Recent Articles

Sep

The Real Reason You’re Not Losing Weight

When you’ve tried every diet program out there, why is it still so hard to lose weight? You know you want to be slimmer yet the scale doesn’t budge. And in those rare moments it does, those pounds keep coming back.

If you’re not creating a slimmer body even when you’re “doing all the right things,” it’s time to dig deeper and discover what’s holding you back.

Your Conscious vs. Subconscious Beliefs

When there’s something you desire but can’t seem to make it happen, chances are that your subconscious, hidden beliefs and fears are preventing you from having what you want.

Let’s use an iceberg analogy. Your conscious mind is the tip of the iceberg. It’s visible and obvious. From this place your goal is clear. For example, “I want to lose 50 pounds.”

Your subconscious mind is the mass of ice below, hidden and lurking beneath the surface. It is much more powerful than your conscious mind. When something is hidden, you don’t know the impact it can have until you bump up against it.

To release weight more easily—and permanently—your conscious and subconscious minds must agree.

If your subconscious mind says, “I’m ready to lose weight and feel safe to do so,” you most likely will lose weight. But when your subconscious mind holds fear and doubt, chances are you’ll have a harder time and may sabotage yourself despite your best intentions.

How to Shift Your Subconscious Blocks

To move beyond subconscious blocks that exist within you, you must discover what they are. Be gentle with yourself. It’s not your fault you’re having a hard time releasing weight if you don’t even know what hidden obstacles are blocking you.

If you experienced trauma as a child—abandonment; loss; physical, sexual or emotional abuse—chances are your subconscious mind may still hold the energy of low self-worth, guilt, shame, and lack of trust in yourself and the world.

Perhaps you’re wondering, “But what does this old pain have to do with losing weight today?” Let me explain… (more…)

Apr

Clothes Too Big? Too Small? Closet Clearing for Yo-Yo Dieters

Diane Petrella

Springtime clutter clearing can be a stressful time for people riding the yo-yo dieting roller coaster:

What do you do with clothes that are too small or too large?

This isn’t a simple clutter clearing matter. When your weight remains relatively stable—and when you have clothes that fit you well now—it’s easier to decide what stays and what goes.

But when your weight fluctuates, it can be challenging.

Figuring out what to do with different sized clothes can trigger feelings of failure and fear:

“If I keep gaining weight, at this rate I’ll be wearing that size 20 dress again.
I need to keep it… just in case.”

“I love that silk blouse, but I’m afraid I’ll never be that thin again to wear it.”

I typically suggest that my clients keep in their closet only clothes that fit them well and feel comfortable to wear—today. But there is no right or wrong way. When some women look at a pretty dress in their closet that’s too small, they feel disappointed in themselves. The see it as “proof” they’re a failure. For others, however, that same dress inspires them to keep making positive lifestyle changes. Imagining wearing it again keeps them motivated.

Here’s the thing:

Your clothes are worn on your body, right? So it’s only fair you let your body have some say in this. Plus, you and your body are life partners. Your body holds a wealth of wisdom and wants to support you. Whether you call it your body wisdom, intuition or Wise Self, this guidance comes from the same Divine source. From helping you overcome emotional eating to guiding you to decisions about the clothes in your closet, your body can help you.

You just have to ask. (more…)

Jan

Heal Your Past to Release the Weight

Diane Petrella

womanchildwalkingcropped Have you been riding the yo-yo diet roller coaster for years?

Are you waiting for that one diet or exercise program that will finally be your magic bullet?

Do you feel like a failure, again and again and again?

As a psychotherapist, I’ve seen many people struggle with compulsive overeating and obesity. Contrary to what it seems on the surface, their challenges often stem from deeper issues that have nothing to do with finding the right diet or exercise. For example:

Maria tried to lose the same sixty pounds for years. Each new diet fad offered new hope. Some worked—for a while. But emotional eating ultimately stopped her progress. The weight would return, leaving Maria feeling like a failure yet again. When she finally sought counseling for lifelong depression that resulted from being sexually abused as a child—she could begin to take charge of her life and her weight.

Richard wanted to be thinner but whenever he started to lose weight, he began to feel nervous. He didn’t notice the connection between his mood and weight until he began having recurring dreams of being attacked. These dreams reawakened memories of childhood when he was bullied by classmates and beaten by his father. Richard recalled gaining weight during middle school and wondered if “being bigger helped me feel safer.”

Sheila began gaining weight after she quit smoking cigarettes. Her pack-a-day habit had curbed her appetite and soothed her stress. Once she quit, however, cookies, chips and candy replaced cigarettes as her loyal friends. Sheila didn’t realize that the real reason she couldn’t lose weight wasn’t about food. It was about the anxiety and panic that had begun when she lost her mother at the age of nine.

How Healing Allows the Weight to Release

Releasing weight permanently and ending emotional eating starts with getting to the root of the problem. And most often that root is inner pain. Once that pain is acknowledged and healed, emotional freedom and a thinner body are possible. (more…)

Jun

Stop Numbing Your Feelings with Food, For Good

Diane Petrella

WomanPizzacrop Successful weight loss is so much more than counting calories, drinking “craving-crusher shakes” and following the latest fad diet.

Been there, done that, right?

Contrary to mainstream thinking, when you’ve struggled with weight issues for a long time, releasing the weight isn’t only about food.

It’s about your feelings.  

Emotional eating is probably your biggest obstacle to becoming slimmer. As counter-intuitive as this sounds your weight issues are not due to overeating.

Overeating is the symptom. The real reason for your weight struggles is that somewhere along the way—perhaps as far back as childhood—you experienced such pain in your life that you discovered the easiest way to cope with that pain was to eat something.

Honor yourself for doing the best you can to feel emotionally safe. It’s hard to feel deep pain you think will never stop. You learned that grabbing the nearest comfort food helps you feel better. And to some extent, it does help because that sugar high or food coma stop you from feeling anything at all. Or at least, they take the edge off.

The thing is, emotional eating is a temporary fix. It doesn’t help you feel better for the long term. The feelings you push away still lurk beneath the surface, ready to erupt when you feel stressed at work, angry with your partner or demoralized when the number on the scale hasn’t moved—or, worse, moved up.

To end emotional eating and release weight permanently, you need to stop pushing away your feelings with food and instead let yourself feel your feelings. I know it’s scary to do this. When you’re triggered and feel strong emotion, it seems like you’re swallowed up by sadness, ready to jump out of your skin with fear or that your body’s on fire with anger.

You want relief. Fast. (more…)

Mar

The Life-Changing Prayer to Help You Lose Weight

Diane Petrella

“I feel disgusting. I’m so fat.”

“I hate myself for eating all those cookies.”

“I’m a hopeless case. I’ll never lose this weight.”

Sound familiar?

If you can relate, I want to tell you about a life-changing book that will help you release those negative and self-sabotaging thoughts. The thoughts that prevent you from releasing weight.

The Only Little Prayer You Need, by Debra Landwehr Engle, is a gem. Rooted in the teachings of A Course in Miracles, which is a form of spiritual psychotherapy, this book teaches you a simple process to heal your thinking on a deep level. While not specifically about weight loss, The Only Little Prayer You Need helps you create a peaceful mind so you stay strong and confident on your journey. (more…)

Jan

Is Your Life on Hold Til You Lose Weight?

Diane Petrella

Do you skip high school reunions because you feel embarrassed about your weight?

Do you wear only dark-colored clothes to keep attention off your body?

Are you waiting to be thinner before taking that cruise?   

When you feel self-conscious about your body, special occasions and everyday life events can be intimidating.   In the moment, it can feel a whole lot easier to stay hidden or stay home than to be seen carrying those extra pounds.

But think about it. Do you really want to let your weight take your LIFE hostage? Because that is what’s happening when you let it control you. (more…)

Dec

7 Signs You'll Keep Releasing Weight in 2016

Diane Petrella

As you reflect back on 2015, how do you gauge your weight-release progress?
Do you look to your bathroom scale?
Or measure success by how your clothes feel?

Don’t worry if you’re not where you hoped to be by now. Because whatever those visible signs are telling you, they don’t reveal the whole story…

If you’ve yo-yo dieted for years, you know all too well that these progress markers can come and go. While they do measure if your body gained or released weight, I’m far more interested in the signs that mark your emotional growth.

Use the following 7 “softer” signs to gauge your overall progress this past year and as you move into 2016. If you haven’t mastered all of these, that’s okay. Think of them as stepping-stones to guide you. While not as obvious as the number on your scale, achieving these milestones helps you not only release weight… but keep it off forever. And isn’t that what you really want? (more…)

Aug

The 4 Questions: How to Stop a Binge Before it Starts

Diane Petrella

No matter how determined you are to release weight, it’s not always easy to stay committed.

So many situations come up in life that can test your resolve to eat well and in moderation: Attending a party with an abundant buffet, seeing your Aunt Sally’s Decadent Double Fudge brownies at the family barbeque, feeling so stressed at work that you think only a cookie from the lunch room will calm you down.

While you can’t avoid some triggers and food-challenging situations, you can empower yourself to shift your mindset. Action follows thought. When you make a conscious effort to change your thinking, you strengthen your resolve to proactively—and mindfully—take charge of your actions and choices.

These four powerful questions help you do that. Next time you’re triggered and about to take a bite, ask yourself: (more…)

Jul

A Divine Way to Finally Feel Good in Your Summer Clothes

Diane Petrella

Ahhhh. It’s tank top, shorts and bathing suit season. Great, right?

Not for everyone.

When you’re sensitive about your weight, a day at the beach is no picnic. The more revealing clothes of summer can pull body insecurities right to the surface.

It’s hard to enjoy summer activities when your mind is preoccupied with negative thoughts about your body. But with help from your Higher Power you can enjoy that day at the beach feeling cool, confident… and wrapped in love. (more…)

May

Name & Love Your Feelings to End Emotional Eating

Diane Petrella

Think back to the last time you overate—not because you were hungry—but because your feelings got the best of you.

Maybe you impulsively grabbed something from your pantry, binged after work by dashing through the fast food drive-thru or got up in the middle of the night to raid the fridge. Got the image in your mind? Okay, now… ask yourself:

What feeling was I trying to avoid?   

When I ask my clients this question, I typically hear, “I felt overwhelmed,” “I was stressed,” “I felt bad,” or “I’m not sure.” They know they felt something intense but can’t always pinpoint it. When we explore it further they sometimes can name it, but more often than not—at least in our beginning work together—they don’t know how they felt.

That’s because emotional eating—like any compulsive behavior or addiction—comes from the struggle to know and be with what you feel.

What you do know is you’re in distress and want to feel better—fast. (more…)

4 hours ago

This meme is so true!

Learning how to move through things that trigger you, helps you heal. And even if some things never stop triggering you, that's okay, too. Think of it this way:

As you heal, triggers that grip you 100% of the time with 100% intensity will lessen. After a while, you'll feel them 60% of the time with 60% intensity. Then, 40% of the time with 40% intensity and so on.

Then, the day will come (yes, it will!) when you experience them 20% of the time with 20% intensity.

And I think you'll be able to handle that just fine. Agree?Would love to know your thoughts. 💜 ... See MoreSee Less

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Getting there, can notice the baby steps. More to learn but I will get there. I just wish I could figure the trigger to let go of weight. Thank you Diane 💜

Had a trigger last night. Talked to myself about it and turned each negative thought around. It was a constant effort but I went to sleep still not feeling great but..... this morning I felt better. I know I will always have triggers as a part of life it's the knowing what to do that is huge!

True

Interesting!

OMG Wow 🤗

3 days ago

This speaks to why I love being a therapist. In the safe space of a trusted relationship, people can reveal and release their secrets. Little by little, shame releases, too.

Whether it's with a therapist or trusted loved one, find your safe places to tell your hard truths. ... See MoreSee Less

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1 week ago

Two notes to this meme:

1) No one can read your mind, so do your best to share what's really going on so you can get the support and help you need.

2) If you can tell that someone's "I'm okay" isn't the real truth, it's okay to probe a little bit. For example, gently saying "Are you sure? You look a little ______ (sad, worried, frazzled, etc.) Even if they don't tell you what's really going on, you're planting the seed that you're someone they can talk to when they feel ready. ... See MoreSee Less

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Love this Diane, very helpful …. 🤗

2 weeks ago

A few weeks ago, my husband and I were on a road trip and stopped for a few days in Amish country in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. I had wanted to learn more about the Amish since the horrible school shooting in 2006. Do you remember that?

A non-Amish man walked into an Amish one-room schoolhouse, told the boys and teacher to leave and shot 10 school girls before killing himself. Five girls died. The other five struggled with ongoing and devastating injuries.

While this massacre gripped me at the time, what I was most struck by was how the Amish forgave the killer soon afterwards. They reached out to the killer's mother and wife and offered condolences for their loss.

After this trip, I started learning and reading more. I just read a book written by the killer's mother and another by his wife, both of whom were enveloped in Amish love and compassion which helped in their healing.

I'm now reading Amish Grace: How Forgiveness Transcended Tragedy, written by three scholars of Amish history. It's fascinating. I'll post the link to that book below.

Forgiveness doesn't mean violent, abusive or illegal acts don't have consequences. They should. But revenge and vengeance don't help anyone. It's poison to one's mental health, and society.

What are your thoughts on forgiveness? Could you forgive someone who harmed you? ... See MoreSee Less

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www.amazon.com/Amish-Grace-Forgiveness-Transcended-Tragedy/dp/0470344040

I believe I could, Diane, but I know I would have a lot of trouble forgiving someone who hurt my kids or grandkids. That would be really very difficult for me to do.

The here after is a better place for any soul and getting there regardless of circumstances is a beautiful day. That’s why there forgive and I would too. Yes they’ll be missed but they are home!

To live a high quality life, it's important to take care of your mind, body and spirit. Besides, healthcare in the US is expensive! So think prevention and take charge.

Here's my top 10 list (there's more!). What's on your affordable healthcare list? ... See MoreSee Less

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I've heard thousands of stories of childhood trauma ranging from small "t" trauma to horrific. But you can't compare pain. All of it affects a child's development.

One way people try to cope with painful experiences is through minimization. For example:

"Other people had it worse."
"I was beaten but I turned out okay."
"At least they didn't ______ (insert something else.)"
"It wasn't that bad."

While these statements may be true on some level, on another level they deny your pain and dismiss your experience. Your inner child then goes into hiding, still inside you and holding the hurt.

If you can relate, there may be a part of you that needs to heal. Validation will help. ... See MoreSee Less

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