And, we do lose weight for a time, but we gain it back, right? It is so frustrating and embarrassing. We feel like a complete failure with this situation.

The solution is not a pill, a personal trainer, a diet shake, nor a ‘one-for- all and all- for-one’ weight loss program advertised in the commercial diet industry. Nor does it require mustering willpower. Willpower is a highly overrated concept and can lead to great disappointment, especially is you are working toward a long-term change.

The problem with willpower is that it is defined and fueled by emotion. You know what I mean. When you start your diet, you feel strong, committed, and confident. You can do anything, right? But emotions tend to fade. No one can be up all the time. Soon you lose energy and become less committed. The less committed you feel, the more you find excuses not to exercise or eat right. How often does this happen? Not some of the time—all of the time.

That’s not to say willpower does not have its purpose. It’s great in the short run. But as I said, willpower is not how you bring about change your life that requires the long run.

The solution? It’s an inside job. When we go outside ourselves and ask ourselves to go on diet to resolve our overweight problem, our emotional drives to over eat are still operating at full force. That’s why there is no diet now—and never will be a diet, that resolves your overweight problem.

The reason for this is diets do not deal with your unique, fundamental issues of what is causing you to go to food for comfort, medicate or celebrate.

Also, you are not the problem—and you never have been the problem, what you have used to solve the problem has been faulty.

So then the question is, then, what is the problem because you do not want to remain overweight?

Problems dissolve when we stop the blame game and begin to focus on solutions found within you, rather than outside yourself.

Changing and moving away from your old diet mentality messages and dieting rules can be very challenging, but it is possible to live free of their restrictions. You need to vigorously question these old, unhelpful ways and replace them with new, realistic ones.

Your challenge and opportunity is to find and consider all possible coping skills available to you, other than eating, that will soothe you and take care of you. Doing so will bring you tremendous relief and a renewed sense of self-control.

It wasn’t that you failed when you tried to lose weight, but that your chosen treatment only addressed some of the causes. You now need to learn or be shown how to tolerate emotional pain that arise in your life and as well, learn to manage emotions that don’t feel good.

Like any major change, this will take time, focus and great deal of patience with yourself.

Through my personal 40 years of experience being very overweight and years of yo-yo dieting, along with my clinical knowledge, I am committed to helping you to uncover information and courage that has been either hidden, stolen, or forgotten, by the presence of problem of being overweight, or discounted as unimportant in your experience with the commercial diet industry.

You can do it! I will help.

Barbara Mulski, M.A.
Registered Clinical Counsellor