Weight: Love It Before You Lose It

If you believe you have weight to lose, chances are, you want it gone YESTERDAY. Unfortunately, body fat has a terrible reputation these days. The media, our doctors, and even our peers portray fat as a dangerous monster to be feared and loathed, so when we think about the weight we want to lose, our emotional reactions are likely to include panic, horror, disgust, embarrassment, and various other forms of rejection. We want to run away from our excess weight as fast as we can, but just like the villain in a scary movie, it always seems to be just one step behind us. What would happen if we just turned around, looked it in the eye, and gave it some love? Join Marc David, founder of the Institute for the Psychology of Eating, and find out in this game-changing new video from #IPEtv!

In the comments below, please let us know your thoughts. We love hearing from you and we read and respond to every comment!

Here is a transcript of this week’s video:

Greetings friends, this is Marc David, founder of the Institute for the Psychology of Eating.

Today’s Topic: Weight – Love It Before You Lose It

Allow me to be very straight with you, my friends ­the whole topic of weight and its loss is one of the most challenging, poignant, confusing, and important conversations of our times.

There’s a lot of talk about weight, but I don’t hear a lot of wisdom.

There is a lot of talk about how to lose it, but 99% of all people who indeed lose weight on a weight loss diet gain it back within a year or two at the most.

That’s why you and I are here right now.

We’re going to think outside the box.

We’re going to appeal to insight, and wisdom.

We’re going to bump up the conversation of weight and its loss to a higher place so we can truly get a greater perspective on what’s going on and how to find some light at the end of the weight lost tunnel.

If you’re trying to lose weight, or you’re around people who have this concern, or you help others with this for a living ­ you’re going to find this quite helpful.

The most effective way to approach any kind of weight loss is very simple:

You need to love it before you lose it.

I’m very serious when I say that, by the way. In fact, I’ll even postulate that if you’re the kind of person who’s been trying to lose weight sustainably for years or even decades and hasn’t been successful, this is one of the main reasons why.

Here’s what I mean:

Most of us are trained to see extra weight as the enemy. After all, excess weight is bad, it’s evil, it’s no good, nobody likes fat, nobody likes fat people, nobody loves fat people, nobody loves their own body fat, so surely any kind of body fat deserves our absolute disdain. It’s ugly, it’s awful, and we should wipe it off the face of the planet.

I know I’m exaggerating a bit here, but honestly ­ these are really the unspoken words that so many people have adopted when it comes to weight. It’s shocking how many weight haters are out there.

It’s shocking how much judgment there is against extra body fat, and how much self attack we humans can mount against ourselves because we don’t have the body we want.

So, attacking our body weight sounds like a great strategy, doesn’t it?

How’s it working for you?

Is it effective?

Is it making you happier?

Is a truly taking you to where you want to go?

I’m guessing the answer is NO.

Here is the remedy for all this, once again:

You need to love it before you lose it.

We need to literally relax around our weight. We need to take a deep breath. We need to stop the fight. We need to stop the attack.

Here’s why:

Anytime the brain perceives attack ­ whether that attack is real or imagined ­ the body goes into a physiologic stress response.

One of the hallmarks of the physiologic stress response is decreased digestive capacity, decreased assimilation, increase nutrient excretion, increased inflammation ­ and here’s the kicker ­ increased insulin and cortisol, two hormones that when secreted in excessive levels, day in and day out, signal the body to store weight, store fat, and not build muscle.

Are you getting the picture?

The very strategy called self hate and self attack creates a physiologic stress response and a chemical cascade that literally catalyzes the opposite metabolic effect of what we’re trying to accomplish.

That’s a stunning scientific statement.

It’s a clear example that mind and body cannot be separated. We can no longer expect to have an internal thought process and emotional process that’s toxic, to somehow lead us to creating a healthy body.

The body needs to be in a relaxation response in order to reach its optimal metabolism on a day in, day out level. Yes, this even means calorie burning metabolism. The majority of our calories are not burned when we exercise, but in the other 23 hours of our day.

The physiologic stress response is 100% completely counterproductive to weight loss for a majority of human beings. Yes, there’s a small percentage of people who, when they’re constantly under stress, will lose weight.But for most people, this simply isn’t so.

Love puts us in the physiologic relaxation response.

Love relaxes us, plain and simple.

Love allows us to see more clearly.

Love is the antidote for self hate and self attack.

Far too many people have been living for years, if not a lifetime, in self­ chosen stress chemistry meaning, we’ve adopted thoughts and beliefs that attack self, and cause the creation of a chemical milieu in the body that’s counter to long­ term health and attaining our true weight.

And chances are, for many people, one of the lessons we need to learn if we’re truly carrying excess weight is to get off the bandwagon of hate and see through the eyes of love and compassion.

When we make choices during stress and anxiety ­ we tend to make poor choices. We tend to believe others who tell us they’re going to fix us the easy way. We tend to look for quick­fix methods that don’t work. We tend to adopt strategies that are ineffective or short­ lived. We don’t think with all of our brain capacity.

But please don’t take my word for it.

Take about two months, call off the dogs, and see what happens if you love your body as it is right now. Spend some time embracing it, listening to it, feeling it, getting to know it, and inhabiting it.

From this place, weight loss on a sustainable level finally becomes possible.

It’s time…

I hope this was helpful, my friends. Thanks so much for your time and interest.