Weight loss: What “clicks” for YOU?

Each of us is unique in every way so it stands to reason when it comes to taking control of our weight and managing it for a lifetime, we’ll each need to discover the unique ways in which our bodies will respond. For those of us who find weight management a bit tougher, it can be so frustrating to keep working at what seems like solving an inscrutable mystery—finding the right combination of diet and exercise that will finally get weight loss happening for YOU!

I have to admit, weight loss advertising makes me so upset! It sells hopes and dreams. It misrepresents reality, especially reality for people like us. A current TV commercial for one of the “Big Three” features two very slim sisters, gushing over their recent weight loss success. Doing a little digging, I found that each of the sisters admit they were thin all their lives until they put on weight after lifestyle changes. One lost just 26 lbs.; the other lost about 40.

Let me say first, we don’t share much in common with people like them. Weight has not been a lifelong problem; a few months of using a commercial weight loss program can work for people who need to lose cosmetic weight while they get their former habits back on track. Good for them!

But I see a larger issue here with how weight loss is represented and promoted in the marketing of these commercial programs. What I have a problem with is what those two giggling sisters say in the commercial: “Weight loss clicked for us when we discovered we could eat whatever we want and still lose weight!” It’s a familiar advertising slogan you’ve heard countless times before. The negative impact is two-fold.

First, it’s just plain A LIE! It’s a misrepresentation of reality for the sake of marketing. People WANT to take it literally. They desperately WANT to believe that it could be possible to eat “whatever you want” and still lose weight. That in itself is the ultimate weight loss fantasy—the idea that anyone could lose weight without any type of sacrifice or even compromise in the food they eat.

Second, advertising like this perpetuates the worst of our society’s shame and blame projections against fat people. WEIGHT MANAGEMENT IS NOT EASY though weight loss is always marketed as so easy “If I can do it, you can do it.” When you struggle and fail time after time, you not only feel such frustration within yourself, you have to deal with a society that thinks it’s all your fault if you can’t do this “easy” thing.

We can’t eat whatever we want and still lose weight. That is a fantasy promoted by advertising. Eating whatever I wanted got me over 300 lbs. Today, I still think wistfully about what I wish I could eat all the time but no longer do. It’s just not part of my life anymore. Still, sacrifice IS extremely difficult. It’s an obstacle. To deal with it, I had to find a way to make that obstacle easier to cut down. I had to find other things that would bring more value to my daily life than indulging in whatever I wanted to eat.

When we hear “eat whatever you want,” the idea at the root is that you can’t be expected to live with a sense of sacrifice forever. That is TRUE! But the compromise you make does not have to be solely in the context of food. Consider what does food really bring to your life? Does food indulgence endow your life with lasting value? Is it more a source of stress to devote your energy to figuring out how you could find ways to “eat whatever you want”?

The world is filled with opportunities to imbue your life with pleasure, fulfillment, and indulgence! Open yourself to possibilities and explore where you may find new relationships, new connections, and new passions that bring real meaning to your daily life! I hope you’ll share what “clicks” for you!

I wish you light & strength!