Emotionally Healthy Weight Management

For many, weight loss can be a powerful personal goal…but only if it’s done in an emotionally healthy way.

As our nation continues to become increasingly more consumed with issues of weight and our growing “obesity epidemic,” our country’s dieting culture has continued to grow as a means to respond to the emotional and physical concerns associated with being overweight. Unfortunately, research continues to show that diets are 95% ineffective for long-term weight loss and/or behavioral change, with the vast majority of people who diet regaining all of the weight they lost within 2-5 years, and an additional 87% of people going on to gain even MORE weight following every diet cycle. In other words, our nation is “Dieting to Obesity.”

This is because diets don’t resolve WHY you’re turning to food when you’re not physically hungry. And if this doesn’t get addressed, it’s just a matter of time before your dieting “willpower” runs out and you find yourself back in old overeating/binge eating patterns ~ the classic yo-yo dieting cycle.

This can leave you feeling frustrated, confused, defeated, or shameful. You may be thinking there is something “wrong” with your body or that you’re a “failure” for not being able to follow the diet perfectly. But at A New Beginning, we know there is nothing wrong with you. There is, however, everything wrong with diets!

An Emotional Component to Eating & Weight Management

As eating disorder specialists, we know that there is a very real emotional component that frequently gets in the way of people being able to eat moderately and effectively manage their weight. Emotional components can include things like using food for stress management and emotion regulation, fear of losing weight and getting unwanted attention, or the body storing unresolve trauma and pain. Oftentimes, it is this emotional component that “sabotages” your ability to eat in a moderate manner and maintain an optimal weight for your body, despite your desire and valiant efforts to do so!

To be successful at achieving long-term, sustainable behavioral change and associated effective weight management, it is imperative to look at your emotional relationship with food, and to learn how to respond to your feelings and needs without food. In other words, to learn how to eat for nutritional need, not emotional fulfillment.

Additionally, you must learn a healthy, sustainable alternative to dieting that does not trigger feelings of deprivation and that teaches you how to eat all foods in healthy moderation without restrictive practices that backfire into overeating or binge eating.

This “Intuitive Eating” approach ~ where all foods fit in balance, variety, and moderation ~ is what allows you to reconnect with your body’s natural hunger and fullness cues. eventually eat in response to true feelings of physical hunger and to stop eating based on true feelings of physical fullness, allowing your body’s innate ability to direct healthy weight management and the ability to live within a body that settles into a natural and consistent weight range.

You deserve to feel good in your body ~ without shame, restriction, or obsession.

At A New Beginning, our approach to weight management is rooted in emotional health, not diet culture. We want to help you uncover and resolve whatever emotions are driving your unhealthy relationship with food, body, and weight, and then teach you sustainable and fulfilling ways of nourishing your body and effectively managing your weight. Ultimately, it is our mission to help you achieve your personal health goals…and develop greater self-love, peace, and personal empowerment.

To learn more about how our team of therapists and registered dietitians can help you with your personal weight goals, please contact our friendly Client Care Coordinator, Lauren, at (480) 941-4247 or contact@anewbeginning.com.