The old formula for weight loss sounds simple – “eat less, move more.” Yet many smart, busy women – high-achievers in most areas of their lives – are frustrated with their lack of success with lasting weight loss. It’s not for lack of trying. Many of my clients feel like they have been living on a hamster wheel – working hard, starting over (and over) multiple times, and never creating lasting results.
Highly successful women who pride themselves on their willpower, determination, and the results they create in other areas of their lives, sometimes feel like overeating and weight loss are the only places they aren’t effective – no matter how determined they are or how hard they work.
A lack of lasting success with weight loss can then lead to a downward spiral of frustration, feelings of guilt, and even shame, and yes, more overeating. It’s supposed to be so simple, right?
Here’s the critical truth (the one most weight loss plans don’t include). It really isn’t that simple – especially if you are a high-achiever or a busy woman who wants to lose weight.
Eat less, move more is not the complete equation, and if that’s what you continue to focus on, there are some critical areas that are likely to sabotage you.
Why smart, busy women overeat (and yes, I’m talking to you).
You may not wear a cape or a spandex outfit, but if you’re reading this, you just may be a busy, high-achieving superwoman if:
- You’re the woman who makes things happen in most parts of your life (people count on you to get the job done).
- You juggle family, work, home, and everything else.
- When the going gets tough, you keep going.
- You are busy busy busy.
- You are a smart cookie who’s accomplished amazing things in many areas of your life, and you may just have (almost) perfected the art of being in two places at once.
Any of these superpowers not only make weight loss more complicated, they can actually contribute to overeating.
Although it may work for you in other areas, your high-achieving approach might actually be adding inches to your waistline. And it’s almost guaranteed that dieting and an eat less, move more approach is an incomplete, or inappropriate solution. A strategy like this ignores the essential reasons high-achievers struggle to lose weight and what you really need to succeed.
Here’s why high-achievers struggle to lose weight – and what to do about it.
There’s an essential piece to the weight loss puzzle, and without it, even superwoman—especially superwoman—is almost guaranteed to fail.
The critical piece you might be missing?
It’s having strategies that address the reason you find yourself polishing off the bag of chips, mindlessly snacking at your desk, or nervously cutting off endless slivers from the pan of brownies in the kitchen. Strategies that address these reasons with respect, and meet your needs more completely than food or overeating ever will.
Smart women succeed at weight loss when they shift from a diet approach to one that empowers them to create peace with food. This happens when they are able to break the hold of cravings and hunger that isn’t really physical, by taking charge of the reasons they overeat.
Here are five important reasons busy women and high-achievers overeat and struggle to lose weight:
- Exhaustion
- Emotions—like hurt, anger, sadness, or worry
- Stress, and using food for comfort
- Using food to avoid and procrastinate overwhelming or boring tasks
- Being too busy
If you move forward without a smart plan that strategically takes on these very real issues, and instead push harder and harder just to stay on your diet, you won’t have what you need to create a real solution to overeating or to achieve lasting weight loss.
Here’s the key takeaway.
For busy high-achievers, the key to NOT eating the whole bag, and to staying on track and actually losing weight, lies in having tools and strategies to deal with your complicated life so that you can meet your needs without turning to food for comfort, stress relief, quick energy, or to help you cope with your emotions.
This is a huge part of creating peace with food. The Peace with Food approach creates lasting changes by guiding you to solid solutions to the problems that trigger overeating in the first place.
The journey toward peace with food allows you to take your power back from food because it makes your whole life better.
High-achievers don’t need another diet (and they definitely don’t need to work any harder). The real-life superwomen I know, are craving a plan that addresses what’s behind their overeating. Would you agree?
Take good care,
