Losing weight: Truly a balancing act

Abstract

I"ve emphasized often enough that losing
weight is like learning to speak another language.

In addition, I have published articles
lending support to my reasons for making this assertion
(monografías.com).

Besides, I have published countless
articles on the trials and tribulations of the overweight person,
the futility of dieting and on the phenomenology of all eating
disorders, obesity considered one of them.

Losing weight is difficult, because the
body opposes it with dogged determination.

However thorny it is doesn"t seem to matter
to science, as some scientists try to make the process look
simple.

On this regard, everyday in the news,
appears some article that distorts our view in favor of homespun
and outrageously so-called "scientific research".

Research that never yields substantial or
definite results.

It"s as if new and unproven theories take
the place of established empiric work and common reason, in order
to bolster pseudo-scientific research.

The purpose of this article is to set the
record straight.

Key words

• Losing weight

• A balancing act

• Boring menus and weight
  loses

• Weight loss without psychotherapy:
  Useless, as it bodes no permanent results for the long
  term

Introduction

A patient calls me in the early hours of
the evening to report her daily collations. She lives in Arecibo,
and is on the maintenance, "holding", or "relapse prevention"
phase of her dietary plan.

In the process of sharing her account, she
stops abruptly, in order to give me, with excitement, the
following news:

"Following my plan, I"ve discovered that by
consuming an adequate but unexciting diet, I can lose
weight!"

"That"s the idea" I promptly
responded.

What"d to my act happen if I were
fat?

Elisa, not her real name, often finds
herself in the horns of a dilemma. She is determined — not only
to lose weight (something she has accomplished with resolve and
with a great measure of success) — to remain slender and
attractive at her present weight.

Weight over which she has hovered (+/- 5
lb) for several months.

The reason for this lack of movement is
what she calls her "mini-relapses".

Being a businesswoman she "needs" to break
her established eating routine with some frequency to join
clients at the, often epicurean, and opiparous table.

In this dilemma, she is not alone as we can
well appreciate

We acknowledge that too many people
struggling with overweight fall under this category. But we are
prepared to deal with this issue as part of the structure of the
"system" we have designed specifically to meet her personal
needs.

Besides, the beauty of Elisa"s situation is
that the weight she currently maintains puts her at a very nice
and healthy level appreciably to all, in terms of the slender
figure she projects and her feelings of wellbeing.

She says

"I know I"m thin… it"s that I"d like
to get those 3-5 extra pounds out of my way…" She is
prompt to add.

Elisa

Her history, before we started to work
together, mirrored for many years the same story of so many men
and women who have tried unsuccessfully to lose weight on a
permanent and sustained basis.

She had attempted every available diet or
dietary plan.

Often commuting from Punta Cana to Miami or
Puerto Rico, submitting herself all along to every sacrifice from
her required — doing it with stoic resignation.

An only great promise with meager results
as it"s often the case.

Elisa: Why do YOU want
to lose weight now, if you can stay as you are?

This gifted and exceptionally nice looking
young woman came to us not exactly to lose weight, but to mend a
broken heart.

Elisa had finished an amorous relation with
a wealthy man who treated her with cold indifference.

Scion to a solvent family of
unsophisticated noveaux riches, their aspirations for their
dyslexic heir was — if not for a better — at least, for a
more moneyed woman than her.

Thus the relationship ended with an
anticlimax for Elisa (not exactly what Beethoven had in mind when
composing the eponymous melody).

C"est la vie

During her intensive and successful therapy
this worthy woman discovered that in the aftermath of the
relationship se had lost much of her self-esteem falling in the
trap of indulging with abandonment in frequent forays to local
eateries where she"d consume enormous varieties of rich and
appetizing foods to allay anxieties and feelings of depression.
(See my articles on these issues).

Horror!

The result: she had gained forty two
unwanted pounds

The "remedy"

Daily walks — with or without friends —
dieting, and visits to the local gym had produced very little in
terms of measurable effects on her weight.