Hello, campers! It's your friendly neighborhood weight loss camp counselor back with mental health tips to lose weight. Today we explore how I lost 100 pounds by sourcing obesity. I didn't get to be overweight and then obese just by eating (most overweight folks don't). There were obesity triggers and to lose weight, I had to unearth and deal with them. This step is part of my "Mind over Platter" program.
The show "My 600-lb Life" looks at morbid obesity and weight loss from gastric bypass surgery and 1200 calorie diet. But it also seeks to root out reasons why people got so overweight in the first place. It has a ton to do with poor eating habits and lifestyle choices. But it also has mental health (or dis-health) origins. "My 600-lb Life" gastric bypass patients undergo therapy to deal with these issues too. They learn to put mind over platter, so to speak.
Trauma, anxiety, depression and stress have big impacts on weight gain. "My 600-lb Life" participants say they turn to food as you would a friend. They report comfort eating as a coping mechanism for emotional pain. However overeating just makes the obesity problem worse. So we eat more, get more overweight, and so on. The key to weight loss is to interrupt this pattern, by unmasking the real problems: trauma, anxiety, depression and stress. That's the mind over platter.
It might sound odd, but following Al-Anon 12 steps helped me lose weight. I began by recognizing and acknowledging problems instead of hiding from them. Al-Anon encouraged me to accept that past trauma will never be any different than it was. It felt freeing to know that I wasn't crazy. But crazy-making things had happened.
Al-Anon then helped me understand the 12 step three Cs: didn't cause it, can't control it, can't cure it. And social worker Karen Koenig adds another helpful part: if I didn't start it, I can't stop it. In short, I learned the one I could control (fix, cure) was me. Bearing that in mind was part of how I lost 100 pounds. It also helps me work through trauma, depression and anxiety.
Blessings and best to you all!
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