Weight Loss: When Common Sense Isn't Enough

I was at Borders this morning browsing the leftovers from their going out of business sale. The only things I love more than books are books on sale. While browsing in my favorite sections - Health and Medicine - I overheard a conversation that made me cringe. Yet, I wasn't surprised at all to hear it.

The people talking were young medical professionals and were browsing in the Health section, too. They were scanning titles and offering up their book reviews on the spot. When one of them picked up Marianne Williamson's A Course in Weight Loss, another said, "Oh no... put that back down."

One of the young women announced to her friends that she wanted to find a book for her mother because "she always thinks she's going to lose weight." Stories followed about everything the daughter believed her mother was doing wrong. She picked up one book and declared that "these are all just common sense" but put them back on the shelves because she wanted something that would "shock her so she'll finally get it."

I resisted with all I had in me to interject into their conversation.

Bless these women if they've never had health or weight problems. Let's hope they never do. But for the 45 million Americans that go on a diet each year, spending over $33 billion on weight loss products and not succeeding, clearly something is missing. It's not that the right book hasn't come along. It's not that the right diet hasn't come along. It's not that the right exercise program hasn't come along. It's something else. It's that weight loss is rarely just an issue of diet and exercise, or a simple lack of willpower or self-control.

I don't know what I would have said if I had interjected into their conversation. I might have suggested that she, herself, should read Williamson's book so she might "finally get" that weight loss is about much more than diet and exercise. I might have said that those common sense books may provide useful information, but they set most people, like her mother, up to fail because they don't address and challenge the root of behaviors that undermine health. Even she, on some level, knew that those books full of "common sense" advice aren't a complete answer.

Perhaps, the most unsettling thing about her commentary was her criticism of her mother. In that moment, I felt sad for her mother. Her daughter clearly believed that her mom should be able to "just do it". Not only does that attitude undermine the confidence of someone who can't seem to "just do it," it invalidates real barriers and challenges to making lasting change. In order for lasting change to be possible, a person need knowledge and skills, along with appropriate goals, confidence in her ability to succeed, and positive sources of support.

In the foreword of A Course in Weight Loss, Dean Ornish, MD, says, "If we only bypass the underlying causes, then the same problem often recurs... the lifestyle choices we make each day in what we eat and in how we live are among the most important underlying causes of obesity and other chronic diseases. But there is an even deeper, root cause that powerfully affects our lifestyle choices, and that is the separation from who we really are."

Dean Ornish is the man who first demonstrated that lifestyle changes could reverse even severe coronary heart disease, without drugs or surgery. This idea, once dismissed and ignored by the medical profession, has become mainstream. Although Dr. Ornish's plan is largely perceived to be diet-driven, emotional and spiritual interventions are as, or even more, important than dietary ones in what makes us well.

My hope is that this woman's mother will find her way back to herself. Then, and only then, will she be able to lose weight once and for all.

© 2011, Kellie Hall, Befriending Your Body™