(Maintaining Your Weight Loss:  Old Habits Die Hard
(as written for the Utah Health Magazine)

Chris Webb weight 290.5 pounds.He was 5'0"and 29 years old."I thought of myslef as a fat person.I've been overweight my whole life and I've learned to cxompensate for being fat.I didn't want to annoy people.I always opened doors for people or stepped aside.I had behind my weight"He had tried diets, but couldn't keep the weight off.He was addicted to food.

          His father, who had tried a liquid diet many years ago, saw an ad for an OPTIFAST® Program and suggested that John have a look.  He heard that you could lose 75 pounds in three months.  That sounded good to Chris.  He wasn’t thinking about being skinny, or even keeping it off.  He just thought it could be a new quick approach.

          Chris had tried many other programs before and was most successful when he just ate healthy foods.However, he could never keep the weight off.AonApril 1st, 2005, he started the OPTIFAST (R) Program and was required to attend group, as part of a behavior modification program that met weekly along with a medical visit with the doctor.In group, he started the process of addressing his relationship with food.The weight began to come off and after three months hd had lost 72 pounds.He decided to continue with the program and lost a grand total of 125 pounds after 2 months.

John found he enjoyed the program because it was easy and he liked how he was feeling while he was losing.  He liked group.  An older man that he met in the group would refer to his own weight as “unacceptable”.  This phrase hit a special button and sank in.  It became a ‘mantra’ for John.  He started to get honest with himself about what he had been eating.  When he didn’t have to deal with decisions about what food to eat because he was only drinking OPTIFAST®, he was able to look at the choices he had been making in the past.  He found that he did not get physically hungry.  He began to see the reality of what he had been doing to himself including the choices he had been making and started to take responsibility for those choices.

          After five months, he began the’ transition’ back to eating solid food.  Now began the hard part.  At first, the food choices were very restrictive.  He met with the dietitian and started to review what his options were.  He continued to lose, but at much more gradual pace.  After six weeks, he and the dietitian designed a plan to identify how to maintain his weight loss.

                         It was November and Chris had done better than he had expected.He gave himslef the holidays as a reward for a job well done and the results were a ten pound weight gain.He was in relapse.Chris realized that he had to pause and reevaluate what he was doing.He went back to broup.He joined a gym and started working out twice a week with a trainer and the other five days on his own.

          This plan was working very well during the week.  His exercise and eating were balanced and steady.  However, the weekends were a different story. He would reward himself for having a good week.  “I would let myself have free reign.  Go to the gym during the week, but if dad would take us to dinner or I would go to a basketball game, I would eat whatever, thinking I will lose it during the week.  But always in the back of my head I would be saying, I can’t lose weight and eat this.”

          Since January 2005, he has been yo-yoing up and down with the 10 pounds he’d gained over the holidays.  So in March he finally thought he had to try something different. John made a contract with himself.  “I am going back into the ‘transition phase’ of my program.  I am going to meet with the dietitian to re-evaluate my maintenance program.  I need to track what I’m eating to be sure that what I think is 1500 calories really is.  I am committed to taking off the ten pounds.”

          John did not want to “give up.”  “I like the skinnier me.”  It’s a new attitude for him and one he wants to be comfortable with.  He is working at incorporating the philosophy that his weight will be a life-time commitment to eating healthy and maintaining an exercise program that he enjoys. Thinking of himself as slim is going to be the biggest shift in his attitude.  John continues to attend Group for support to make changes.  It has taken him many years of ingrained habits to weigh 290 pounds; he is accepting it will take time to shift his behavior to a positive image of a slim person who has a healthy relationship with food.  Weekend sabotages will need to be addressed.  A relapse plan refined.

          Healthy weight management does not mean a life of dieting.  It means having a realistic attitude about what is good for you and incorporating it into your daily eating habits.

               Much of the time spent in support groups and in therapy is focused on the nuts and bolts, the tools of the change process.  Despite the wealth of information and avenues for help, success is often fleeting.  No matter how full a tool- box, is long term change can remain elusive.  So what is the bottom line, what is the missing link, why do some find long term recovery and others do not?  We believe much of the answer lies at the very beginning of the change process.

          If we begin to change, coming from a place of desperation or inspiration, incredible, sweeping and lasting transformations can take place.  Inspiration often involves a major shift in how the problem is viewed followed by an energized state that drives us to take action.  Role models play a major part in showing us a realm of possibilities.  An image of what life can be like and what we can be like in that life, can become a daily affirmation and visualization that gives us the power to implement the change process one day at a time.

          Inspiration can wax and wane, just as desperation can be forgotten.  The best means we know of for recalling both is fellowship with others who seek the same course of change.  We can remember why we so desperately wanted to change and be inspired to overcome the periods of malaise and relapse and regain the energy to implement the tools of change.

The ICN philosophy believes that:

♦               Compulsive eating is a chronic, progressive and addictive disease;

♦               Defense mechanisms such as denial prevent individuals from recovering;

♦                Autobiography/first step presentation provides structure for admitting the depth of the problem and facilitating the beginning of the recovery process;

♦               Ongoing group involvement is critical for long-term success.

If you would like more information about InterMountain Clinical Nutrition and our multi-disciplinary weight loss program, visit our web-site at www.icnoptifast.com or call us at (801) 408-2600.