What is the REAL, under-lying reason women struggle with their weight?  Has every woman who has gained weight struggled with body image issues? No.  Is she lazy?  No.  Lack self-control?  No.  Been sexually assaulted?  No.  Been used and abused?  No.  In a bad marriage?  Broken-hearted?  Over-stressed?  No, no, and no.   Not EVERY woman.  Those are all things that happen in people's lives, and are certainly reasons that can contribute, but not the one common denominator.  There is one common experience that every woman who has ever had unwanted weight gain has, one common denominator.

Someone or some thing has deceived her, purposefully or not, verbally, or nonverbally, deceived her into believing that "YOUR FEELINGS DON'T MATTER."  But much of the time it goes further. Women have been convinced, not just that their feelings don't matter, but also that their feelings are fallible.  She has been told not to make decisions based on feelings.  She's been told to "get over it" or called "over-sensitive", which communicated to her that feelings were not normal or that she shouldn't feel what she feels.  The corporate world shames feelings, family life can cause us to keep them bottled up, and often, churches and communities can't accept them if they are against their doctrine.  Some doctrines teach her that her feelings are inherently wicked or evil.  No matter how it's communicated, she has been deceived into simply, not trusting her own feelings.  Subconsciously, she starts shaming herself, privately, deeply, internally for being "too sensitive", feeling too much, and then judges herself for being selfish for thinking that what she feels matters.  After all, her "feelings don't matter, are not valid, and will lead her astray in their wicked deception, in making bad decisions and screwing things up."  So, she shuts down her feelings.

In shutting down her feelings, in essence, she is ignoring valid messages and indicators.  Let's define what feelings are.  Feelings are involuntary; feelings are reactions, involuntary reactions to our experiences that send us a valid indicator and a message. (I.e. - I feel involuntary pain, as a reaction to the experience of touching a hot stove; there's a valid indicator here - this stove is too hot to touch, and message here - I should be careful around stoves.)  It's that simple.  But because of the deception that feelings are voluntary and shameful,  feelings (really, our inner voices) that are designed to help us make decisions, are now silenced.  The woman adopts,  "How I feel doesn't matter, so inner voice, I'm not listening to your indicators and messages, don't talk to me."  She is left with no help to make good, logical decisions.

Once a woman is fully deceived into not trusting herself, she will listen and believe all the misleading and deceptive lies of the diet industry that will cause her to gain weight.  Here's a sample story of how that happens, how it all begins.  A normal weight woman participates in some kind of special event, a wedding, party or holiday, and at this event, is a lot of delicious food available.  She does what everyone does - consumes too much and gains a few ounces.  This happens again and now she has gained a few pounds.  She has done nothing wrong here.  Normally, she would listen to the voice inside of her that has a sense of this gain, step on the scale, and know the truth - she's gained some weight.  If she doesn't want or like this weight gain, she would listen to the inner voice inside of her that says, "Okay, no problem, it's just a few pounds, so just eat a little less for a few days or so, you'll be fine, and you'll lose the weight."  And with full confidence that this is not a big deal, and trust in herself, she absolutely could do that and successfully lose the few pounds she gained. Not a big deal.  End of story.  All okay.

But that's not what happens when she does not trust herself.  Here's the story re-written:  A normal weight woman participates in some kind of special event, and at this event, is a lot of delicious food available.  She does what everyone does - consumes too much and gains a few ounces.  This happens again and now she has gained a few pounds.  She has done nothing wrong here.  Here's where the story changes - since the voice inside of her is now silent, she doesn't step on the scale.  Instead, she hears the other voices that have told that her feelings are fallible (too sensitive you are), and she certainly shouldn't obsess over the scale, so she ignores everything, and she doesn't really know the truth that she's gained weight - she has no data (the number on the scale) to process.  Essentially, she sticks her head in the sand about it. 

And that is just the first few pounds of weight gain.  When this happens again, and she accumulates a gain of 5 or 10 lbs, her clothes don't fit, and then, she is feeling really discouraged and defeated.  But again, she's told that it's her wickedly vain ego that cares about her weight, or it's her lack of will-power that has caused her weight gain.  There is more judgment and more judgment heaped onto her - that it's her own fault she made bad choices, and that she's a little vain or selfish.  (Unless you're a fitness model, you might be judged for caring about your body by someone, most likely.  Society does one of two things with a woman's body - shames it or exploits it.)

With no inner-voice to send her valid messages (that she really has done nothing wrong and that all of that judgment is invalid), she will absorb the judgment.  She will also believe everything the diet industry tells her.  Oh, what's the harm in that?  It's not like the diet industry is going to lie to her, right?  A multi-billion dollar industry (that preys on women not trusting their feelings), knows that if you successfully lose weight, you won't need to buy their product.  If you (collectively) don't buy their product, they are out of business. The diet industry in the largest culprit in America in deceiving women to not trust themselves.  These lies sound like this -  "You make bad choices on your own", "Let us make all the decisions for you", "You have no will power", "You have excuses", "You are lazy", "You are not smart enough to do it on your own", "You can't make decisions for yourself."   Every time you sign up to follow a diet plan - this is what is communicated - "Follow this menu and this routine that we spell out for you, since you're not smart enough to make your own decisions for yourself.  If you don't lose weight, then it's your own fault for being lazy, having excuses and having no will power."

Is it any wonder why we find it so difficult to lose weight?  These under-lying messages exist in the very nature of diet programs and are being sent to us constantly. The "diet challenge" you took on with a team, the fitness trainer who you've hired to "kick your ass" at the gym, or nutritionist to tell you exactly what to eat - it's not personally their fault, and they can be the nicest person in the world, but by hiring someone to beat you into submission in your nutrition or fitness, you have entered into the relationship with these messages of not trusting yourself on the table from the get-go.  Hiring someone for help and instruction can be very beneficial; I've done it myself and I have been able to take away a lot from it.  However, I never submitted myself to letting anyone else's "routine" or "plan"  trump my feelings.  My feelings were my guiding light in what I wanted to do.

Your feelings do matter.  They always matter.  When you can trust that your feelings are involuntary and your feelings are reactions to your experiences, and silence all the other voices from outside, you will begin to see the valid indicators and hear the messages your feelings bring to you.  When you can do this - you can lose weight easily.  The one common denominator to all of our weight loss success stories - they have healed their hearts by un-silencing their own feelings.  They know they can trust themselves.  When they trust themselves, they have weight loss mastery.  Trusting herself is the one common denominator of every woman with weight loss mastery.

The power of a woman loving another woman is undeniable.  I'm not talking about a sexual love, but an emotional,  spiritual and life-giving love. Why is this kind of love the most powerful love of all?  Because the love that creates, feeds, shields, protects, and covers you is the mother's love, a love that will heal you.

Let's metaphorically link a woman's love to that of a womb, the body part that only a woman has, the very origin of motherhood.  The womb is life-giving.  It creates a new life, feeds it, then shields, protects and covers it with unconditional love.  And the woman cannot control what her body is automatically going to do, (unconditionally), for this embryo, then fetus inside of her.  Her body is automatically going to nourish and grow the fetus growing inside of her until 9 months later, the birth of a baby occurs.  That's just science.

Now with all that understood, imagine receiving that kind of unconditional love. Automatically.  The power of a woman receiving this kind of "womb love" is going to give birth to a new life, let's call it her "Venus", a life living in love, relationship and beauty.  Let me tell you how I received this unconditional love, birthed my Venus through my deepest wound, and how I was healed.

My greatest dream, heart's desire and life purpose to be a perfect mother was shattered when my womb failed to carry my first pregnancy to full-term.  At only 6 and 1/2 months, I gave birth via emergency c-section to a premature, medically distressed baby that entered the world barely surviving because my womb rejected him.  That really sums up the medical conditions that inflicted me (toxemia and the H.E.L.L.P. syndrome, the womb basically rejects the baby.)  I gave birth to not only a premature baby, but a baby small-for-size because my womb failed to nourish him properly (Intrauterine growth restriction.)  It failed to feed him and failed to carry him; my womb had completely failed.  Technically, my womb almost killed my own child, the very thing I longed to create, feed, shield, protect and cover.  Illness, disaster, trauma, and near-death destroyed all of these things.  His life began on life-support. I had failed. I now had a very deep wound, not only physically cut through my core, but now emotionally and spiritually, cut to the core of my heart and soul.

Logically, my brain understood what the doctors and nurses told me, that it wasn't my fault.  But you would never be able to convince my heart of that.  A mother's heart will forever feel the shame, guilt and defeat of failure to protect her baby.  I spent many hours, days, months, and years wondering what I had done wrong.  With my baby's life at stake, and with the information, that even though he'll probably survive, he'll be at risk for many things, like sensory issues, disabilities, cardiac issues, and low intelligence; in other words, a difficult life, and my heart was overwhelmed with guilt.  And sure enough, at 4 years old, he developed neurological issues that would make his life difficult and affect the rest of his life.  For years, I continued to ask myself -Did I not eat nutritionally enough during my pregnancy?  Was it because I had struggled with bulimia before?  Was it because I was smoking before I got pregnant?  Was it because I was fat?  After all, I had "hogged" all the food I ate during my pregnancy and had not fed him enough in-utero.  The self-judgment was endless.

Years later, after the birth of another premature baby, I was begging my doctor for a hysterectomy (take a knife, cut me open and take this uterus out.)  I was now that embittered against my own womb.  I no longer wanted this womb that was a disastrous excuse for a mother's unconditional love to be a part of me.  He said I didn't medically need a hysterectomy; I insisted I had enough medical history and problems to justify it, and I successfully convinced him to do the surgery.  I was only 34 years old and had a hysterectomy, the good ol' fashion kind, with a major abdominal incision, that left me with "hormones out of whack", a damaged nerve on my left leg, and fear I had just made another mistake that would affect the rest of my life.   Afterwards, I gained even more weight.  I was depressed.  I was miserable.

At 35, and 220 Lbs, I hit my knees, in complete misery from my depression and weight gain, uttering the only words I could utter "God help me."  It was perhaps at that moment, that what some understand as the "Holy Spirit interceding" occurred.  When the anguish is so great, and you don't have the words, there is intercession on your behalf.  I said, "God help me."  And God received, "Send her an angel.  Send her an angel that appears as a beautiful woman, a vision of the beautiful woman she will become, with a perfect womb.  Restore what she has lost.  Send her an angel of love that will create, feed, shield, protect and cover her." 

This love, this beautiful angel came to me and gave me all the things a womb gives (new life, nourishment, protection, shielding, and covering) and I was able to give birth to my Venus - love, relationship and beauty.  It was this love that created, fed, shielded, protected, and covered me that healed me.  I lost 90 lbs. The Losing Coach coaches are these kind of angels that create a womb for all of our clients to birth their own Venus.  This womb that gives unconditional love is what sets us apart from everything else.  All you need to do is ask for help, intercession will be made on your behalf, and your angel will appear as a beautiful woman there to love you, because the power of a woman loving another woman is undeniable.

Written to us by a workshop participant who has lost 45 Lbs!

Your husband will like this!  You will like this!

Remember - he will see you as you see you.

Hunger is a feeling that indicates what you want - "I want fed."  This can be literal hunger - the desire to be fed more food, or a metaphorical hunger - desire to be fed anything.  This hunger, or appetite, for anything, can be stimulated by different things, but obviously, it is mostly stimulated by not having enough.  It's furthermore stimulated by having just a little taste of what you desire.  Everyone knows once you have a taste of something you enjoy, or benefit from, it can make you hungry for more.

When I was a relatively new realtor, a friend of mine referred me to her friends and said "She's a hungry realtor."  Because of that, they were eager to work with me.  What she had communicated to them in my "hunger" was that I wanted to be fed, I didn't have enough; I wanted them as clients.  So they understood that as my clients, they would be very important to me; I would pay attention to them, and I would work very hard for them.  Immediately understanding what was implied in being a "hungry realtor", they instantly hired me.  They intuitively understood my hunger would serve them well, and it did.  Hunger is a driving force.

As I was talking on the phone with a client who has lost 40 lbs in just over three months with The Losing Coach, she said, "The Losing Coach has made me hungry for love."  It was truly one of the most profound feedback about this program I have received.  I realized at that moment, all that her statement implied.  We had given her a taste of something she didn't have enough of, something she enjoyed, something that was feeding her, something she was benefiting from.  She was hungry for love.  This is now her driving force.  This is what makes her weight loss important to her; what makes her pay attention to it, and what has made her work hard. This is why she has lost 40 lbs.  Love.  She only needed a taste of it.  Once she tasted it, she became hungry for more.  Her hunger has served her well.  So be hungry for love.