The Biggest Loser

The "Biggest Loser" TV show is in its 9th season and very popular. It is a show where morbidly obese people get access to personal trainers and health and nutrition education on the Biggest Loser ranch. The viewers of this show get to see with their own eyes how the impossible is possible. People on the show lose up to 200 pounds in 17 weeks. And this time it is not an empty commercial of some diet pill or a questionable ´before´ and ´after´ picture...

I have personally taken to watching this program. It is just incredible to see all my beliefs and knowledge about weight loss and fitness come to live. What also comes to live is the contestants themselves. I just LOVE watching how their eyes start to light up, how they beam with their own accomplishments, how to start believing in themselves, have hopes and dreams and feel as an active and essential part of society, friends and family. No more shame, isolating, heaviness and being weighed down. Weight itself is a mirror of each person´s life. It is not normal for us to burden our body with excess pounds. It is literally limiting with everything we do.

When I was in my late teens, I left my home town in Austria for the first time and spent one year in Atlanta Georgia. I immersed myself into the American culture and sampled lots of fast food restaurants (which is also a money saving factor in this country). Within 6 months I had gained about 25 pounds. I had been struggling with my weight before that all my life already, but was not seriously obese. Well, I was shocked to say the least. In the following 6 months I started to swim and go to Jazzercise classes regularly, I dropped more than the gained 25 pounds and am at my ideal weight ever since. Wow! The turning point for me was that for the first time in my life I did not want to lose weight for my looks but for my health. Back in Austria I had learned that at 21 years old I had high cholesterol and triglycerides levels.

I educated myself in belongings of nutrition and exercise. I became an expert in weight loss and got to pass my knowledge on within my profession as a psychologist, and now as a Life Coach. I know how it feels to be wheezing after taking the stairs, how it feels to be mentally numbed by all the sugar and fat intake, to be unexcited about getting dressed because nothing really ever looks good on me. I believe that nobody should have to experience that. And, if I can do it, anybody else can. I love food above all, love cooking, social eating and have a definite sweet tooth. All of this is wonderful and I still enjoy all of that. I don´t feel like I restrain myself, instead I take responsibility and am loving it.

Weight loss is as simple as calories going in need to be less than calories being used up and then you see weight loss. At the same time weight loss is so complex. Emotions, learned patterns, beliefs, social immersion, availability of food (big lobbies are at play), commercials, and much more are affecting each person. Often I see shame, guilt, even disgust that people have to distance themselves from in order to be able to successfully shed the weight for good.

Yet it is so doable and so rewarding. It truly is like giving yourself your life back. Everybody can do it, and it does not have to be hard (as most of us believe). It takes love, being gentle with yourself and COMMITMENT.

Hey, have you got a moment? Let´s drop some pounds... :-)