When you can't lose
weight, the answer may be simple.
Or it may be hard.
Maybe you really are
just eating a little too much. Simple.
Cut back.
Maybe you just
turned 40 and as much as you hate to admit it,
you'll never have
the body you had 20 years ago. Hard to
admit, but with
the right diet, you can still have a slimmer figure.
But what if you've
had a long -- maybe even a lifelong --
battle with weight.
And by that, I mean a serious weight
problem, not just
five pounds or so.
I'm not a doctor,
I'm not a psychologist, I'm not a
psychiatrist. And
I'm not giving medical advice.
But I have observed
enough people over the years to form
this opinion.
For people with
lifelong weight loss problems, the right diet
can help. But it's
usually not about dieting. Because it's
not about the food.
Think about it.
Are you lonely,
angry, depressed? Do you feel guilty,
rejected, inferior?
Or even unworthy of love or success?
Do you seek comfort
in food because people let you down?
Or maybe you feel
like you've let yourself down?
Have you tried every
diet there is and nothing seems to
work? Or at least
not for long?
Then consider this.
When you dive into that box of
chocolates, is it
food or an escape?
Maybe there's a
sexual assault in your past. Maybe kids
teased you
mercilessly when you were young. Maybe family
members always made
you feel inferior. Maybe an ex-spouse --
or a current spouse
-- made you feel unwanted and unloved.
You didn't fight
back. Maybe you couldn't -- literally, couldn't.
So you turned to
food. For comfort. For escape. For an
excuse to drive
people away.
Because when you're
fat, it's okay to be shy. To be different.
To be alone.
It still hurts. But
at least, you have an excuse to hide.
You say you want to
lose weight, you go on diet after diet,
but when things get
tough...
... you seek refuge
in food. And it starts all over again.
So ask yourself this.
If you could go back
to the one incident or the series of
events or the period
of time that led to your weight problem,
would you choose to
relive it all again just as it happened?
Or if you had the
chance, would you change it?
Because every time
you escape with food, you make the choice
to feed your demons.
To relive whatever
it is that hurts you.
To give people who
bullied or hurt you the power to do it
all over again. And
again. And again.
So you have a choice
to make. To relive or to live.
It's that simple.
And that hard.
If you can't do it
alone, seek out a trusted friend. Or better
yet, a trained
professional.
But ultimately, the
choice is yours. Choose to let go.
Choose to live.
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