Have you ever been overweight? Odds are pretty good that you are right now. I am and so is about 70% of the American population. I don’t consider myself seriously overweight, and I’m doing better than I was a couple of years ago, but I’d still like to lose some more weight.

I haven’t always had these extra pounds of body fat. At one time, I was actually underweight (yes, it is possible to be too skinny—which isn’t healthy either). At times I’ve gained a few pounds, but then, it always seemed to come off on its own without me having to think about it much. This is the first time that didn’t happen and I’ve had to consciously figure out how to take the pounds off.

I’m going to be very blunt here, because from what I’ve observed in myself and others, weight is about 50% emotional and 50% physical. One thing that’s very clear to me is that when I’m happy and not feeling stressed, I always lose weight. When I’m unhappy and feeling stressed, I always gain weight. Part of this is that when I’m happy and feeling good, I’m more physically active and I eat less compulsively.

That’s why I don’t believe the “diet and exercise” mantra.  I’ve been close to several people who have very serious weight problems and these people often eat less than I do and still don’t lose weight. I’ve also observed that trying to make yourself eat less, puts you in a constant battle of willpower trying to deny your cravings and appetite. When you pit mind against body, the body just about always wins. This is amply evidenced by the fact that 90% of all people who lose weight by dieting and exercising gain back all the weight they lost (and sometimes even more than they lost).

So, what is really going on here?

No one in their right mind can deny that when you consume more food than your body burns for energy that the body will store the excess energy as fat. That’s an obvious fact. And, no one can also deny that if you increase energy consumption (activity), while decreasing food intake that the body can burn stored fat, will cause you to lose weight. (Starve yourself long enough and you’ll get downright skinny.)

However, the big question is, “Why are we eating too much food?” It isn’t natural. The feedback from the body should tell us when we’ve eaten enough food and shut down our appetite. How come this isn’t happening?

For instance, consider thirst. When there isn’t enough water in the system, it trips a thirst mechanism, which causes you to seek out water. The volume of water in the blood trips the thirst mechanism on, but if you had to wait until the blood level of water normalized before thirst tripped off, you’d drink too much water, because of the time it takes for water to be absorbed into the bloodstream. So, the thirst mechanism is turned off by swallowing, and the body can gauge within a few ounces whether you’ve swallowed the right amount of water to properly rehydrate the blood.

Why shouldn’t our appetite mechanism be just as sensitive? I believe it is. The body knows how many “calories” of energy it needs and what nutrients it lacks and can adjust our sense of taste, smell and appetite to regulate our food consumption accordingly. Try this as an experiment some time. Get some apples and start eating them. Try to force yourself to eat too many apples. I bet you won’t be able to do it. You’ll get to the point where your body will rebel to the point you won’t be able to gag down another bite of apple. Don’t believe me? Try it, then you’ll know what I’m talking about.

So, the fact that we’re eating more calories than we need shows there is some kind of breakdown in the communication system between the mind and the body. If we can fix this communication breakdown, we’ll not only lose weight easily and naturally but keep it off too. It won’t require willpower because we won’t be trying to control the body via our conscious mind. Instead, it will be easy to do because mind and body will be in harmony.

So, how do we fix this communication breakdown? I believe that there are two primary reasons for this lack of mind-body communication. The first is what we are eating and the second is how happy we are (which includes how we eat what we eat).

Nutritional Density and Empty Calories

It is very clear to anyone who looks closely at the situation that refined and processed foods are the number one reason for the increase in serious weight problems in our culture. The reason that refined and processed foods contribute to weight gain is that the body doesn’t just need calories. It also needs vitamins, minerals, enzymes and numerous phytochemicals whose nutritional value has yet to be established. All of these nutrients (both recognized and unrecognized) are present in whole, natural foods.

Most diet programs and books focus only on calories or the source of those calories. Calories come from fats, proteins and carbohydrates. Most diets focus on trying to modify caloric intake and/or to adjust the source of those calories (i.e., low fat, low carb, high protein, low glycemic, etc.) The assumption is that all we need to do is adjust the caloric intake and the rest of what the body needs will automatically be present in the diet. I don’t believe this is accurate.

It is no secret that my favorite research on nutrition was conducted by Dr. Weston Price, a dentist who toured the world in the 1930’s studying traditional diets and the health of traditional people. Dr. Price found that traditional people seldom got sick, had excellent bones and teeth and tended to be socially well adjusted. In testing their food, he found that it was more nutritionally dense than the food being consumed by their “civilized” counterparts. For example, he found that traditional diets contained four times more water soluble vitamins and ten times more fat soluble vitamins than the foods most Americans were eating at that time.

If our diets were that deficient, compared to traditional diets, in the 1930s, think how much worse the situation is today. The bottom line is that our commercial sources of food, even natural foods like fresh fruits and vegetables, are generally lacking in vitamins, minerals and other phytonutrients. This is largely due to modern agricultural practices which are not taking proper care of the soil.

This is bad enough, but when we take already nutritionally depleted foods and then refine and process them, we further deplete vitamin and mineral content. The result is an even lower nutritional density. Refined flour, white rice, processed oils, refined sugars, canned goods, packaged foods, etc. have all been stripped of their complex nutritive value, making them “empty calorie” foods. Modern food manufacturers like these processed “foods” because they can be stored almost indefinitely. So, they fight to keep people from recognizing the truth about the dangers of these foods to our health.

Armed with this knowledge, those of us “in the know” go looking for better food. Knowing that “organically-grown” food is likely to have more nutritional density, we buy organic.  But, even in the “health food store,” we encounter some “empty calorie” foods. A lot of the bread is made with “organic, unbleached white flour” and we find “organic refined sugar” in many “health foods,” too. If you’re going to grow something organically (and therefore try to increase it’s nutritional value) why would you want to refine it and strip its nutritional value away?

The Challenge of Finding Quality Food

So, finding good quality food can be a challenge in modern society. As a result, the body isn’t getting all the nutrients it needs in the foods we eat, so our appetite isn’t satisfied even though we’ve consumed enough calories for energy. For example, one might eat four slices of white sandwich bread (even if it is unbleached and organic) and still feel unsatisfied, while one slice of a dense, whole grain bread might leave one feeling full. The calorie content of a slice of whole grain bread is about the same as that of a slice of white bread, but the fiber, minerals and other nutrients in the whole grains make them more filling. They also lower the glycemic load of the food (that is, how much insulin production it triggers).

This is why I can’t understand why most of the diet books and programs completely ignore the issue of food quality. If you lower your caloric intake of empty calorie foods, you’re only going to make that nutrient depletion worse, leaving you even hungrier than you were before. No wonder people can’t lose weight. The 1.5 trillion dollar processed food industry has gotten the majority of Americans so “duped” that they can’t see that they’re all addicted to junk food.

Unfortunately, taking a vitamin/mineral supplement will only partially help, because 1) we don’t know everything in food the body needs and 2) many of the vitamins and minerals in the supplements aren’t that natural. (Sorry to disappoint you, but it’s true!) So, the only real solution to the problem is that we’re going to have to start looking for better food.

Now, I’ve been looking for quality food most of my life, but I’m still overweight. Why? Well, that gets us into the second major problem we have that prevents us from losing weightčwe’re stressed and unhappy.

I’ve noticed that when I’m home for a period of 3-4 months, staying organized, eating my own home-cooked, high quality food, I always start losing weight. As soon as I start traveling, I start gaining weight again. Of course, part of this is the fact that I don’t get quite the same quality of food I do when I’m home, but, there’s an even more important reason.

Traveling is stressful for me. I’m really more of a “homebody” kind of guy, and I do best with routines and quiet. The disrupted eating and sleeping schedules and the other pressures I experience when I travel cause me to change not just what I eat, but how I eat it; and how you eat is nearly as important as what you eat when it comes to weight.

There’s a sure-fire way of eating that will virtually guarantee you’ll gain weight, even if you’re eating nutritionally-dense food. It’s been my standard eating pattern. Is it yours?

Here are the rules to follow if you want to gain weight:

1. Skip breakfast.
2. Don’t stop and eat when you get hungry; keep rushing around and pushing yourself to get things done.
3. When you do eat, eat quickly so you can get back to all the things you need to get done.
4. When you do get something to eat, eat it while you’re working, driving or trying to get something else done.
5. Come home really hungry after a hard day’s work where you haven’t eaten regularly throughout the day, then eat a big meal late at night and/or plenty of snacks before bedtime.

I learned this from a “Hollywood” nutritionist, who uses this program for actors who need to gain weight for certain movie roles. This program helps you gain weight for the same reason that dieting doesn’t help you lose weight—it sends your body into feast or famine cycles. Because you don’t take time to eat regularly, you get “starved” so your appetite becomes excessive. Then, you eat more than you need and your body “stores” the excess to cover for the next time you don’t eat. Constant repetitions of this cycle cause you to slowly, but surely, gain weight.

Eating Should be Pleasurable

This pattern of eating not only puts you on a blood sugar roller coaster; it also shows you’re too stressed and probably not very happy. When you’re experiencing happiness (or pleasure) in your life, your body sends chemical messages that lower your appetite, increase your metabolism, enhance your immune system and make you feel good. Conversely, when you’re feeling stressed, the chemical messengers that flood your body increase your appetite (especially for sugar and simple carbohydrates), decrease your metabolism, reduce immune function and make you feel “bad.”

I learned a great deal from an audio program from Nightingale-Conant called The Pleasure Principle by Dr. Paul Pearsall, Ph.D. about the importance of finding pleasure in one’s life.  Pleasure had benefits for our health and can aid in weight loss. Dr. Pearsall also says that the positive effects of a pleasurable experience on the body dramatically outweigh the negative effects of stress. So, instead of seeking to avoid stress, we should deliberately seek to create pleasurable experiences. This is completely opposite to what most people who are experiencing weight problems do. Because they’re unhappy with themselves, they seek to starve and deprive themselves, or exercise to “punish” themselves.

Instead, they need to learn to be gentle and loving with themselves and seek to indulge in experiences (other than food) which create joy and pleasure in their lives. Pleasurable experiences send a cascade of chemical messages through our body that increase metabolism, improve mood, reduce stress, enhance immunity and otherwise improve body function.

The eating pattern for gaining weight that we just shared is the typical eating pattern of the American work-a-holic, constantly being driven to “get ahead.” In American culture, pleasure and joy are linked in people’s minds to money and success, which are always “in the future.” This is a lie. Pleasure and joy are in the here and now and are found by enjoying what is happening right now. But, taking time to enjoy what I’m doing in the here and now isn’t part of the American way of life, and that’s the whole reason Americans are drawn to “fast” food in the first place. We’re in too big of a hurry to take time and “smell the food,” let alone enjoy the flowers (or any other pleasant thing).

This notion first dawned on me in 2005 when I read Mireille Guiliano’s book, French Women Don’t Get Fat: The Secrets of Eating for Pleasure. I highly recommend this book because it really changed the way I thought about food. Historically, the French have made eating a very important, pleasurable experience. Not only has food quality been important, but taking time to really enjoy the meal is part of the traditional French way of life.

In the book, Ultra Metabolism, a book about losing weight by improving your health habits (and another volume I highly recommend), the author tells of a client who said he would not give up his hamburgers and fries because he liked them too much. The author told him he didn’t have to give them up, but he needed to stop picking them up at the drive-through window and eating them on the run. Instead, he had to go into the restaurant, sit down and take time to enjoy them.

A short time later, the guy came back and said that he’s quit eating his hamburgers and fries because they tasted so bad. You see, he was in such a hurry that he was ignoring the subtle messages his body was giving to him about what and how much he should be eating. When we slow down and take the time to enjoy our meals, we “tune in” to the needs of our own body and pretty soon, our body will start telling us what is and isn’t good for it. Then, it’s no longer a question of “mind over matter,” it’s a co-operative effort between the mind and the body and becomes easy to maintain, since the pleasure of feeling good is pretty addictive.

Earlier this year, I read an article in the newspaper which I wish I had clipped and saved. Fortunately, I remember the gist of it. It was about a professor at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah who was helping people lose weight by getting them to focus on changing how they ate instead of what or how much they ate. This guy was claiming that families where parents were constantly nagging kids about eating issues were more likely to produce adults with serious weight problems than families that allowed children to eat when they were hungry and otherwise control their own food intake. Thus, they learned to ignore the messages from their own body and eat according to the mental programming from their parents.

Here’s where the “struggle” of weight loss is. It isn’t a “war” between your mind and body with your mind (or will-power) needing to win. In fact, it’s exactly the opposite. You need to become aware of the dysfunctional mental attitudes with which your brain has been programmed and let your body win. Most of us haven’t lost our “head,” we’ve lost our body. In other words, we are out of touch with our body and living in our head.

Either verbally, or non-verbally, our parents (and other significant people in our early life) condition our attitudes towards food and eating. My own parents communicated several messages from which I’ve had a hard time deprogramming myself.

The first, and most difficult one to tackle, has been, “Clean your plate.” I was thoroughly conditioned through guilt, reward and threat of punishment to not waste food. I was told that starving children in China would be glad to have that food (guilt). I was told there was no dessert if you didn’t finish what was on your plate (punishment). And, finally, food, in the form of cookies and other treats was also a reward for good behavior.

The net result is that I have a lifetime habit of totally ignoring the messages my body sends me that tell me I’ve had enough to eat. I have to eat what’s on my plate because it’s a “sin” to waste food. The only thing that has helped me change this is slowing down and taking more time to enjoy what I’m eating. By staying connected with my body, I can feel it is unpleasant to eat beyond the point of satisfaction. This awareness helps me consciously “resist” the guilt conditioning that says I’m letting food “waste.” This helps keep food from going to “waist,” too.

 I’m not alone in my compulsion to “clean the plate.” Research actually shows that portion size has a big influence on how much people eat. If a meal is served on a smaller plate, people will eat less because the plate holds less. Unfortunately, many restaurants in America service excessively large portions on big plates. So, you really have to get over the conditioning that the amount of food you’re supposed to eat is governed by what is on the plate and tune in and let your body tell you how much you really need.

I was also strongly conditioned that work came before play, and that I wasn’t allowed to enjoy myself until all my work was finished. While this isn’t necessarily a bad idea, it created a tendency that I have to keep pushing myself because things aren’t finished. Because my work is never done (meaning there is always something on my list left to do at the end of every day), I have developed habits of continuing to drive myself and postpone eating or taking a break. This habituates the “famine-feast” cycle that makes me eat too much at night and then skip breakfast the next morning.

Also, the constant internal pressure to get my work done means that when I’m finally so ravenously hungry that I can’t ignore the fact that I need to eat, I tend to eat too fast so I can get back to work. This is another reason why I tend to gain weight when I travel. Travel is stressful for me and I tend to eat too fast when I’m feeling stressed.

However, I’m starting to learn that the issue isn’t so much that I have stress in my life, it’s that I wind up not taking time to have pleasurable experiences that counteract the effects of the stress. I’ve been having to reprogram myself that my work doesn’t have to be “finished” for me to have pleasure and fun in my life. I can deliberately make time for eating, playing, taking a break, getting a massage, etc. even if I’ve got a lot to do. I’m still trying to get over the guilt I feel when I do this, but I’m getting better at it. When I feed my emotional need for pleasure with different kinds of pleasurable experiences, I’m less inclined to try to “feed my needs” with food.

Suggestions for Losing Weight

So, here are the basics of how to eat to lose weight, based on my own experience as well as my reading and research.

First, start adding nutritionally dense, whole foods to your diet. Eat them first. Gradually, you’ll find you prefer them to refined foods.

Second, always eat something for breakfast. Make sure breakfast includes some protein and quality fats. For example, eggs, avocados, whole milk yogurt (preferably organic), whole grain cereal with organic butter, flax seed oil or cream (but no sugar) would be good choices, but it all depends on what you like and what feels good to you.

Third, eat small, regular meals throughout the day. Take “fast” food with you such as fresh fruits, dried fruits, nuts, organic cheese or other healthy snacks that you can nibble on when you start to feel a little hungry. In other words, graze a little throughout the day. Stop eating when you just barely don’t feel hungry anymore, not when you feel full.

Fourth, for all meals, take time to notice the flavor, texture, color and aroma of what you are eating. Pause and take time to really chew and enjoy whatever you eat. Breathe while you eat. Put down your fork or spoon between bites.

Fifth, if you’re going to eat it, enjoy it! Don’t ever feel guilty about what you eat. Even if it’s not the best food, eat it, be thankful for it, and enjoy it.

In addition, the following non-food related activities will be helpful.

Drink plenty of water throughout the day.

Nourish yourself by giving yourself pleasurable experiences each day (a massage, time with a friend, a relaxing bath or any other activity that gives you a sense of pleasure). Most of us overeat because we’re “unhappy” and trying to fill that emotional emptiness with food.

Get a good night’s sleep.

Become physically active. You don’t have to “exercise” or go to the gym, just go for a walk, ride a bike, play a game like golf or tennis, hike, garden, whateverčas long as it’s something you enjoy. (Remember here that the goal is to find pleasure in life.)

Don’t “beat yourself up” emotionally over your weight (or anything else for that matter). Don’t feel guilty and bad about yourself when you “break” any of the above “suggestions.” That’s not the point. All of these are suggestions for how to care for your body in a way that will be pleasurable, and healthfully addictive. The goal is to get addicted to having your body feel good. Then, it’s no longer a struggle to do what’s good for you, it’s easy and better yet automatic!

Leptin Sensitivity

My first version of this article was written several years ago.  Since that time, I’ve learned another important key to helping you lose weight.  That key has to do with a hormone called leptin.  Leptin is secreted in response to eating and in response to the amount of fat stores in the body.  Leptin tells the body it doesn’t need food anymore, thereby reducing appetite. 

Leptin not only reduces hunger, it increases fat burning and reduces fat storage.  It influences the thyroid and your metabolic rate in general.
Just as the body can become insulin resistant, the body can also become leptin resistant.  This means that your appetite doesn’t shut off properly when you eat a meal or start gaining weight.  So, you continue to eat more than you need, resulting in weight gain.
Eating protein, complex carbohydrates and good fats along with the suggestions above will help to improve leptin sensitivity. 

However, I recently discovered some supplements that really seem to boost my energy and decrease my appetite by promoting increased leptin sensitivity.  I’m really pleased with the results I’m getting from Max GXL, Max-N-Fuse and Max WLX.  Since I’ve started using these products it has been very easy to stop eating when hunger is satiated, which usually means only one plateful of food for me.

The Bottom Line

So, the bottom line question is, why do people “struggle” with weight? What are they struggling with? They’re not struggling with some external “enemy,” are they? They think they are struggling with their body, but that’s not really true. The body is their ally. The body wants to feel good and sends us signals trying to communicate what is making it feel good and what is making it feel bad.
The problem is, we aren’t listening.

So, again, when we are “struggling” to lose weight, what are we struggling with? We’re struggling with our own habits, emotional issues and dysfunctional conditioning about food.

Struggling with these issues only perpetuates them. Instead, focus on finding pleasure in your life by changing your relationship with food in a positive way. Do this by selecting quality food, eating it slowly and enjoying it and by seeking out pleasurable experiences other than food that will help you feel good and be happy.

Of course, it also helps to address specific nutritional issues that may be throwing the body’s biochemistry out of balance and causing the person’s internal mechanisms of self-regulation to become dysfunctional. Remember, all of these things are about caring for yourself. As the title of the course I co-authored with Deanna Hansen last year suggests, “Love Your Body Beautiful.” If you need help doing this, consult some of the sources below.

Additional Resources
Eat Fat, Lose Fat by Sally Fallon and Mary Enig.
Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon
Ultra-Metabolism by Mark Hyman
The Pleasure Prescription by Paul Pearsall
Weightier Matters DVD featuring Steven Horne, Tree of Light Publishing
Transform Your Health Booklet, Brochure and CD by Kat James (www.naturestools.com)
The Truth About Beauty by Kat James
Love Your Body Beautiful by DeAnna Hansen and Steven Horne
The Leptin Connection by Ron Rosedale