Did you know that only 5 percent of people who crash diet keep the weight off?

Or that 68% of Americans are overweight or obese?

To me, that means that this is an issue that diet and exercise alone cannot solve. If so many people are finding it impossible to succeed, then we need to question why, and find the answer.

As many of you know. I started my dieting journey when I was in 3rd grade at 130 pounds and by the time I was 12 I weighed 212 pounds – dieting all the way. It was in my mid 30s after years of extreme dieting and exercising that I finally got fed up and decided I would devote my life to helping find the answer to sustainable change. It was once I made that decision to look beyond the diets and exercise plans that I finally found full recovery and sustainable weight loss. That was over 25 years ago.

I am all too familiar with the pain that people suffer when feel that they don’t have the strength to overcome major weight issues. That challenge has been my greatest wake up call and when I finally decided to answer it with honesty and self-compassion, I was able to make sustainable change.

If you are feeling a deep urge within you to make some changes, pay attention. Take some time to treat yourself with unconditional friendliness and ponder these powerful life enhancing steps.

Ultimately it is important to remember that the weight or the illness or the struggle is the symptom not the problem. If you are dealing with a weight issue and you have not been able to make lasting change, you are trying to solve a spiritual problem with a physical solution. Your weight is not the problem, lack of love is the problem.

The only love missing is the love you are not giving. You can learn to do that one day at a time.

I have made it my mission to create practices to help people live a life they love in a body they love by creating practices that take research and science from theory to practice. Whether you are hearing the wake up call to improve your health or to stop procrastinating and follow through on something that is important to you, I want to share with you some of my steps to help you succeed.

Here is what I firmly believe will help you, no matter what long term problem you have been dealing with:

1. Forgive yourself completely for not having found the answer yet, and start again.
2. Remember this issue is not a problem, it is a wake up call. It is a gift that is forcing you to pay attention to something deeper that you are avoiding dealing with you don’t want to feel. Ask yourself, What is it that I am not willing to feel that I use food or something else to help me hide from the deeper issue?” What is it you don’t want to feel? Maybe when you feel a craving, you feel you must eat the thing you are craving. Maybe it is that you don’t want to feel fear, overwhelm or sadness so instead you procrastinate hoping to avoid those feelings only making your problem bigger.
3. Be kind and compassionate with yourself. No one has ever sprung into happiness and self-love through punishment and self-criticism. Remember, if it was easy you would have done it already. There are millions of people like you who are dealing with the same issue. Baby steps with gradual results that lead to real lasting change is the goal. Quick fixes are a way to try to avoid discomfort and get the goal. It always backfires because if the pendulum swings one way it has to swing the other way.
4. Accept that there is no pleasure without pain. We all want the promise of pleasure but we don’t want to go through any pain to get there. If you think about it, there really is no pleasure without the pain of change, of doing new things, of developing new skills or muscles and all of that brings with it discomfort. If you want more vitality, energy, strength and health, you must surrender to the process that will inevitably be uncomfortable.

This is how you build the inner strength, courage and compassion of the warrior. You need spiritual power to get through difficult times, that power has to be a power that is bigger than your problem. Connect to the unlimited power within you, which is love. Because with love, all things are possible.