Thoughtwork - instead of dieting

Are you tired of the food drama every time you go on vacation, or to a restaurant or to someone's house to eat?  Are you tired of thinking about what you should eat, what you want to eat, and feeling restricted if you decide that you can't eat "all of the things"?  With thoughtwork, you can get yourself out of the dieting mentality and learn to eat in a natural way no matter what the circumstances.  

I was a yo-yo dieter for over 40 years.  I tried Weight Watchers several times, Jenny Craig, eating sensibly on weekdays and "not so sensibly" on weekends and many other diets with only short-term success.  I always gained back my weight. I'm 5'3" tall and at my heaviest, I weighed 185 pounds and could not shop at regular stores.

Several years ago, I entered a weight loss program for women physicians run by Katrina Ubell, MD.  In her program, I learned about thoughtwork and experienced the power of being coached and using the thoughtwork to change  my mindset.  Not only did I successfully lose weight and learn how to keep it off (I lost over 45 pounds in her program), but I then decided to become a coach and spread the word to women who think that menopause makes it extremely difficult, if not impossible, to lose weight. I also wanted to teach these powerful coaching tools to as many women as possible, so that they too, could end the cycle of yo-yo dieting.

So what is thoughtwork?  Thoughtwork is just how we think about something that is factual (meaning that EVERYONE agrees).  For example, saying "Fish are not people" would be a factual statement  When we think about food in a way that encourages us to overeat (such as "I rarely get to eat this", or "It tastes so good", or "I just want more"), we’re likely to eat more food than our bodies need and to feel sluggish after eating.  When we change our thoughts about food so that we think about food as being the fuel that helps to keep our bodies functioning optimally, we’re more likely to make healthier eating choices.

Thoughtwork takes practice.  I journal frequently about all sorts of things going through my mind.  When I journal about eating, I journal about the thoughts that make me want to overeat, and then I think about what new thoughts may help me to make better choices.  I think about small changes I can make in my thoughts that are believable to me and that might help me to reach and stay at my ideal weight.

Like anything else, practice makes thinking this way much easier.  If you have spent many years overeating and practicing thoughts that increase your desire to overeat, it takes time to change those thoughts.  However, when you change your thoughts, you change the feelings that those thoughts create and then you change what you do. 

While my body feels much better when I eat only small amounts of sugar and flour, that is not necessarily true for your body.  Using thoughtwork as a tool to lose weight is not dieting.  You make a personalized eating plan that helps you to lose weight.  And then you follow your plan. A coach can help you make a plan that fits into your lifestyle.  You decide what foods you want to eat on your plan.  When you encounter obstacles to staying on your plan, you examine them and make a plan as to how you would like to face those challenges the next time.  Then you try out your plan.  If you find that the same obstacles are keeping you from following your plan again and again, a coach will help you to get "unstuck". 

I recommend eating healthy, whole foods – most of the time.  By eating less processed foods and more whole foods, our bodies function better and we often have more energy.  When our weight stays in a normal range for our height, we put less stress on our joints and may have less pain.  And of course, a normal weight often helps avoid conditions such as diabetes and fatty liver.  There is also medical evidence that eating more healthfully makes us less likely to develop certain cancers and heart disease.

If you want to learn more about thoughtwork, make sure you are subscribed to my weekly blogs.  You can subscribe at my website https://drbarbaralkatzcoaching.mykajabi.com where you can also read past blogs. 

If you know what to do - but are not doing what you know is necessary to lose your excess weight and to keep it off - schedule a mini-session with me.  A mini-session is free, with no pressure, and no obligation and we will explore together if 1:1 coaching is right for you. You can schedule a mini-session through my website or by emailing me at [email protected]. 

Share this blog with a friend.  I have a goal to teach as many women as possible how thoughtwork can help them to reach and maintain their optimal weight.