What you'll want to learn to Stabilize your Weight

Since 2009, I've asked clients the question, "If you were not trying to manipulate your diet or body in any way, do you know what your natural healthy body weight is?"

And time after time, after a long pause, many women quizzically respond, "no." Or, "No, I've been trying to manipulate my body for as long as I remember." Or, "I started trying to control my eating since puberty or young adulthood, so I have no clue where I'd actually be."

What we learned from our youth

Often, since youth, girls and young women learn that what their body is, is wrong. They

Stabilizing weight is a whole organismic process...

witness the adults in their lives criticize their own bodies or the bodies' of others and learn they must do whatever they can do avoid being criticized themselves. One client told me, though her father never criticized her directly, he often made critical comments about her mother and mother's female family members gaining weight. It made an huge impression on her! Many women also have memories of their own mothers, while telling them to appreciate their bodies, demonstrating criticism of their own bodies. What I'm trying to say here is, when it comes to weight, it's loaded for a lot of us.

Turn to the online world, and things only get more complicated. Rather than addressing the root of many of our collective body weight concerns, we're offered strategies. Though stabilizing your weight goes beyond the "right" amount of protein, fat, and carbohydrates and goes beyond simply reaching a certain numbers of steps per day. Sure, these may be a slice of the metabolic pie, but stabilizing weight is a whole organismic process, that includes ones long-term eating habits, movement practices, ability to FEEL the body and emotions with loving awareness, and overall state in which we eat our food.

What you'll want to learn to stabilize your weight

I've worked with clients for the last 17+ years. Working with body weight is nuanced. Please use the following as a check-list of sorts, and see which are currently your growth edges. If you want to stabilize your body weight, you'll want to learn:

1.) How to reduce/heal binge eating and restriction cycles - the importance of healing this pattern cannot be overstated, as binge/restrict cycles can actually contribute to a either a higher baseline body weight or ongoing fluctuations with body weight. Heal this cycle and watch your weight stabilize. You'll learn to do this here.

2.) Predictable eating times - rhythmic eating patterns help train to body to also experience predictable hunger. Supporting regular hunger cues and then satiating them helps stabilize blood sugar which also supports weight stabilization.

3.) How to sustainably include protein, fat, and carbohydrates in each meal - Yes, you need to create a semblance of balance in your meals to support your blood sugar and hormones. In addition, including all macronutrients regularly wards off compensatory binges (ex. avoiding carbohydrates only to binge on them later)

4.) Body awareness - Body awareness contributes to a healing sense of Self-Trust, that often was overridden long ago due to being taught the body was something to be suspicious of. Here are important questions: Am I aware that I am tired and need to rest or do I override that and just eat? Am I aware of the point that the pleasure and hunger start to go away, signaling a stop-point or do I override that and keep eating? Am I aware that I am hungry or do I override my hunger only to overeat or binge eat later? Body awareness can sound insultingly simple, yet many have a difficult time with actual practice.

5.) How to feel and care for the emotions that precede overeating or binge eating - Overeating and binge eating are both essentially ways of our eating habits are saying, "I am not willing or not able to be with WHAT IS right now." This is way including eating psychology support is so important. Our inner life, our emotions and fears and pain points and truest expressions can either be addressed and cared for directly, or get squished sideways via eating habits we really don't love.

6.) Eating Skillsets when traveling or socializing - Do you know how to eat when there are only gas stations for the next 2 hours of your trip? How do you handle eating at birthday parties or holiday gatherings? Do you know how to care for yourself? If you feel trips, travel, holidays, and socializing thwart your body weight regulation attempts, this is your area to focus on

7.) How to set up your day-to-day eating confidently - As boring as this might seem, having a ground plan or blue print for your eating during your routine weeks makes it much easier to maintain eating habits that support body weight stabilization. This area might include a regular grocery run day, having simple go-to protein sources, snacks you can feel good about at work, a few reliable breakfast, lunch, and dinner ideas that you cycle through and enjoy.

8.) How to eat pleasure foods (sweet, carby foods) calmly, without overeating - Do you know how to eat a cookie or donut or brownie without overeating? What nutritional guardrails do you already have set up so that overeating is far less likely?

9.) Relaxing (versus stressing) into eating - relaxation physiology helps our body naturally produce the enzymes and stomach acid we need to properly digest our food. Metabolic power increases when relaxed. Ironically, many of our approaches and attitudes toward diet and body weight are inherently stressful. Cultivating relaxation physiology promotes calorie-burning capacity.

10.) How to address your legitimate hang-ups about body weight - what are the stories you tell yourself about body weight? Body fat? Weight loss? Without understanding the undercurrent of stories directing your behavior with eating, it might be difficult to make deeper changes.

How'd you do? Where do you feel strong and what are your growth edges? (We all have them!)

Working with eating habits and body weight can be life-changing for women due to the sheer number of YEARS women have been spinning their wheels trying to manipulate their eating and body weight. Do not underestimate the significance of this work.

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Is it time? Reach out to Laura here to check on session availability (in Grand Rapids, MI or remotely via ZOOM/phone) or start with Laura's 3-month eating psychology training, Heal Your Eating, to immerse yourself in a solid curriculum.

Laura Burkett Gutierrez, MA, has been in private practice since 2009. She earned a Masters in Transpersonal Psychology and is a certified L-3 practitioner of Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy and holds multiple certifications in the fields of Integrative and Holistic Nutrition, Eating Psychology, and Depth Psychology.