Learning to chill when our weight plateaus

is a vital mind-shift to make. We’re ahead of the curve, the experts will figure it out one day.

Last week I received an email from an amazing reader who has lost thirty pounds to date. She wants to lose enough so that she’ll be at a specific BMI. For her, losing is all about the health benefits.

She wrote to me saying that she’d been feeling low because she’s not losing as fast as she hoped. This is part of her email:

Hi Wendy,

My weight is “stuck” at 172/173 pounds.

Half of the “stuck” is laziness, not prioritizing health efforts and the other half is allowing summer stress to impact my efforts to lose.

I kinda feel like I need to start all over.

Signed, Anna-nonymous

My reply:

Anna, you might want to sit down for this one.

1) you’re not lazy by a long-shot

2) and you’re having mammoth success but — unfortunately — framing it as failure.

You know the theory that says our bodies have a “set weight point” and that there’s nothing we can do to change it?

Well, my theory is that when we lose too quickly our bodies default into survival-mode. You and I think we’re merely eating smart and trying to get down to our preferred weight.

But our bodies — aware that we’re losing quickly — scream, “Alert!! All hands on deck: fewer calories coming in! We’re dying!! Eat the highest calories in sight! STAT!”

Here’s the thing: when we don’t fight the plateau, our body is none the wiser. Embrace the plateau so that your mind and body don’t freak.

In the old days, when I hit plateau-land, my mind-set said, this smart eating thing isn’t working for me. At that, I’d “give up” and drop into yo-yo mode.

A Successful Mind-Set

My new mind-set is a way — way — more effective tool for long-term success. When I was losing 55 and realized that I was in plateau-ville, I’d tell myself, I’m strengthening/holding, I’m holding, I’m holding.

Seriously, that’s what I said to myself for years when I stayed “too long” at a certain weight. I just chilled. I took plateauing as a sign that something miraculous was happening to my body and it was: my body was adjusting to the new “new.” Sometimes she’d take a month to adjust.

Our new thinking says that when we plateau we need to shift our self-talk from being cruel to ourselves (losing never works for me) and see what’s really happening: our body is taking the required time she needs to settle into the new weight.

You don’t want to trip off the panic button. You want your body to feel safe and cozy.

Please don’t take this information lightly. Our culture has instilled in us the notion that weight loss should always take a linear route and go down, down, down. Once we’re down, we should then maintain for life.

And if we don’t lose in a strict linear fashion (I sure didn’t, I carried twins in the middle of losing) and maintain forever, we must be the problem.

Something is wrong with us.

Which is ridiculous.

Learning to see a plateau as a fantastic place to be versus failure is vital to a forever loss.

Managing Your Plateau

My suggestion: instead of being angry at yourself for plateauing, focus on strengthening one or two habits at a time. In the beginning of losing fifty-five I focused heavily on changing my habits.

Also can you purposely allow yourself to plateau for say thirty days? Don’t go up, but don’t go down either? Just stay in place? Keep a single sentence note on each day something like:

• 8-18-21 — 174. I’m strengthening/holding. Feels really weird not to be panicked.
• 8-19-21 — 173. Okay, I went down one, but I’m staying within a two or three pound range.
• 8-20-21 — 173. Perfect. I’m holding. I’m holding. I’m holding. I need to remember this every single morning. I’ll put a sticky on the mirror.

Have a wonderful week. I love to answer questions or hear the amazing smart eating habits you’ve established. What do you think about the idea of holding? Are you ready to try something really different with what may be amazing results? ♥

I keep forgetting to ask, but I would love it if you’d follow me on twitter @InspiredEater.com. I’ll follow you back!

Never forget that it’s not just you, health is hard.

♥, Wendy

P.s. Are you new to the Inspired Eater? Welcome!! This blog won’t make much sense until you first read the Aunt Bea post (and you’ll find Aunt Bea on this page to the right under my short bio). After you enter your email address, the Aunt Bea article will be sent to your email’s inbox. If it’s not there, you might check the spam folder. And always feel free to email me at Wendy@TheInspiredEater.com and I’ll get Aunt Bea right to you!

Every Friday I share “five pearls” for your weekend. 🙂

Pearl # 1

Every summer as a kid, my grandpa would haul out an old-fashioned hand-crank ice cream maker, and churn the most amazing vanilla ice cream I’d ever had. Sometimes he added strawberries and omg.

Being from the generation who pulled rocky road from the freezer and chowed, waiting for Grandpa to churn the ice cream was kind of annoying. Lol.

I want weight loss right now. The problem with our George and Jane Jetsons’s lifestyle is that we’re being lulled into thinking that everything can happen at Amazon-Apple-Uber speed.

When really, everything crazy-awesome takes blood, sweat, and years (typo mine).

There’s no Tan-in-a-Can for forever weight loss.

It’s our job to remind ourselves daily that losing and maintaining after age 50 – given our food-porn world — is like trekking the Matterhorn. We’re on an uphill climb and time is part of the deal.

Losing after 50 is really hard, only for the super committed, but do-able. ♥

Pearl #2

I’ve probably been “really serious” about losing at least a thousand times. Why would it work this time?

We’ve all said this to ourselves. Why will this time be any different?

I can’t tell you why it will be different.

But I can tell you that a very different kind of supportive energy appears on our behalf when we stop “hoping” something awesome will happen, and instead “decide” that it will happen.

Back in 1997, it felt very different for me when instead of hoping, I decided that I would change my eating habits from full-on disastrous to fruits, veggies, whole-this, whole-that and so forth.

I thought, even if I don’t lose weight; I’m changing these habits. Period. I figured, if I can’t lose with rock star eating habits, then I guess the universe likes me at the weight I’m at. At least I’ll be eating right.

And that was the beginning of my losing fifty-five and keeping them off for fifteen as I write.

Decide to decide. ♥

Pearl #3  

You know that Thanksgiving-stuffed feeling? Where your stomach hurts? Well, I was having that on the regular before ’97. I’d eat out and have a huge plate of Mexican food with a large marg, and finish it all off with fried ice cream.

I remember being bummed that I couldn’t finish my dessert. Because I was too full.

Then come Monday morning my pendulum would swing the other way and I’d be on some stupid strict diet.

Today, I haven’t had a Thanksgiving-stuffed feeling in decades.

It would feel abusive to feed and feed and feed myself until my stomach is super uncomfortable. I wouldn’t cut myself with a kitchen knife or run down the staircase either (I’d fall).

To me, there’s no difference.

Once you extinguish the habit of eating to the point of feeling stuffed, it will feel “off” to return to the habit.

Remember that to establish a habit, 1) Replace the bad habit with something positive 2) monitor your progress daily in your journal for 3) sixty-six days and the habit will take hold. ♥

Pearl #4

Your challenge this weekend: when a hard-core craving claws at you, and you’re about to attack the kitchen wait ten minutes before eating the Ding Dongs or donuts or all of the above.

Just ten minutes. Answer a text. Check insta. Write to me (Wendy@theInspiredEater.com). After the ten have passed, give yourself at least one Ding Dong. Or all of the Ding Dongs.

It’s up to you how much you eat, but even if the craving has passed have a Ding Dong or a donut. Do this twice each day over the weekend, keep notes and report back.

We’re at the beginning of two important habits. ♥

Pearl # 5

“Let me tell you the secret that has led to my goal. My strength lies solely in my tenacity.”
— Louis Pasteur

Tenacity. It means not settling. Going for the gold. Thinking outside of the brownies.

Let the word be your daily mantra — it will take you places. ♥

Turns out, I forgot to have fun this summer. I’m hitting my neighborhood pool at least twice more in August and again in September.

Enjoy the last weeks of summer everyone!! (My favorite season is just around the corner.)

And remember, it’s not just you. Health is hard.

♥, Wendy

In 2013 after a decade of progressing symptoms, Linda Ronstadt was diagnosed initially with Parkinson’s, and finally with progressive supranuclear palsy, a rare degenerative condition. She’s now mostly on the couch.

In an interview Linda was essentially asked, “What advice can you give others dealing with such difficulty?”

Without hesitation she answered, “Acceptance. You have to practice radical acceptance.”

Smart Eating and Acceptance.

Many of us past meno struggle to accept our bodies. Compared to when we were 16, 26, or even 36, how much — and when — we ate became an entirely new game.

When I finally lost my weight (ages 36 to 42), I wouldn’t have known to use the word “acceptance,” but in retrospect that’s the mental process I ended up at.

I remember sitting in traffic one afternoon thinking, I don’t care anymore whether I lose or not. If it’s the last thing I do, I’m overhauling my eating habits. And what happens, happens. (Trust me, my habits needed major help.)

I stopped stepping on the scale every morning; I put it away and didn’t bring it with us on our moves. Back then my mantra was: it’s about smart eating habits, smart eating habits, smart eating habits. (I do use one today each morning. I call it my feedback-device.)

Saying “smart eating habits”, was like a drumbeat that rolled through my mind daily for many years. It’s yours now, you’ll find it super helpful.

Before Acceptance.

Take a look at the voices that plagued me for years before I finally made it to “acceptance.”

By “acceptance” I mean that I developed a deep understanding that I had to limit my calories if I wanted to wear a specific clothes size. No, the dryer didn’t shrink my jeans, my husband’s bad eating habits didn’t cause me to have a weight issue, and the holidays don’t wreck my eating plan. Acceptance means that I am the only one in charge of what goes into my mouth.

Before acceptance, my voice of denial said, I don’t eat that much, but I still carry all this extra weight. Or, I don’t eat that much, but I still have this pot-belly. Or, I don’t eat that much, why do I have bat wings like my third grade teacher?

The anger within me said, It’s so unfair that I can’t have a couple of bowls of ice cream every evening like the rest of the world!! It’s not fair!!

My inner Eeyore lamented, others get to have what they want. But not me. I’ll never get a handle on this eating thing. The effort is futile.

Ready for the Good News?

Our past doesn’t have the answers to accepting and navigating our smart eating lifestyle.

It’s our future-selves that have the best scoop.

Gems from Your Pen

I get it: communicating with our future-self for wisdom sounds odd, but you might be surprised at how well this idea works.

Ask future-you to write to today-you. It can be any you in your future: you in the summer, you in six months, even you in five years, ten years, and so on. Allow future-you to come alive – so to speak — through the journaling process. Remind yourself that you’ll show this writing to nobody so it’s okay if you ramble, cry (me), or go off on tangents (me again).

Merely thinking about the answers to these prompts isn’t the same as writing out the answers. And, btw, that disdainful voice of negativity is your self-sabotage voice making entirely too much noise. Don’t allow that voice to take up square footage in your mind. She’s insidious and primed to annihilate what you’ve started, so always be on the lookout for her and send her packing.

I’m 57 so I wrote from my future 60-year-old self.

Write at least three responses — more is strongly encouraged — to the following. Remember you’re answering the questions as if you’re the older person writing to the now-you:

• Today I’m reaping the benefits for. . . 
• Love, love, love that you put so much time into . . .
• The three best habits you developed for me are . . .
• Awesome that you overcame . . .
• Thrilled that you . . .
• You really internalized . . .
• Somehow you knew that I would need . . .
• Because now I really feel . . .
• Spend special time now with . . .
• It would be easier for me today if you’d . . .
• I would love it if you’d . . .
• What I want you to know is . . .

I haven’t finished reading Radical acceptance by Tara Brach. Two people that I really respect says it’s a great book. Start with your library before you surf Amazon. It might be a keeper-book for some and a great library read for others.

When you shift from past-thinking to future-thinking, you begin to open — like a blossoming flower — to the many opportunities that will support you in up-leveling your smart eating habits.

I would love it if you’d leave a question in the comment’s section below. What part of smart eating are you struggling with? 🙂

Remember, it’s not just your imagination. Health is hard!

Make it a magical week, everyone!

♥, Wendy

P.s. Are you new to the Inspired Eater? Welcome!! This blog won’t make much sense until you first read the Aunt Bea post (and you’ll find Aunt Bea on this page to the right under my short bio). After you enter your email address, the Aunt Bea article will be sent to your email’s inbox. If it’s not there, you might check the spam folder. And always feel free to email me at Wendy@TheInspiredEater.com and I’ll get Aunt Bea right to you!

Some links may be affiliate links and as an Amazon Associate, I may earn from qualifying purchases. Of course you incur no additional cost.

One December morning I pulled my van into the Trader Joe’s parking lot with my twin six month olds in their car seats. I parked, stepped out of the van to haul out the stroller and – out of my peripheral – could see a man approaching. He was shouting something in a fake-jovial kind of way towards me as my mom-antennae jumped to life and started going berserk.

Without kids? I’m Ms. Polite to any stranger. Normally I’d smile – and if I had a bad vibe – would simply walk quickly into the store.

As the guy approached, keeping my two protected was my only focus. He was six feet or so from me when I put out a halt-right-now hand and growled, “Back up! I have babies!”

He said something like, “okay”, swiveled and sped off.

Whatever game he was playing he’d have to play it somewhere else.

Going mama bear. All of us do it at some point in our lives: for the safety of our child, or a beloved companion animal; there’s even a sweet story about Princess Margaret going mama bear on behalf of her big sister, Queen Elizabeth.

A Super Tool in Your Arsenal

Everyone has a mama bear story. Which is awesome for us because knowing what a mama bear-vibe feels like allows us to apply this amazing energy to our own lives.

Everything we need to enjoy wild success starts with our ability to stay tapped into our internal mama bear.

How did I mama bear my weight loss?

To begin, I put nothing ahead of losing (and today, maintaining). Let me be more specific. When I was losing the last of my weight, the kids were my top priority; then my husband, and finally my darling animals.

After that, nothing got in the way of my Smart Eating plan. Not family- or friend-visits, not vacations, not sick kids, not a broken foot – should I go on? – nothing came before losing.

Did I say nothing?

I meant, absolutely nothing.

How to Lose Like a Mama Bear

To lose (and maintain) after 50, it’s essential that you turn on your mama bear and aggressively advance on your Smart Eating lifestyle.

Aggressive action isn’t merely important. It’s everything.

These are just a handful of examples of how a mama bear creates a Smart Eating lifestyle:

• She loves and reveres the eating plan she’s chosen — WW, Noom, calorie counting and so forth — and doesn’t jump from miracle-diet to miracle-diet.
• She has the most beautiful journal and pen that she keeps in the kitchen to record her food decisions after each meal.
• If she prefers to plan her meals in her journal, she carefully puts a check mark or something like it on each item after she’s eaten. (She stays engaged with her journal.)
• On Sundays she’s a maniac about chopping and bagging veggies for the week to come. She creates various meals too so that she can grab something healthy when her week gets busy.
• She’s a psycho about not eating after her designated time-window closes (say 6:00 pm).
• She becomes – over time – so committed to no sugar that she doesn’t even eat birthday cake on her own birthday. Her family thinks she’s a weirdo.
• She’s joined two online book groups who share great titles with her and she insists on going to the library at least once a week to stay stocked in amazing reads (my top favorites here).
• She says good-bye permanently to certain gateway-foods like all chips, all fast food, and all morning pastries like donuts, bagels or those ginormous muffins at Starbucks. When she’s on the road and finds herself on empty she’ll stop at Taco Bell and order one bean burrito. al fresco style.
• When someone tells her, “life is too short. Live a little! Eat, eat!” She internally rolls her eyes thinking, you’re right: life is too short to be uncomfortable in my own body. I decide my weight, not our food-porn culture.
• She’s repelled by the idea of eating food “so it won’t go to waste.” She thinks, my stomach is not a trash can. (Sheesh.)
• She stays as educated as possible on the current body of knowledge re: nutrition.
• She rarely misses working out with weights because she knows bone density decreases after menopause, and stays committed to daily movement to keep her heart in shape too. (She wants to run around with her grand kids or someone else’s one day.)

I could go on, but you get the idea. When we mama bear our Smart Eating plan, we aggressively go after what we’re determined is ours.

Mama bears don’t hope someone won’t harm their cubs.

Mama bears are focused.

Mama bears are terrifying.

And nothing will stop a mama bear from protecting what matters most to her.

Mama bear the hell out of your Smart Eating dreams, and take your life from the occasional sparkler to a full-on fireworks show.

Happy August everyone!

As always let me know in the comments below what you’d love to see more of!

♥, Wendy

As a young person, I had zero confidence. Back in the 80s I would never mumble what seemed to be true: that working out didn’t appear to work in terms of losing weight. I’d been a Jane Fonda, Jazzercise, and Lilias, Yoga and You woman for years.

None impacted my weight.

Being shy, I wouldn’t share my thoughts about fitness losing weight. I just figured I was doing it wrong.

As far as I could tell, the only activity that made a dent in my weight was cutting back on calories. Today, this idea has hit the streets as fairly common knowledge.

Don’t get me wrong, working out like a SEALs team member, Michael Phelps, or Jillian Michaels definitely equals weight loss. However, the thirty minute walk or yoga class most of us take isn’t going to result in a scale trending downward.

Fast-forward to today. It doesn’t seem like word has reached the “experts” on smart eating, and it’s not only about calories-in, calories-out either. The powers-that-be are also misguided in thinking that skipping breakfast when using the intermittent fasting plan is a great idea, but is not.

When people are using the intermittent fasting plan, they’re often ‘eating whatever they want’ during their open window for meals. In doing so, they’re not developing the foundational new habits they need to maintain a weight loss forever (versus yo-yo-ing). Creating — and maintaining — strong habits is the backbone of forever-losing.

For the last year I’ve used myself as a guinea-pig to test that type of eating that I now think works well: eating like a king for breakfast, a princess for lunch, and a pauper for dinner.

At first I was reluctant to try this eating plan. I’ve kept 55 off for 16 years now, and I didn’t want to tinker with what wasn’t broken. At the same time, I wanted to see if the Royal Eating Plan (REP) would work. (Btw, I didn’t make this plan up, it’s been around for over 100 centuries.)

Take a look:

My King-Sized Breakfast.

Yesterday’s breakfast was one bagel with a generous smear of whipped cream cheese. Calories: 200 in the bagel, 70 in two tablespoons of cream cheese and I probably had three or four tablespoons. (I’m not a fan of bagels, but there wasn’t much food in the house. Very unusual for me: I believe in having your “food tools” always on-hand.)

A large handful of unsalted nuts. Calories: 190 for ¼ cup. I had at least a half-cup.

Two Madeleine cookies. Calories: 150 for two with seven grams of fat.

I would have had orange juice, but we were out.

For someone maintaining a 55-pound loss, that’s a big breakfast, right? But I created two hard and fast rules for myself: (1) breakfast had to be over by 9 a.m. and

(2)nI could never eat so much at breakfast that I wouldn’t be ready for lunch at noon or 1:00 p.m.

My Princess Lunch

I “lunch like a princess” from about noon to 4:00 meaning I’ll have two light meals.

Around 12:30 p.m. I had the oatmeal bowl that I’ve eaten every day for two decades while listening to my favorite podcast. (Half-cup dried oatmeal cooked, one cup blueberries, half cut up Honeycrisp, all topped in a quarter cup of my favorite yogurt. Vanilla, low-fat, Kroger) Good food, great episode, a relaxing moment in my day.

Around 2:00 I had a half-cup cottage cheese (I’m into cottage cheese at the moment).

At 4:00 I had a small Chobani yogurt (love coconut).

My Pauper’s Dinner

Dinner was a veggie and brown rice bowl that I make (with 1/2 cup cooked brown rice). If I’m eating with my family I have a tiny portion of the lasagna or whatever. (I  don’t have seconds of food and I always Eat Before I Eat when I’m with others so I don’t come to the table truly hungry.) I finish dinner by 6:30 p.m. at the very latest. (Six is better.)

When it’s bedtime, if I’m a tad hungry I’ll have 1/3 of a banana, half an apple or something similar; but whatever food I have, it’s tiny. (I never go to sleep hungry, but I don’t feel full either.)

Our Tummies Respond

I know you know, but it bears repeating. The less we eat, the more it becomes the “new normal” for tummy. It works the other way too: if we eat a lot, our stomach thinks that’s the new normal.

It really is just that simple, and yet I know that it takes time and conscious effort to transition to a large breakfast, moderate lunch, and light dinner.

Remember my favorite study out of England? It concluded that it takes 66 days of a particular behavior to turn the behavior into a solid habit. Keep a running “one sentence” journal each day of the 66 days you use the Royal Eating Plan. Writing about the behavior we want to embed strengthens our engagement with the new behavior. (I keep my journals on OneNote.)

And yes, I still use my eating structure (WW in my case) with the Royal Eating Plan, but I only count my large breakfasts as two to four points. In other words I factor in the calories to some extent, but not much because our bodies just don’t hold onto morning calories for whatever reason.

My thought: put sticky notes throughout your life to remind yourself of the habits you’re creating for yourself.

Also write stickies reminding yourself that you can save the brownies that everyone else is eating in the evening to have at breakfast with your morning coffee. I do this exact thing all the time so I don’t feel left out of having “fun” food.

Don’t be hard on yourself, it takes time to establish the habit of saving an evening dessert for the morning, but the results will convince you.

Having my Brownies & Eating Them Too

What I’ve come to love about breakfasting like a king is that I don’t feel constant deprivation as in — poor me — I can’t have anything porn-ish ever again because I’m over 50 and way past menopause. But with the REP I still score fun food, the time of day I have the treat is the only difference from everyone else.

When I first realized that a large breakfast was pretty close to a calorie-free meal I went a little bonkers. I was like, get out!! Are you saying that I can have those shortbread cookies The Scarfer always buys at Trader Joe’s? (It’s fine, he beams at his nickname.)

I can have graham crackers with peanut butter (tastier than it sounds) and even those brown sugar packet oatmeal things that I never get anymore? What dream world had I stepped into?! (Of course keeping in mind that I always adhere to my two rules: (1) stop breakfast by 9 a.m. and (2) don’t eat so much that I won’t be hungry for lunch.)

Here’s the weird thing, after eating on the REP for about two years the novelty of breakfast treats has worn off.

I’m not kidding. Wore off.

These days I have a handful (or more) of nuts in the morning (tasty and good for our hearts), maybe a small spoonful of peanut butter, and often my green smoothie that’s filling. But if the family had something food-pornish the night before, I’ll eat mine at breakfast.

Try the Royal Eating Plan for eight weeks and see how well it works. The bottom line (no pun) results in my life: I’m currently at the middle range of my four-pound weight window.

Want more info on this life altering eating style? Check out these two articles.

ScienceDaily: Eating dinner early, or skipping it, may be effective in fighting body fat.

NIH (National Institute of Health: Timing of Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner. Effects on Obesity and Metabolic Risk.

As always, I love getting questions in the comment section below or email me at Wendy@TheInspiredEater.com.

And please always remember: it’s not your imagination. Health is hard.

♥, Wendy

P.S. Are you new to the Inspired Eater? Welcome!! This blog won’t make much sense until you first read the Aunt Bea post (and you’ll find Aunt Bea on this page to the right under my short bio). On your cell you’ll see it immediately following the first post. After you enter your email address, the Aunt Bea article will be sent to your email’s inbox. If it’s not there, you might check the spam folder. And always feel free to email me at Wendy@TheInspiredEater.com and I’ll get Aunt Bea right to you!

You know the scoop: I’m an Amazon affiliate. If you buy from a link in my post, I’ll receive money, but the arrangement won’t cost you a dime.

I am not an expert, a doctor, a surgeon, a nurse or a nutritionist: the information within TheInspiredEater.com is based solely on my personal experience and is not intended to be used as a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. ♥

Here we go again, I thought.

Saturday morning I was online ordering library books when I came across yet another weight loss book enthusing, “How I lost a bazillion pounds easily onto to find everlasting peace and happiness.”

The book’s jacket added something like, “The amazing part is how effortless it is to keep the weight off once I embraced”. . .  something.

I ordered the book to find out what she embraced.

I’ll report back.

Effortless! Easy! Painless! Fast! Intuit Eat! Simple!

Diet books promise the moon and stars, and when we don’t even make lift-off blame us for the system failure. Because it’s Effortless! Easy! It’s and painless! It must be you if you can’t make this amazing plan work.

Nobody told the diet gurus that spectacular results that last take time and are hard-won. Nothing truly incredible is fast or easy. At least on this planet.

Most diet books focus only on behaviors: i.e. what we put in our mouths. Eat this, not that. This food good, that food bad. Give up sugar, caffeine, dairy, alcohol, anything white, and anything grain-ish.

In fact, consider becoming a breath-etarian because consuming only air for three to ten days is the latest. (And don’t forget, fasting is effortless, easy, and painless!)

But here’s the irony: using any quick-fix plan eventually drives us to eat with abandon. As in, eat strict, throw strict plan out the window, eat kitchen.

The old yo-yo diet lives.

Which is why I was thrilled to find The Elephant in the Room: One Fat Man’s Quest to Get Smaller in a Growing America by Tommy Tomlinson.

Tommy’s life story actually matches laws that govern reality. He doesn’t tell us that losing weight is effortless, easy or painless. In fact, quite the opposite.

Tommy details how his loving parents would sit up nights worrying about how to help their boy, how he broke his promise to his bride when he said, “I’ll get this figured out”, and how people his size don’t generally make it to 60.

He shares the mortification and loneliness he endured daily at being a heavy kid (because school), the fun of overeating as a teen thanks to two part-time jobs, and the horror of hitting the floor as an adult because chairs (plural) broke beneath him.

I’m paraphrasing, but Tommy tells the unvarnished truth: that being fat is life-altering in the worst sense, and that losing is such a formidable foe as to mostly seem impossible.

Tommy is brave. He tells the truth about food addiction and weight loss.

His story screams that losing weight is grueling.

I tend to think of losing weight as being akin to giving up cigarettes, alcohol or drugs. Maybe the physical component isn’t the same, but the psychological pull sure is.

Nobody tells smokers that it can be effortless to give up cigarettes. And who would tell an alcoholic or drug user that it can be easy and painless to give up drinking and self-medicating?

When our culture consistently denies the massive difficulty of weight loss, those of us trying to lose are set up for failure. This should be simple, we think.

Thing i, you and I can lead the way. First, we need to acknowledge to ourselves how uphill the weight loss path is to walk. Then we need to tell our fellow earthlings.

Yes, losing is monumentally hard (and maintaining isn’t exactly a picnic either).

But here’s the bare-bones truth: You and I can do hard things.

Have a wonderful week everyone.

And remember, it’s not your imagination. Health is hard!

♥ Wendy

Some links may be affiliate links and as an Amazon Associate, I may earn from qualifying purchases. I will be totally upfront with you re: sponsorships or items given to me and disclose everything in the post.

“You might as well lose the weight now,” my mom often told me when I was a tween, “It gets much harder when you’re older.”

Okay, a) it’s normal for many of us to go through the puppy-years of carrying extra weight before sprouting to a full height.

And b) my mom’s comment about losing weight is not how it worked for me. I needed to mature — oh, did I need to mature — to figure out how to navigate my emotions versus eating when I experienced any feeling: good or bad.

At about the age of 32 I finally began to connect my abysmal eating habits with the health problems I was having. One time? (Omg, this is embarrassing.) I was running in my garage to grab a ringing telephone and fell. on my foot putting myself in a cast and on crutches for weeks. I was at my heaviest at the time and I’ve always wondered if being lighter would have changed the outcome.

Breaking on my foot along with other not-fun situations motivated me to make real change. But please don’t think I’m espousing willpower. I never used it to lose fifty-five.

These six pillars are what I leaned on.

The Six Pillars of Weight Loss after Age 50

I think of weight loss after 50 – and forever maintenance – as having six superpowers or pillars. I’ll touch on each here, and write more on them in the coming weeks.

One – Eating Plan

I call it an eating plan. Some say protocol. You might call it a structure. Whatever its name, it’s creating boundaries for ourselves; The idea is to pick one eating plan that you can live with forever.

The U.S. News & World Report does an annual “best of” list. In 2022, these were the winners.

• Mediterranean diet
• DASH diet
• Flexitarian diet
• MIND diet
• Mayo Clinic diet
• TLC diet
• Volumetric diet
• WW diet

Choose an eating plan with your doctor, and pick one that you can live with for a lifetime. The diet industry presents a new diet of some kind of every three or fours years. It doesn’t help you or me to change how we engage with our food. Pick one plan and commit.

Two – Planning

The role of planning in our lives is like having a Rachel or Monica with us daily, it’s that good of a friend. If my antennae pick up an eating-moment challenge, my planning skills go into action.

Before eating in a restaurant, I check out the online menu for dishes that won’t completely obliterate my smart eating. (People can say this is an obsessive behavior, but those with allergies, or are vegan check menus before dining out all the time.)

If it’s a BBQ in the backyard, I might bring a whole wheat bun. Bottom line: I plan for every event and I never arrive hungry. That’s what apples with peanut butter are for.

Three – Exceptional Habits

Someone wise once said, “We’re not human beings, we’re habit beings.” Have you ever tried to go to bed without brushing your teeth? Can’t be done.

Habits come to my rescue every day of the year. Last month I was in a meeting that went way over time and I was hungry. Did I stop on the way home for an order of fries? Never, I always carry healthy tide-me-overs in my purse or a cold-tote bag.

Another example, recently we had a minor family emergency that decimated the quiet breakfast I’d planned. So I grabbed a handful of mixed nuts and a banana, and was good for the morning.

If you haven’t yet read these two books on habits, read these two books on habits They’re the gold standard for incorporating rock star habits into our lives.

• The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg
• Atomic Habits by James Clear.

Four – Offensive Living

We can agree that losing after age 50 is so incredibly rigorous as to often feel impossible (thankfully it’s not).

But good news, living offensively is one of the pillars that I developed to give myself every advantage. If you played a sport you know that being on the offensive means engaging an opposing team with a solid plan.

Living on the offensive is knowing that:

• Grocery stores are constructed to manipulate us into buying endless food-porn.
• Restaurant food is super delicious because they use ingredients that you and I wouldn’t cook with in a million years. Plus portions are mammoth and nutrition is largely AWAL.
• Always remembering to stay ahead of the fact that our health and our weights are being impacted by a culture that’s gone completely off the rails re: food.

Ultimately offensive-living is about feeling confident in our ability to impact the food scene and not allow the food scene to impact us.

Five – Journal-Writing

Exploring our inner world through journal-writing is like having a magical portal to our own wisdom. As a young person I only used journals to vent. Sadly it didn’t dawn on me to ask myself quality questions, and encourage myself to write the answers.

Today, I journal-write daily. The jewels that spill forth never cease to wow me. Commit to daily journal-writing for a week.

You’ll see.

Six – Self-Talk

Had I talked cruelly to myself over the years, I never would have lost weight and maintained. I’d likely still be on the yo-yo plan.

Let’s say you regularly tell yourself: I was a heavy kid, a heavy teen, and heavy young adult, and I’m headed towards a heavy old age. It’s hopeless.

Chilling our inner-Eeyore is not easy, so begin by journal-writing about what’s called a bridge-thought.

In this case, a great bridge-thought would be, sure I was heavy in my past, but I’m forging a new future for myself. I don’t exactly see the light yet, but I see glimmers. (Whittle the thought down to “forging” and “glimmers.”)

Then when you’re ready, your new thought can morph to: I am engaging with food in a healthy new way. Sometimes I slip, but I’m cool because that’s just part of this game. I’ve got this. (Whittle down to “I’ve got this.”)

And if you’re wondering where reframing fits in, I put it in self-talk. More on great reframing in future posts.

In conclusion, I encourage you to pick one superpower and really work it into the fabric of your being before moving onto the next.

Have a wonderful week everyone! Please comment below: which superpower will be your first?

And remember it’s not your imagination. Health is hard.

♥ Wendy

P.S. Are you new to the Inspired Eater? Welcome!! This blog won’t make much sense until you first read the Aunt Bea post (and you’ll find Aunt Bea on this page to the right under my short bio). On your cell you’ll see it immediately following the first post. After you enter your email address, the Aunt Bea article will be sent to your email’s inbox. If it’s not there, you might check the spam folder. And always feel free to email me at Wendy@TheInspiredEater.com and I’ll get Aunt Bea right to you!

You know the scoop: I’m an Amazon affiliate. If you buy from a link in my post, I’ll receive money, but the arrangement won’t cost you a dime.

I am not an expert, a doctor, a surgeon, a nurse or a nutritionist: the information within TheInspiredEater.com is based solely on my personal experience and is not intended to be used as a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. ♥

Photo by Bruce Christianson for Unsplash

“Two plus two equals four is the same at Harvard as it is at our community college,” I told my two teens as I helped them apply to their local JC (they started a bit early so I was still on mom-duty).

Truth is, while my husband and I had saved, we had not amassed the fortune required for a renowned university, and while one kid didn’t care, the other one sure did.

But with the simple math reframe, both boys were onboard for our local college.

Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) is a long name for how what we think affects how we feel.

In a nutshell, something concrete is happening (the situation), we have a thought about the concrete thing and then we have a feeling about that thought.

An Amazing Superpower.

Say cognitive-behavioral therapy and most think of Pavlov and his salivating dogs, but you and I actually use CBT in our day-to-day lives without realizing it.

Take a look at this situation that most of us find ourselves in every year:

• Concrete circumstance: a pool-lover looks at her calendar and sees that summer is coming in three months.
• Her thought: “I never lost my December-pounds and I haven’t bought a new bathing suit in years.”
• Her feelings about the thought: Dismal, hopeless, angry at self.
• Her behavior: She continues to eat a soothing bowl of ice cream every evening.

Or the situation could roll this way:

• Concrete circumstance: a pool-lover looks at her calendar and sees that summer is coming in three months.
• Her thought: “Never lost the December weight. I’m getting on it now. I want to feel great in my new bathing suit. I can’t wait for summer.”
• Her feelings about the thought: She feels excited and charged.
• Her behavior about her feelings: She stays committed to her smart eating plan and starts shopping for a new suit.

Same circumstances: summer is coming. But do you see how both women look at summer differently? One woman is melancholy while the other is raring for the summer challenge. And their thoughts affect their feelings that then affect their behavior.

Affordable Therapy that Works.

Journal-writing with an emphasis on CBT is the most powerful way I’ve found in my 56 years to unlock how we’re thinking and feeling about a situation in our lives.

Over time, I’ve been astounded at the ideas, suggestions, and insight that have appeared — seemingly out of the blue — when I write about my challenges versus merely think about them.

If you want a place to start with journal-writing, I’ve used these awesome questions as a springboard:

• How do I engage in all or nothing thinking involving my body and food?
• What is my gateway set of foods?
• How can I remove gateway foods from my life (for now)?
• What can I do for future-me this week? This month?
• What skills do I need to put into place for a slow, healthy weight loss?
• How do I talk to myself about food — both smart food and junk food?
• What activity provides sheer happiness for me? (Even if it only happened once a billion years ago, include it!)

Losing 55 pounds and then maintaining the loss over 15 years – as I write – took a serious change in my thinking.

And journal-writing was the vehicle to change.

The Wendy who lived with the extra weight wasn’t the Wendy who took the weight off.

And the Wendy who maintains the loss is also somewhat different from the Wendy who lost the weight in the first place.

My point is that I started using my mind to work in my favor rather than against me.

This skill takes time.

Root out ingrained thoughts that are sabotaging your chances for success and replace them with authentic optimism. I’m not suggesting you be Pollyanna, but reigning in an Eeyore-tendency is a phenomenal idea.

Here are some thoughts that I changed to lose weight and keep it off:

• Unhelpful thought: I’ve been trying to lose weight since I was in the third grade. Nothing I do works.
• Supportive thought: I’m older and wiser and – whether I lose weight or not – I’m living a smart eating lifestyle. Always talk in the present, so rather than “I wish I could live a smart eating lifestyle,” I am living a smart eating lifestyle.

• Unhelpful thought: Skinny people are another breed. They’re so lucky; they must have a better metabolism.
• Supportive thought: Instead of overgeneralizing to others, I’m going to focus only on me, and I’m stopping overeating until my stomach hurts. I’ll eat until I’m moderately full and then stop.

• Unhelpful thought: I’ve had a rough year. Food is my escape.
• Supportive thought: Yes, I’ve had a rough time, and I know there are ways to support myself and enjoy life without involving junk food. Like, I’ve always wanted to kayak. And lately I’ve heard that e-bikes are incredibly fun.

It’s scary to change. Remember that as you go forward you’ll need to consistently say to yourself, “I’ll still be me although I’m becoming a better version of me. (Seriously, even positive change can create a negative feeling.) Tell yourself often, “it’s okay to change, nothing bad will happen that I can’t handle.)

What are some unhelpful thoughts that you’ve changed?

And remember: it’s not your imagination, health is hard!

♥, Wendy      

P.S. Are you new to the Inspired Eater? Welcome!! This blog won’t make much sense until you first read the Aunt Bea post (and you’ll find Aunt Bea on this page to the right under my short bio). On your cell you’ll see it immediately following the first post. After you enter your email address, the Aunt Bea article will be sent to your email’s inbox. If it’s not there, you might check the spam folder. And always feel free to email me at Wendy@TheInspiredEater.com and I’ll get Aunt Bea right to you!

You know the scoop: I am an Amazon affiliate so if you buy something through a link at this site, I may receive a small commission that won’t impact your price at all.

I am not an expert, a doctor, a surgeon, a nurse or a nutritionist: the information within TheInspiredEater.com is based solely on my personal experience and is not intended to be used as a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. ♥

Stunning gown and photo by AnastasiiaMokko

In the earliest part of the twentieth century and a New York Times article read, “(It) might be assumed that the flying machine which will really fly might be evolved (by the people in) one to ten million years.”

Eight days later the Wright Brothers lift-off at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.

A Cinderella story comes to life when a single mom – living on government assistance – rides train, conceives story and devotes six years to writing her first book. The author receives a dozen rejections until one publisher’s eight-year-old daughter inhales the first chapter and begs her dad for more.

And J.K. Rowling is born.

A young woman raised in an extremest-version of a Mormon home with two parents who “homeschool” the kids so ineptly (i.e. not at all) that the author takes matters into her own hands. She educates herself, enters college, and eventually earns a PhD at Cambridge.

Tara Westover’s first book, Educated, sells more than four million copies, spends two years on the New York Times bestseller list, and is translated into 45 languages.

Why Do These Stories Matter?

When I talk with women about losing weight after age 50, I’m often told, “I’ve dieted since I was eight. It’s never worked for me.”

But here’s the thing: saying that you haven’t lost and maintained before only tells me about your past. It doesn’t tell me anything about what you’ll create this year. And that’s the difference.

Is food happening to you? Or do you happen to food?

Huge distinction.

Meaning: are you a passive player in your life or an active player?

The Wright brothers didn’t say, “Humans have never flown, what makes us think we can make it happen?” And the authors didn’t think, “I’ve never written a book. No way I can pull this off.”

I’m suggesting that we play an active role in deciding how we’ll navigate food in our lives.

The Whole Truth And Nothing But

It happens. I stepped on the scale Saturday morning and didn’t love the numbers.

And here’s what I told myself, “Huh. Up four.” At that, I took a good look at what, when, and how much I’d been eating, made corrections, and got on with the day.

I did not remind myself that I’m 57. Or even that my Italian DNA produces dumpling-people.

These are not thought-paths that help me improve the situation.

Instead I talk to myself about the fun of being at my preferred weight. How much I love putting on clothes that fit. And how much better my back problems are now.

And then you know what I do? I move on. I read, walk my German shepherd, bug my kids to study for their SATs (they love that), clean the kitchen, run a load of laundry and read more.

Speaking at Harvard’s graduation, J.K. Rowling said:

“It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all – in which case, you fail by default.”

I failed my way into a large weight-loss, and I most definitely failed and corrected my way into these fifteen years of maintenance. I’m inviting you to fail with me to success.

“Failing well” is absolutely the path to permanent weight loss. (And thank you to a sweet reader who gave me this amazing term.) Read about my most favorite thought here: Love, Love, Love this Metaphor.

Have a wonderful week everyone. And please ask questions or make suggestions in the comment section below!

And remember, it is not your imagination. Health is hard.

♥, Wendy

P.S. Are you new to the Inspired Eater? Welcome!! This blog won’t make much sense until you first read the Aunt Bea post (and you’ll find Aunt Bea on this page to the right under my short bio). On your cell you’ll see it immediately following the first post. After you enter your email address, the Aunt Bea article will be sent to your email’s inbox. If it’s not there, you might check the spam folder. And always feel free to email me at Wendy@TheInspiredEater.com and I’ll get Aunt Bea right to you!

You know the scoop: I’m an Amazon affiliate. If you buy from a link in my post, I might earn a percentage that won’t impact your price of the item at all.

(For animal lovers: no worries, this story has a wonderful ending.)

On a beautiful spring morning, I awoke early, glugged coffee and drove my sweet shepherd to the dog park. It was a Monday so I knew the park would be quiet, and sure enough, only two young dogs met us at the park’s gate.

As I threw balls for River, the dogs’ mom — who’d been sitting a distance away — walked over to me and we chitchatted about her two: they’d just turned one and both had had a particularly bad puppy-hood.  

As she stepped closer to me, all three dogs circled around us; me sitting on a bench while she stood. We chatted on.

Then immediately next to my bench, one of her dogs viciously latched onto my shepherd’s neck snarling ferociously the entire time. From the bench I dropped to my knees and after a moment or two, finally detached the other dog from River’s neck.

The woman finally got semi-control of her dog while I murmured to River, “It’s okay. It’s okay.” Holding his collar we limped together to the gate and then to our car.

I drove home shaking; completely freaked out.

I’m convinced that the woman’s young dog – coming from a bad puppy-hood — was only trying to protect his mom and River had gotten too close to her.

Thankfully, thankfully River wasn’t hurt at all.

At home, I cuddled River to calm him down, but thought, how am I going to calm down?

My knees were a mess so a shower seemed like a smart way to both clean them and relax. After the shower, I still needed to detress so I climbed into bed to dive back into my really good book. I knew that the shower, bed and two chapters would put me in a much better place.

And I was right.

But here’s the crazy part: our freezer held cookie dough and chocolate chip ice cream. The highest cupboard had mint Oreos and Reese’s Pieces. And my son’s desk drawer hid a full bag of small Snickers bars.

Yet on that scary morning — in hopes of chilling a bit — I took a shower, climbed into bed and read.

To chill.

A shower and a book.

You see my point.

Down the Rabbit Hole.

Back in the day, emotional experiences – bad or good — meant you’d find me in the kitchen or at the nearest fast-food drive-thru.

I self-soothed with food and didn’t have the first clue about how to mellow without junk food.

It wasn’t until hours after the dog park incident that I’d even noticed a change in my behavior. But when I did notice, I was stunned.

Did I seriously choose bed and a book over food?! Appears I did.

Holy macaroni – this was HUGE.

How I Made the Change

First, let me say that I’d had no idea that a fundamental shift had taken place.

Why didn’t I know? Because it had happened so slowly.

One thing I’m committed to on this blog is sharing the truth behind losing and maintaining after fifty. I’m not pretending in any way that this “getting and staying lean” thing has been easy.

My take on what happened that morning is that smart eating habits combined with time equaled an entirely new response to stress. The math would look like this:

Smart eating habits + time = healthy response to a traumatic situation.

Here’s the Good News.

While it’s taken me years to react positively to stress, it’s possible that it won’t take you as long. If I’d had the above equation in mind, I too might have figured this “respond better to crisis” thing much sooner.

I was (and am) one hundred percent committed to living a smart eating lifestyle. No more yo-yo eating. No more “but it’s Christmas!” eating, no more “starving to wear my bathing suit” eating.

I was done with eating poorly. And this foundational intention unfurled into smart eating habits that with time unfurled into a healthy response to a scary morning with my River.

Self-Therapy Writing

In your writing journal – which is awesome therapy, btw – free-write to these questions. Nobody will read this so just let yourself write with abandon:

• How do I engage with patience?
• Who have I shown great patience towards?
• What are five ways that I can increase my ability to be patient?
• When it comes to commitment, what am I like?
• Who have I shown deep commitment towards? (Three to five.)
• What have I shown deep commitment towards? (Three to five.)
• What are five ways I can show commitment to myself?
• What are my hard-core loves in life (like reading, swimming, or photography)?
• What are my default excuses for not doing more of the things I love? (Three to five.)

Is It Even A Thing?

Totally true, I didn’t set out to choose a shower and a book over ice cream when life goes south.

Why?

Because it had never — ever — occurred to me that choosing a book over ice cream was even a thing. I just assumed that I would always reach for junk food in response to a scary emotion. And that I would always invariably fight with myself: “but I wannnt the donuts!” “No! No donuts for you!”

Your Takeaway.

If I could talk to the younger-me who reached for food at any hint of emotion, I would tell her, “Build your commitment to smart eating habits. Increase your ability to be patient. And never, never, never stop searching for the hard-core loves in life. Because those loves may one day become your portal to chilling without binging.”

And remember it’s not your imagination, health is hard (for everyone).

Next week’s post is about surviving a three-day weekend without caving and eating all the calories. If there’s anything specific you’d like me to address let me know in the comments below! 🙂

♥, Wendy