As a highly experienced weight loss and emotional eating coach with an exceptional success rate, I’ve heard many weight loss tips that are more than detrimental for people’s physical and mental health.

Today, I’d like to share with you the ‘tips’ that I purposefully ignore and avoid with my clients — so that we can ensure their success and happiness.

#1. Weigh in frequently

I don’t ask my clients to monitor their weight. The reason is simple:  

They aren’t looking into becoming a straight-A dieter. Instead, their goal is becoming a holistically healthy, lean person who can live an authentic life while having their weight fixed — without being obsessed with weight. 

They aren’t seeking to lose a few pounds and gain them back. They are seeking an identity transformation. 

Weighing yourself too often anchors your emotions, thoughts, and life experiences on weight.

It’s a depressing way of living.

It deprives you of freedom and triggers the year-long dieter’s identity and mindset within you, which further traps you in a dieter’s reality, leading you to endless stress, anxiety, and limitations that a dieter experiences. 

You can’t become a holistically lean, healthy person by thinking like a dieter. These two opposite results lead to polar different physical outcomes, psychology, and life experiences. 

So it’s up to my clients whether they want to weigh themselves. The shared experience so far: when they enjoy freedom, satisfaction, and stress-free normal eating, their weight is taken care of quickly as a byproduct. 

Want to know how I help my clients lose weight sustainably —  while enjoying massive ease and food freedom, even if they don’t weigh themselves at all?  Access my 14 Minutes of PURE GOLD video that shows you the core strategy.

#2. Be strict on food using willpower

Weight loss isn’t about food. 

It’s about enabling your body to self-correct so you won’t have the same experience/relationship with food.  In essence, it’s like establishing a whole new algorithm which leads to a series of different outcomes even though the same data is given.

And it’s your body’s natural interest and instinct to self-correct. I’m talking about its natural mechanism, from digestion to metabolism, the sense of satiety, taste buds, etc. 

When that happens, you naturally prefer healthy, whole food, eat a much smaller amount of food, experience far fewer cravings, see your sugar addiction gone, feel energetic, and burn more calories organically. 

Weight loss, in this situation, is a guaranteed byproduct. 

And pure emphasis on food and eating without your body’s instinct lead to frustration, failures, and food obsession. 

Anyone can lose some pounds by being a control freak who forces their weight down by depriving themselves. 

However, your body won’t be able to restore its instincts that way.

In the end, you’ll find losing weight harder and harder. And you’ll find yourself stuck in the vicious cycle, deeper and struggling more. (Have you already felt this way? Reply and let me know.) 

With all of that considered, what I teach through Lean Instinct Formula is not never about controlling yourself through willpower. 

Instead, it’s about how to stay in perfect control without being controlling….and through re-establishing an inner ‘algorithm’ — your metabolism, digestion, sense of satiety, ability to mute cravings before they come up, and the ability to naturally prefer the right food, etc., you get to relax while this ‘algorithm’ consistently leads you to the balance and freedom you desire.

As mentioned, when your body is wired to do the work, weight loss is a byproduct that naturally happens as you enjoy your life. 

Also, no diet or food approach will bring lasting results if your body resists weight loss due to the old physical and emotional wiring. 

#3. Avoid snacks

Not only do I not ask my students to avoid having snacks at home, but I also encourage them to leverage snacks as a powerful tool for faster transformation. 

The ‘Nightstand Exercise,’ which starts in the 5th week of Lean Instinct Formula, requires students to put what used to be the worst addiction to them on their nightstand and see if they can fall asleep in peace. 

By that time, 86% of them could nail it consistently.

I don’t ask students to avoid the problems. Instead, as soon as I help them rewire the inner ‘algorithm’ towards food and eating, I encourage them to go through what feels like the trickiest situations to collect data — so that they know the old problems are no longer problems to them now. 

They have to collect a lot of data to make the algorithm strong and solid. It means going to all wild and unpredictable situations and just watching themselves navigate them elegantly. 

That’s how they gain absolute confidence and freedom. They no longer feel nervous about various food situations. They’ve learned to just ‘ride’ the situations and let things cruise while staying in perfect control and balance without overthinking food. 

That’s real freedom. 

It’s never gained by fighting and avoiding the problem (snacks in this situation) but by creating inner shifts so that the problems are no longer problems. 

#4. Avoid restaurant food and eating out

Same reason as #3. 

#5. Count calories for CICO

I wrote a whole article about why ‘CICO’ in today’s application is often misleading. Regardless, if your goal is transforming from a chronic dieter into a holistically healthy, lean person who loses weight sustainably, you should work on your inner wiring vs. being obsessed with numbers.

#5. Keto

I grew up in China, where everyone eats tons of carbs daily, and I never saw fat people around. 

When I gained 50 pounds in the US, I didn’t lose them through Atkins (a version of Keto), but after starting eating carbs normally. 

And I’ve helped many people lose weight while embracing carbs without counting their grams. 

Carbs elimination guarantees weight regain due to how unsustainable it is. It also induces food fear, carbs obsession, and anxiety associated with simple things like eating out and family reunions. 

None of these are necessary. And it’s another dieters’ technique that trains them further away from freedom and health. 

#6. Eat small meals frequently, and watch food closely.

Me: eat like a ‘normal’ person, and be food free. 

#7. Coach everyone

This isn’t quite about weight loss techniques per se. However, it’s what I see a lot among the weight loss coach community which hurts both the student and the coach.

Basically, many coaches have an open-arm policy for anyone who would like to join, without considering if they are good fits for each other.

An excellent product, when used by the wrong people, can only create failures for the coach and the student.

A few questions that need to be considered:

Is this person mentally and physically ready for this particular program?

Can he succeed using this particular approach?

Are any barriers out of his control that may prevent him from succeeding? 

Will we both get a fun and fulfilling experience working together? 

Yesterday, I told someone she needed to work on her mental readiness before we could work together. 

I turn down clients from time to time. And the bottom line is: for me to decide to help you, I have to know that with my help, fixing the problem is a done deal for you. 

I want you to be a winning story. I want you to accomplish victories by working with me. That’s why I won’t take you in when something is off that will prevent you from being exactly that. 

Meanwhile, your success and experience also matter to me, as I don’t want to risk the success rate of my program — the cornerstone of my business, passion for coaching, and happiness.

So I analyze every potential coachee before entering the coaching relationship with her: 

There’s an application form and then a screening conversation only for the ones who look fit on that form. (I call it a Clarity Call, as it brings clarity regarding what’s stopping you from losing weight and becoming food free.) 

What am I looking for? 

Inner drive and commitment to win, coachability, mental soundness, and the record to follow through plans to achieve goals. 

I work with sharp decision-makers, do-ers, not dabblers. I work with people who want to gain freedom and health, not another set of dieting techniques. And I work with people who are ready to be responsible for themselves and really start valuing and caring for themselves.

Before deciding to be committed to somebody’s success, I need to be able to see that. 

__________________________

Leslie Chen is an Executive Weight Loss Coach for High-Achieving Women. For 8 years, she has been helping professionals and entrepreneurs who struggle with problematic eating and weight patterns create a blissful and freedom-based food life — while losing weight left and right.

Leslie is rated as the Top Weight Loss Coach by Coach Foundation. She’s also frequently interviewed on globally top 0.1-1% podcasts about Health and is an expert contributor for world-class media including Entrepreneur.com.

To learn her scientific, proven strategy which has changed many people’s lives in a very informative and inspiring 14 minute video, access her 14 Minutes of PURE GOLD.

To work with her on solving your weight and eating problems forever, book a Clarity Call.

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