What is the key ingredient necessary to successfully embarking upon a diet? - Enchantment!

What is the key factor in sabotaging that same diet? -Disenchantment.

What accounts for the unreasonable optimism of dieters embarking on new diets in spite of our history of agonizing, humiliating failures? The memory and promise of how pleasurable it is to be in a state of enchantment.

BUT, what if there was a third state of mind that could liberate us from the cycle of hope-and-despair?

What if we could learn a way of working with our biology, psychology and spirituality to step out of this either/or model and create a radical paradigm shift?

What if we could learn a collaborative method that trains the brain, mind and unconscious/spirit to listen to, learn from and cooperate with one another to insure the optimal life experience of the Self that each is a part of?

What if this third way made it natural and effortless for us to disarm the self-sabotage response whenever it got triggered by our decision to achieve a new goal, live out a new dream, follow a new vision, fall in love with a new person? Who would have the courage to make such a leap of faith into an alternate way of experiencing one’s self?

“Results not typical.” - This legally required disclaimer is so familiar to us that we don’t even see it on the ads and for various weight loss programs and products. That fact, alone, should tip us off that we have come under a spell! What other product or gadget would we purchase knowing that its advertised promises are so rarely kept as to be legally deemed “not typical”? If we actually permitted this significant piece of information to intrude on our fantasies of quick-and-easy weight loss, would we still willingly plunk down our money year after year? Probably.

Why?

• Because we are looking for that magic diet that will do what none of the others has accomplished – carry us to our goal weight where we will live happily ever after!
• We are restless to embark upon another heroic quest to secure the treasured golden number on the scale.
• We miss the excitement of winning a series of daunting jousts with adversaries – forbidden types of food, restrictions on quantities of fill-in-the-blank (fats, carbs, red meat, dairy, soy, etc.), family members and friends who attempt to lure us off the path to success - thus proving our champion status.
• We miss the community of fellow dieters, having entered the solitary confinement of sadness, shame, rage, guilt and despair.
• We never feel so alive as when we have decided to begin yet another diet and are busy gathering the right tools, programs, allies, mantras and talismans.
• Expert dieters know the thrill of losing weight and seek opportunities to re-experience our triumph of self-mastery by repeated contests of dieting; this necessitates gaining back the weight by either
• Never getting down to our declared goal weight, or
• Only spending the briefest time at our goal weight before growing increasingly anxious, bored, restless and/or depressed.
• In order to continue enjoying the excitement of the heroic quest, however, we have to keep increasing the challenge, which is why yoyo dieters not only gain back the weight we lost, we grow significantly fatter!

To begin the process of dieting is to enter a state of enchantment involving:
• The mental/ emotional/ spiritual preparation as one embraces the discipline, denial of pleasure and delayed gratification of dieting;
• Assembling the necessary tools – the food scale, the software program, the diet diary, the workout clothes, etc.
• Making a public declaration of our program’s imminent beginning with/without a petition for support from those with whom we curry approval;
• Plunging in with an intensity that makes our ordinary existence pale in significance;
• Upholding the rituals of the program, including when, what, and how much to eat, when, where and how to weigh oneself and the meticulous recording of the data;
• Experiencing the energetic exhilaration of following the protocol with encouraging results on the scale and/or as we wear clothes that were formerly too small;
• Enjoying the praise of friends, family and colleagues who marvel at our power to transform our bodies.

Support groups, life coaches, physical fitness trainers, nutritionists; most people in the field of weight loss, genuinely desire their clients’ success. They operate from the premise that if we are given and understand the information and tools medically shown to achieve a healthy, strong body size, being rational – we will follow the protocol!

Well-intentioned diet consultants cling to this premise despite their knowledge of the discouraging statistics guaranteeing failure for 90% of us within 5 years of the diet*. They do not realize that their effectiveness is directly related to the intensity of the clients’ state of enchantment. They become frustrated, angry and sad when they are unable to get clients back on track once we have snapped out of our diet euphoria.

Neither the diet professionals whom we pay, nor the diet experts (us) who willingly fork over our money to them, realize that the cause of our disenchantment is the intolerably scary but increasingly probable outcome of living in a “normal” body. We have not allowed ourselves to imagine what our lives would be like in healthy, attractive bodies.

We have not taken any steps to learn how to replace our fear of our bodies being seen with a life of natural intimacy, familiarity and acceptance of ourselves.

We are directed to enter psychotherapy so that we can become familiar with our psycho-socio-sexual histories and gain the insights into WHY we are self-destructive; but do little to teach us new behaviors that redirect our attention from our past to our future. We are still taking comfort in the familiarity of our past.

We are not learning how to reduce the anxiety that is a natural byproduct of embarking on any new enterprise, or behavior pattern. It is this alarm system, operated by our reptilian brain embedded in our limbic system, that relentlessly escalates our level of anxiety until we must abandon our course into a new life and retreat into the palpable relief of our miserably familiar obesity.

We pay them to board the roller coaster with us. Together we enjoy the feelings of hope and accomplishment as we ascend into the euphoric heights of immediate weight loss. But as we catch sight of the plunge into normalcy, feel the terror grow more frantic within us and, ultimately, attempt to climb out, our therapists, nutritionists and trainers have all they can do to simply keep us in our seats until our ride comes to a complete stop.

The third way provides the antidote to this wheel of suffering. It has been successful in treating phobias and I have found ways to apply it to self-sabotage.

Hint: Your imagination can construct a vision of a new reality and means to live in it celebrating the gift of your lifetime; or, create a prison of terror and fear where you are so afraid to live so you die a little each day.

I have been living this third way for over four years now and teaching it to my coaching clients. A commonly expressed metaphor is that of feeling like a prisoner suddenly pardoned and released; but with the knowledge and support to thrive as a free person.

To be continued…Part 2: What it means to embody success!; learning the third way.

*Studies and statistics on obesity in Americans are available at www.oresityresearch.nih.gov/News/news.html The study about success rates 5 years out published in Oct., 2002 helped me decide to get RNY bypass surgery. Unlike ALL other weightloss programs that had a 90% failure rate, the single category of RNY bypass surgery had a 90% SUCCESS rate.

Lauralyn Bellamy is creator of the EMBODY SUCCESS!© coaching method to overcome self-sabotage. A national speaker for Obesity Help, she has clients across the country. Visit her blog (www.embodysuccess.spaces.live.com) for the latest news and information, as well as her Before and After photos. Call for your free consult today: 404-394-3900!