Weight loss photos hook us

Diet myth # 6: Weight loss photos and success stories

So... you see those weight loss photos and watch weight loss success stories the diet industry is forever bandying about. Let's admit it - they're impressive. The 'new' person (now in colour) beams out at you with their apparenty now perfect lives.

That weight loss picture is also the hook that gets you to part with your money. The message is: if they can do it, see it's easy - so can you!

What you need to see is the 'after-after' weight loss photos?

And you know those weight loss success stories - how many of them don't end with...."but I gained all the weight back again." Click her to see what obesity experts say about this weight cycling phenomenon. I once went to a talk by an expert in obesity research who'd approached a well known slimming club and asked to interview their previous 5-years biggest losers for a TV programme.

Not one of them would appear on the show. Why? Well...every last one of them had regained their weight and their after-after weight loss photos didn't look so good.

It didn't surprise me. I'd witnessed this exact weight cycling in the years when I was a lecturer and it was my story too. Even when I'd followed their really healthy eating plan (and it was) to lose my weight there just came a time when I couldn't live like that anymore and the weight loss success story reversed.

And along with it - my self-esteem plummeted.

So, if you'd have seen my before and after weight loss photos you'd have seen my 'before' picture at 74 kgs (168lbs), my 'after' picture at 45kgs (99lbs) and my after- after pictures 79 kgs (174lbs).

And by the way I've done this bit of manipulating to some of my weight loss photos from that time because that's another bit of 'doctoring' the weight loss industry love to trick us with!

My shameful little secret

Even thought I'd been a weight loss success story, and much as I wanted to look fabulous, my mind simply revolted. Enough 'being good' enough! And back flooded all my old unhealthy lifestyle habits.

You'd have never known it in my classes, on the outside my smiley face said I was happy - but inside I felt like a desperate failure all over again. Only my cocktail of daily diet pills helped me look as if I was maintaining what my weight loss photos showed.

Because I hadn't had a mind makeover , my old pattern of stuffing or starving and being weight-obsessed had never really left me. It was still there just waiting to re-surface which it inevitably did because I'd only changed my body.

The human spirit hates being controlled

And, while it can give us a temporary feeling of safety to be told what to do, that sense of restriction eventually wears thin.

When you're following the Mind over Fatter program we don't focus on weight loss because here's what matters to us:

Click here to read how 'success' NEEDS to be different for each person and why we need to ditch just measuing success in terms of losing weight.

• Are your habits and attitudes changing?

If you’re just changing how you eat or exercise, without making changes to your habits of thought – any changes are only temporary.

While you may be pleased if you’re having what looks like a weight loss success story, – I’m much more pleased when you’re having an 'old habit loss' because then I know you’re making deep and meaningful changes.

• Are you growing your self-esteem and self-worth?

If you’re just changing how you eat or exercise, without growing in self-love and self-kindness, you can have all the weight loss photos you want, talk about all the weight loss motivational stories you hear, and sadly, you're likely to still find yourself trapped – married to that harsh inner body critic which means low self esteem.

• Are you growing spiritually – does your life have meaning, passion and purpose?

No amount of making surface changes to your eating/exercising will be effortlessly lasting if your life feels empty and devoid of passion and meaning. You'll be forever emotional eating to fill that hole.

But, when your life has passion and purpose, food and eating take their rightful place – secondary to living and if your natural body needs to lose weight it will.

What we don't need are someone else's before and after pictures of weight loss. What we do need is motivational stories about our self-esteem and personal growth - those are much more accurate measures of meaningful change. And then we'd feel fabulous whether our body changed or not!

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