Weight Loss Coaching Comment Contest

Last week I ran a comment contest to help me with my Weight Loss Coaching Program. I am revamping this program to be more effective and asked my steeming friends to give me input on the outline.

Here are some of the best answers I got. I am pulling out quotes, so please go back to the original post to see the very interesting and complete answers.

Hive account@simonjay (4 votes) believes:

an education on what we consume is a much needed guide among all the information out there.

I struggle with this idea. I can tell you all kinds of “food facts” - both good and bad. When I have worked with people one-on-one, they often end up just trusting me and not worrying about the details too much. Once they are closer to their goal, I work more on education so they can still succeed when I am gone.

The Standard American Food Supply is poisoned in my opinion and that of many others I trust. When someone needs me to prove that to them, I know they are not yet ready to lose weight.

Back in the day when I was obese, I used to tell people that a “little bit” of chemical additives would not hurt me. Little did I know how many of them I was consuming and how detrimental they really were.

I often tell people, “If you do not know what a word means on the ingredient label, do not eat the “food”. Today this cuts out about 90% of the food available on the shelves.

In the meantime, my rallying cry is ADD NUTRITION, and let that take hold first.

Hive account@mariannewest (3 votes) tells us:

I would totally steer away from the word diet

I am sure with Marianne on this one! I do not use that word when I can help it. It has so many bad connotations.

I urge people to eat healthy food they enjoy for the rest of their lives. I do not want them to go onto a “diet” they struggle with and look forward to the day it is over.

Hive account@iamjadeline (2 votes) gives us examples of cravings:

My greatest struggle is instant noodle. I don't eat it often - maybe once in two months but I will crave for it when I am exhausted. Like I need more salty food when I am tired.

All of have food weaknesses. I continually say that increasing general nutrition will stave off the cravings, but it takes some time for that effect to kick in.

Carbs do seem to have an addictive aspect for most people. In my case it is salty chips. And now in SE Asia I crave rice since I eat so much of it. I’m avoiding the noodles as best I can!

Hive account@ecoinstant (4 votes) gives us a very helpful thought!

I think any 'program' has to talk about failure.

I did have “dealing with failure” in my program, but reading Hive account@ecoinstant’s thoughts on the topic made me pump up the volume! Failure is so frequent in weight loss efforts that it really needs to be addressed all through the program.

If I got paid by how many times people tell me they messed up today and so will start tomorrow, I would be rich now. People also pre-plan their failure. “It’s the holiday season now, so I will start my weight loss plan next year.” Then soon we are into the next year after that and the weight loss program is still not started!

Hive account@rehan12 has the opposite issue:

If I get to decrease more it will be hard for others to find me lol.

Those of us who struggle with weight loss, feel like Hive account@rehan12 has it easy! But the same ideas from weight loss will work for people who want to gain weight too.

Eat better nutrition, exercise within your limits, get good rest and hydration, and track your progress so you will know what works for you.

Hive account@blueeyes8960 reminds us that:

Simply eating a strict diet of low this or low that (carbs, fats, calories - take your pick) can only suffice to carve off a few pounds (and yes, sometimes, quite a few pounds) but if you don't learn why you did what you did to become overweight, you are destined to repeat the process.

This is so true. I am in many different weight loss support groups, and new crazy ideas come up all the time. One of the new ones is “intermittent fasting.” This is where people do not eat for various random periods of time and think this will help them.

My plea to people to simply boost the nutrition of what they do eat often falls on deaf ears. My program is not sexy enough for them!

Hive account@littlenewthings tells us one of her difficult strategies:

I perfectly knew that the food I consumed at the time actually had hidden sugar (for example) and I started cutting, the sugar deprive struggle is real.

This is why I advocate ADDING nutrition as a first step with food changes. As our bodies become healthier and stronger, those “bad” foods will drop off in time. Trying to cut first leads to the deprivation effect Hive account@littlenewthings is talking about.

Hive account@praditya mentions:

I am too a fitness trainer and I know how hard is to lose.

I feel like it WAS easy to lose once I got the skills and applied them. I see this often when people start treating themselves better and taking the right steps.

This was the most shocking aspect of my successful weight loss. After all the years of failure, I finally lost weight with very little trouble. I kept thinking it wasn’t real, and then one day – there I was – a thin person.

In eight years now, I have never again had trouble with my weight. I never believed this could happen, but now that I know it can, I try every day to help others do it too.

Thank you so much to everyone who participated in my contest!