stress. Or, not eating when you are stressed.
• Food as a celebration - Food is connected to celebrations, birthdays, weddings, graduations. What other ways can you celebrate?
• Food as self-medication - You had a horrible day and make yourself feel better with a pint of ice cream.
• Categorical thinking - Believing that some foods are "good" and others are "bad". If you are on a diet, and eat a "bad" food, you believe you have ruined everything so you eat whatever you want.
• Extreme self-criticism - Continuously running a negative narrative of why you are not good enough. Extreme self-criticism creates hopelessness. Taking action when you feel hopeless can be very difficult. Furthermore, if you cannot treat yourself kindly and consider yourself worthwhile, why are you worth the investment of many months effort to lose weight?
• Living in the past or future - Focusing on what you weighed 10 years ago or how great life will be when you lose 30 pounds does not address the action you need to take today.
• Fear - Of change. What if I can't reach my goals? What if I can't keep the weight off? What if my relationships change? What if I am more powerful than I thought?

Emotional Fitness Coaching focuses on addressing these issues and developing actions to overcome them. Most importantly, you will learn how to meet your emotional needs by discovering ways to take care of yourself with reckless abandon without food. This approach focuses on taking action today to make lifestyle changes that will build on each other and ultimately help you reach your weight loss, nutrition, and fitness goals.