Aim for Weight Loss and Look Good!

“DAMN…YOU LOOK GOOD! YOU DON’T EVEN LOOK LIKE YOU WERE PREGNANT!”

“GOD, HOW DID YOU GET BACK TO BEING SO THIN? YOU LOOK SO GREAT!”

Have you heard this before? I bet you have. Many of us are pleased with this kind of feedback, especially when we put in the effort to lose weight and people compliment your healthy body image. It feels great for someone to validate your efforts after working so hard on our weight loss. However, what if you worked extra hard, day in and day out and never heard these types of compliments?

What if you only lost a minimal amount of weight that did not result in an extreme shift in your appearance? It takes a lot of work to lose just 2 or 4 pounds, but sometimes we forget to recognize just how important these small victories are. Does the number on the “weight scale” or the lack of recognition of our healthy body image from others make us feel better or worse about ourselves? Are we losing weight or suffering through a yo-yo diet, only to have someone acknowledge our accomplishments or are we losing weight to live a healthy life?

How Can We Create A Healthy Body Image?

Recently, one of my clients got me wondering. This client is a young woman (late 20s), 110 pounds, tall, beautiful, sensitive, intelligent, and yet she is obsessed with the number she sees when she steps on the scale. Objectively, she’s underweight. She is in starvation mode, regularly vomiting, nutritionally depleted, moody, grumpy, full of medication and spending hundreds of dollars between professional clinics to manage her weight. This obsession with the number on the scale is making her less healthy and could have catastrophic consequences to her future health. Unfortunately, while she spends all the time trying to maintain and catch a particular “number,” she is missing out on her life and jeopardizing her future health!

Question Yourself And Others

As I pondered my client with her weight obsession, I began to ask myself additional questions. Is this cultural brainwash? What are our standards of beauty? How are our standards of beauty being portrayed? How are we not estimating the healing power of food as a source of balance and happiness?

In my practice, I have seen many great women struggle with a yo-yo diet pattern. They transition from overweight to thin and then repeat this cycle. They destroy their metabolism, weaken their immune system, harm their gastrointestinal tract with infections, have bouts of diarrhea or constipation, struggle with depression or starvation, and the worst case, stress their bodies to the point where their genes express themselves into diabetes and cancer.

Even though a yo-yo diet can be very harmful on your body, many of my clients come to me using unhealthy tactics to lose weight. I have to tell them that yo-yo diets are not an ideal way to obtain healthy weight loss. You need to properly nourish and balance your body with respect and appreciation for your natural body weight. If you are pregnant, post-partum, pre-menopause or menopause – it does not matter. What matters is how you feed and treat your body, regardless of whatever state of life you are currently living in. You need to take care of your body in a healthy way and treat it as your holy temple where your spirit and happiness exists.

A Yo-Yo Diet Is Never The Right Way for Weight Loss

In my practice, I have seen many great women struggle with a yo-yo diet pattern. They transition from overweight to thin and then repeat this cycle. They destroy their metabolism, weaken their immune system, harm their gastrointestinal tract with infections, have bouts of diarrhea or constipation, struggle with depression or starvation, and the worst case, stress their bodies to the point where their genes express themselves into diabetes and cancer.

Even though a yo-yo diet can be very harmful on your body, many of my clients come to me using unhealthy tactics to lose weight. I have to tell them that yo-yo diets are not an ideal way to obtain healthy weight loss. You need to properly nourish and balance your body with respect and appreciation for your natural body weight. If you are pregnant, post-partum, pre-menopause or menopause – it does not matter.  What matters is how you feed and treat your body, regardless of whatever state of life you are currently living in. You need to take care of your body in a healthy way and treat it as your holy temple where your spirit and happiness exists.

Healthy Body Image: Loving Your Body As It Is

Get to know your body. Get to love your body. Feel comfortable in your body. Please don’t push your daughters to stress their bodies to the point where they become underweight or overweight. Try to turn away from culturally shaped messages of what beauty “should” be, and teach your daughters and the women in your life to embrace and be beautiful in their bodies. Let them enjoy life and enjoy eating. Teach them to eat right, eat healthily and to listen to their bodies.

Remember that telling is easier than doing – so make sure that you set an example. Get off that scale, take a look in the mirror, and be the first one to take the step in the healthy direction. Learn to love yourself and your body so you can become a role model. Put the oxygen mask on you first and take care of yourself by being healthy and well-balanced. It is the key to a successful and fulfilled life. Don’t you think so? “And yes, you look fabulous! Regardless of the number on that scale!”

MEET CHEN BEN ASHER