e it was my former client seeing someone else in my office. I told her I did not recognize her. She said few months after finishing with me she started dropping pounds without dieting or exercising. Her parting comment was, “this is the body I always wanted, but thought I would never have.” It was the body of an unstressed woman.

When we release old stress, we learn to not recreate it. The cellulite women often complain about disappears. The fascia (the connective tissue which is also scar tissue) that holds the stress also holds fat. When the stress is released, the fascia is released and the fat can dissolve away.

Be aware of when stress or tension is going into your body. Then breathe and express your feelings. These two simple behaviors will change your life.

2. Challenge your beliefs. What are your unconscious affirmations? What are your mantras that y

Let’s get honest. Are you really just a little overweight? By 2030, according to a Baylor University study, 100 percent of U.S. citizens will be obese by current standards. For many, being overweigh is stressful. For others, stress is a significant cause of extra weight. It’s stress that holds the key to shifting this paradox.

To understand the importance stress plays, we need to understand that it’s a survival response that’s always activated. To survive, we either do fight or flight, so we need quick energy – sugar. We crave survival food under continuing stress. Simultaneously, our bodies are shutting down other functions such as digestion. Complex adjustment of body functions makes us crave foods that we should not eat.

Then there is the culture we live in, which shows anorexic models, and movie stars that have lipo-sucked every once of unwanted fat. If that’s not enough there is Photoshop morphing of humans into super humans. These unreal images create huge stress, particularly for our young girls, to the extent that they are experiencing puberty earlier than ever and getting plastic surgery to be perfect. These images become subliminal. Then we are consciously blind – we don’t realize we are seeing them. They linger in our unconscious, drive us to spend our money on merchandise to be beautiful, and stress out about our imperfections.

Whatever we may stress about will impact our bodies. Often the influence will effect the disposition of our fat. A new study will be based on the phenomenon that stress creates a pot belly. Because of the hormone released under stress, pot bellied people develop a more dangerous fat, a visceral fat that lies between the organs.

Fat is a symptom of stress. We can continue to treat the symptom as we have for the last 50 years or we can shift to treating the cause. There are external factors, such as the media, which we can’t change. More powerful and more immediate are the internal factors, our response to stress. After 30 years of working with clients and students who often sought my help for addressing the cause of their weight, I can say often reducing stress will take weight off and create a body that you will inherently accept.

Here are 8 approaches to losing weight through reducing stress. Some of what I discuss may not be comfortable to read. My goal is to assist you in escaping your stress, not making you feel good.

1. Leave survival behind. Begin to understand the power of stress. Fighting stress and its response (craving survival foods) is a losing fight. You are going up against your biology and genetics. You are hardwired to survive, so stop trying to repress a natural behavior. Focus on taking yourself out of the survival state.

Another view is to realize you are stuck in post traumatic stress. The body is experiencing trauma when stress is not actually present. You need to unwind tension and unlearn stress behavior. Your body will transform itself when this occurs.

About 15 years ago, when I had a clinic in Scottsdale, Arizona, a woman came in asking if I could do for her what her friends claimed I did for them. I told the woman that if she lost her chronic stress and learned to not recreate it, after several months she probably would be thinner. She saw me for ten weekly sessions. Her body changed some, but we both agreed it was not transformed.

Six months latter, I saw a very attractive woman in a black dress at the end of my long hall. Not until I was close to her did I realize it was my former client seeing someone else in my office. I told her I did not recognize her. She said few months after finishing with me she started dropping pounds without dieting or exercising. Her parting comment was, “this is the body I always wanted, but thought I would never have.” It was the body of an unstressed woman.

When we release old stress, we learn to not recreate it. The cellulite women often complain about disappears. The fascia (the connective tissue which is also scar tissue) that holds the stress also holds fat. When the stress is released, the fascia is released and the fat can dissolve away.

Be aware of when stress or tension is going into your body. Then breathe and express your feelings. These two simple behaviors will change your life.

2. Challenge your beliefs. What are your unconscious affirmations? What are your mantras that y

t’s not enough there is Photoshop morphing of humans into super humans. These unreal images create huge stress, particularly for our young girls, to the extent that they are experiencing puberty earlier than ever and getting plastic surgery to be perfect. These images become subliminal. Then we are consciously blind – we don’t realize we are seeing them. They linger in our unconscious, drive us to spend our money on merchandise to be beautiful, and stress out about our imperfections.

Whatever we may stress about will impact our bodies. Often the influence will effect the disposition of our fat. A new study will be based on the phenomenon that stress creates a pot belly. Because of the hormone released under stress, pot bellied people develop a more dangerous fat, a visceral fat that lies between the organs.

Fat is a symptom of stress. We can continue to treat the symptom as we have for the last 50 years or we can shift to treating the cause. There are external factors, such as the media, which we can’t change. More powerful and more immediate are the internal factors, our response to stress. After 30 years of working with clients and students who often sought my help for addressing the cause of their weight, I can say often reducing stress will take weight off and create a body that you will inherently accept.

Here are 8 approaches to losing weight through reducing stress. Some of what I discuss may not be comfortable to read. My goal is to assist you in escaping your stress, not making you feel good.

1. Leave survival behind. Begin to understand the power of stress. Fighting stress and its response (craving survival foods) is a losing fight. You are going up against your biology and genetics. You are hardwired to survive, so stop trying to repress a natural behavior. Focus on taking yourself out of the survival state.

Another view is to realize you are stuck in post traumatic stress. The body is experiencing trauma when stress is not actually present. You need to unwind tension and unlearn stress behavior. Your body will transform itself when this occurs.

About 15 years ago, when I had a clinic in Scottsdale, Arizona, a woman came in asking if I could do for her what her friends claimed I did for them. I told the woman that if she lost her chronic stress and learned to not recreate it, after several months she probably would be thinner. She saw me for ten weekly sessions. Her body changed some, but we both agreed it was not transformed.

Six months latter, I saw a very attractive woman in a black dress at the end of my long hall. Not until I was close to her did I realize it was my former client seeing someone else in my office. I told her I did not recognize her. She said few months after finishing with me she started dropping pounds without dieting or exercising. Her parting comment was, “this is the body I always wanted, but thought I would never have.” It was the body of an unstressed woman.

When we release old stress, we learn to not recreate it. The cellulite women often complain about disappears. The fascia (the connective tissue which is also scar tissue) that holds the stress also holds fat. When the stress is released, the fascia is released and the fat can dissolve away.

Be aware of when stress or tension is going into your body. Then breathe and express your feelings. These two simple behaviors will change your life.

2. Challenge your beliefs. What are your unconscious affirmations? What are your mantras that y

he symptom as we have for the last 50 years or we can shift to treating the cause. There are external factors, such as the media, which we can’t change. More powerful and more immediate are the internal factors, our response to stress. After 30 years of working with clients and students who often sought my help for addressing the cause of their weight, I can say often reducing stress will take weight off and create a body that you will inherently accept.

Here are 8 approaches to losing weight through reducing stress. Some of what I discuss may not be comfortable to read. My goal is to assist you in escaping your stress, not making you feel good.

1. Leave survival behind. Begin to understand the power of stress. Fighting stress and its response (craving survival foods) is a losing fight. You are going up against your biology and genetics. You are hardwired to survive, so stop trying to repress a natural behavior. Focus on taking yourself out of the survival state.

Another view is to realize you are stuck in post traumatic stress. The body is experiencing trauma when stress is not actually present. You need to unwind tension and unlearn stress behavior. Your body will transform itself when this occurs.

About 15 years ago, when I had a clinic in Scottsdale, Arizona, a woman came in asking if I could do for her what her friends claimed I did for them. I told the woman that if she lost her chronic stress and learned to not recreate it, after several months she probably would be thinner. She saw me for ten weekly sessions. Her body changed some, but we both agreed it was not transformed.

Six months latter, I saw a very attractive woman in a black dress at the end of my long hall. Not until I was close to her did I realize it was my former client seeing someone else in my office. I told her I did not recognize her. She said few months after finishing with me she started dropping pounds without dieting or exercising. Her parting comment was, “this is the body I always wanted, but thought I would never have.” It was the body of an unstressed woman.

When we release old stress, we learn to not recreate it. The cellulite women often complain about disappears. The fascia (the connective tissue which is also scar tissue) that holds the stress also holds fat. When the stress is released, the fascia is released and the fat can dissolve away.

Be aware of when stress or tension is going into your body. Then breathe and express your feelings. These two simple behaviors will change your life.

2. Challenge your beliefs. What are your unconscious affirmations? What are your mantras that y

ive, so stop trying to repress a natural behavior. Focus on taking yourself out of the survival state.

Another view is to realize you are stuck in post traumatic stress. The body is experiencing trauma when stress is not actually present. You need to unwind tension and unlearn stress behavior. Your body will transform itself when this occurs.

About 15 years ago, when I had a clinic in Scottsdale, Arizona, a woman came in asking if I could do for her what her friends claimed I did for them. I told the woman that if she lost her chronic stress and learned to not recreate it, after several months she probably would be thinner. She saw me for ten weekly sessions. Her body changed some, but we both agreed it was not transformed.

Six months latter, I saw a very attractive woman in a black dress at the end of my long hall. Not until I was close to her did I realize it was my former client seeing someone else in my office. I told her I did not recognize her. She said few months after finishing with me she started dropping pounds without dieting or exercising. Her parting comment was, “this is the body I always wanted, but thought I would never have.” It was the body of an unstressed woman.

When we release old stress, we learn to not recreate it. The cellulite women often complain about disappears. The fascia (the connective tissue which is also scar tissue) that holds the stress also holds fat. When the stress is released, the fascia is released and the fat can dissolve away.

Be aware of when stress or tension is going into your body. Then breathe and express your feelings. These two simple behaviors will change your life.

2. Challenge your beliefs. What are your unconscious affirmations? What are your mantras that y

e it was my former client seeing someone else in my office. I told her I did not recognize her. She said few months after finishing with me she started dropping pounds without dieting or exercising. Her parting comment was, “this is the body I always wanted, but thought I would never have.” It was the body of an unstressed woman.

When we release old stress, we learn to not recreate it. The cellulite women often complain about disappears. The fascia (the connective tissue which is also scar tissue) that holds the stress also holds fat. When the stress is released, the fascia is released and the fat can dissolve away.

Be aware of when stress or tension is going into your body. Then breathe and express your feelings. These two simple behaviors will change your life.

2. Challenge your beliefs. What are your unconscious affirmations? What are your mantras that you keep repeating? These internal voices become self-fulfilling statements. For example, if you tell yourself and others “I am fat,” you will continue to be. I am not suggesting the opposite, that you go around staying “I am thin” when you don’t believe it. There is a middle ground that allows for change. This ground is where you stand in the present experiencing what is true while holding the possibility and intent of change. For example, you might say to yourself – “I am losing weight.”

As you begin to accept being overweight, along with the corresponding emotions, you hold the in you mind the intent of being your thinner self. At first, your mind will want to escape to the old patterns of denial, self-loathing and setting unreal goals before it settles in a place of acceptance. This acceptance can then lead to creating a vision of what you want while still maintaining the experience of your negative emotions. The juxtaposition of acceptance and goal setting may seem counter-intuitive, yet it in this space you create an opportunity for something new to occur.

3. Give up unreal images. What literal and metaphorical images do you focus on? Do you have pictures of thin bodies on your fridge? Or are you looking at magazines with “perfect bodies?” When we put what we believe are unreal goals in front of us our minds say, “Who do you think you are, you are not that person and never will be.” These inspiring images backfire. They reinforce our self-loathing and repeated failure at losing weight.

Making the shift from seeing these images as a finite state to a process can enable change. Rather than saying “I am that image,” try saying to yourself “I am in a process of becoming my own person who shares characteristics of that image.”

The mind will know when something is not true and it will, on some level, fight back. Hold images and use affirmations that are possible.

4. Lose the secondary gains. These are behaviors or even illnesses we create to achieve indirectly what we believe we can’t get directly. In other words, if you were not getting something out of being overweight you would not be overweight. We all have some self-defeating behaviors. I certainly have had my share. I can remember allowing kids to pick on me because I convinced myself that was safer than standing up for myself

There was a book a woman wrote 30 years ago, I think it was “Fat is a Feminine Issue.” If it was, I can’t find it. Her thesis was that women (the corresponding can be true for men) acquired fat to keep men away. Dealing with the fat was supposedly easier than dealing with the possibility of a relationship. The author challenged her readers to address their issues around relationships as a means to losing weight.

My challenge to you is to act as if your fat had a purpose beyond reflecting the bad diet you may consume. If your fat was saying something, what would it be saying? Who would it be saying to? Are you angry with someone, even yourself? Are you attempting to get attention from someone?

The first step to meaningful change is to admit were we are and that we need help. This often is the hardest step. Frequently much of what we have avoided comes home to us. When I began to admit getting bullied was more about being afraid to take a stand, I started to develop the courage to say no to the bullies. What amazed me was that I did not have to prove it them as much as to myself. They stopped picking on me when I stopped cowering.

5. Your body is your all