Diets will work in helping you lose weight but...

Last night, I had a dear friend over for dinner who asked me my opinion about another diet she was going to try. She struggles with weight gain mainly because she eats unconsciously and snacks and nibbles too much when her life gets busy. Portion control has always been a struggle as well. Like all of us, she struggles with an addictive behaviour that kicks in at different times in her life. Her response has traditionally been to tighten up the ropes on her wagon in an effort to regain a sense of control. She says she does well when she doesn't have to think about what she eats but instead follows a very structured plan.

What I told her about what I thought of her new diet was this:

"Every diet will help you lose weight. The very act of restricting food groups or portion sizes and following a rigid eating plan will always help people lose weight but it won't address how you got to this point again. Plus most people have taken the grazing idea of eating way too far. We still have to wait to eat until we feel hunger. We have to feel what our body needs and let ourselves feel what hunger is and what being satisfied is. We have to become more conscious in our bodies to know what our bodies need on any given day."

What I believe helps people get to a healthy body weight in the long run is healing the underlying cause of why we behave in ways that make us feel crummy about ourselves. It's the only way most of us can change our coping mechanisms. Working towards becoming more conscious in our mind, body and soul is the only path to true healing in my opinion and my personal experience.

But a woman I respect says it way better than me. Dr. Marcia Sirota at the Ruthless Compassion Institute and author of Emotional Over=eating: Know the Triggers, Heal Your Mind and Never Diet Again, tells it like it is:

"Diets don't work because they create unbearable feelings of deprivation as well as physiological withdrawal. In a recent study, diets were shown to provide short-term weight loss, but everyone eventually put the weight back on & up to 2/3 of dieters were heavier at follow-up than before they started the diet. The way to deal with compulsive overeating is not to put yourself on a diet. It's to deal with the emotional issues driving you to overeat & hold on to the weight, & to let go of your charged relationship with food and weight. It's to pursue the things that bring meaning & true fulfillment in your life. When you've dealt with the real issues driving overeating, & have found real sources of meaning, purpose, connection & fulfillment, the pounds will melt away."

I've lost clients because I won't train people when they come in dizzy or depleted because they are on very restrictive diets like say Dr. Bernstein (700 calories a day!)or carb free diets meant to put people in ketosis. I don't hide my opinions about the harm something like that can do to their bodies and minds. At the very least, my job is to do no harm to my clients!

Also, I don't want to become a part of another failed attempt for someone to truly transform their health and fitness by condoning something that will ultimately reinforce a negative self image. Because diets do work in helping people lose weight but they also normally lead to someone gaining more weight back afterwards leaving that person with a reinforced sense of personal failure. Diets just solidify a cycle that has existed for quite some time, the on again and off again of the proverbial wagon syndrome. There is no wagon at all in my mind. Ditch diets and the wagon at the same time and take it one meal, one choice at a time.

Get off the hamster wheel already

Most people in our society are in a constant state of tension, wanting to move forward in some way. Even our rounded forward posture and common structural imbalances reflect this constant forward motion in the way we move through the world.

What we aren't so good at is sitting still. But when we sit still we actually can hear ourselves, our thoughts, our hopes, our fears and our true selves. The wisdom that we miss out on in this constant hamster wheel phenomenon not to mention the way this constant go go go mentality affects us physically, emotionally and spiritually cannot be underestimated.

What many people in the fitness industry do only exacerbate this issue further by getting people to continue with this thinking when it comes to their health. Goal setting can be a wonderful tool for helping people transform their lives but when this goal setting is merely focused on making people 'better' in some way it is an extension of the hamster wheel we live in. In my honest opinion, those fitness industry folks who are obsessed with more and more training, lifting more all the time, running further all the time and continually improving their 'fitness' are missing the big picture. They all need to chill a bit.

The issue with most people's health is that we don't stop. We don't sit still. We are focused on continual improvement or feeling guilty for not improving. The affect of stress hormones, the chemicals necessary to keep us in the constant running to only get nowhere state, create sleep deprivation, early wear and tear on all our tissues and and inability to learn. Our brain chemistry can become severely altered blocking the ability to change unhealthy thought patterns which translate into unhealthy behaviours.

The self help industry including the fitness industry are guilty of the idea that people need to focus on making themselves better. More is not always better. In fact, we need a lot less of work, a lot less of reaching for more money, a lot less stuff and a lot less of constant busyness.

We need to shed a lot of shitty ideas about what it means to be in the world, what life should be like and find a way to get back to our true selves. The selves that find joy in the simplest things. The selves that have open hearts and open minds.

Maybe many people in the fitness industry are just too young to get the necessity of slowing down for true personal evolution to happen. It's just too bad that so many regular people caught on the hamster wheel seek help from fitness professionals who can't see that they themselves are on their own wheel, one just as out of balance and going nowhere as everyone else's. And sometimes fitness pros will actually preach that their wheel is the one to be on.

FREE Osteopathic Treatment for Women with Lymphedema

I met a super smart, intuitive healer named Kerri-Lynn LaPointe at a Reiki workshop I was in over the long weekend. We discovered that we both have an interest in working with women during and after cancer treatment. She is offering FREE Osteopathic Treatment for women with Upper Extremity Lymphedema after Breast Cancer Treatment.

Lymphedema can seem like something women just have to live with and deal with BUT there are emerging treatments that can be very very helpful and Kerri-Lynn would be a true gift to have on your health team.

Here are the specifics of her offer:


Recruiting female volunteers to participate in a research study for upper extremity lymphedema that began after treatment for breast cancer. All assessments and treatments will be provided free of charge. Research is to be conducted at 465 St. Johns Rd, Toronto, ON. Study date: Fall/Winter 2012.

You may qualify if you meet the following criteria:

1. The symptoms of lymphedema appeared after medical treatment for breast cancer
(mastectomy, radiation, and/or lymph node dissection.)
2. The lymphedema is unilateral (one-sided.)
3. You have been experiencing symptoms of lymphedema for 6 months to 5 years.
4. You are a female between the ages of 40-65.
5. You have received no previous osteopathic treatment for lymphedema.
6. You are able to commit to 7 appointments within a 10 week timeframe.

Kerri-Lynn LaPointe, ND is a Naturopathic Doctor practicing in Toronto. She has successfully completed 5 years of training at the Canadian College of Osteopathy, and is performing this research study to complete her Diploma of Osteopathic Manual Practice (DOMP.)

Osteopathy is a hands-on system of diagnosis and treatment that focuses on restoring proper movement and function to the entire body. Rather than focusing on the symptoms, the underlying causes of dysfunction are treated: physical injury, poor posture, trauma, emotional stress, etc. The position, mobility, and quality of the tissues (bones, muscles, and internal organs) are assessed, and focus is placed on the body’s natural ability to self-regulate and self-heal. The main premise is that structure governs function: any abnormality of structure will create disease.

If you're interested, you can reach her at:
healthkerri.com info@healthkerri.com