The 7 Things I Did To Lose 220 Pounds Without Dieting

Every diet I tried ended up the same way. There would be a whole list of foods I wasn’t allowed to eat. I’d follow the diet to the letter. I’d lose a little weight through sheer brute force and willpower. Then there would come an inevitable point when I couldn’t take it anymore and I’d have a huge binge. Whatever weight I had lost on the diet would come back in a matter of days, and a week later I’d be 5 pounds heavier than when I started the diet. This pattern of losing 10 pounds and gaining 15 pounds started in 1990, until by September 2001 I reached my peak of 409 pounds.

These were the keys to my transformation:

I learned through my research that my body was chronically starved for certain key nutrients, such as omega-3 fatty acids, live foods and high-quality proteins. I made sure I gave myself as much really high-quality nutrients as possible. If I wanted junk foods like candy, chips or pizza, I would eat them whenever I wanted, without hesitation. Eventually I lost my taste for all junk food as my body learned to prefer high-quality, nutrient-dense foods.

I discovered that one of the reasons why I was so badly starving for nutrients is that my digestive processes were compromised, so I was unable to effectively extract the nutrients from the foods I was eating. Digestion problems can also cause inflammation and the inflammatory hormones put our bodies into fat storage mode. I started eating lots of fermented and cultured foods, and taking probiotics and digestive enzymes in order to normalize my digestion.

Most people who have sleep apnea don’t even know that they have it, although the people they live with would know, because people with sleep apnea snore very loudly. It turns out I had one of the worst cases of sleep apnea that my sleep study technicians had ever seen. From the moment I got the CPAP machine I started having more energy and less junk food cravings. And the weight started to melt away for good.

Just like sleep apnea, stress causes elevated levels of cortisol and inflammatory hormones. These hormones lead to constant cravings and put your body into chronic fat storage mode. Many people don’t realize how important it is to learn how to reduce stress. I began meditating and visualizing every morning, which I found to be extremely effective for reducing stress.

I also lowered my expenses, moved to a more affordable house and started growing some of my own foods. My life felt much more sustainable and I felt calmer and more supported. I loved knowing that anytime I was hungry I could go into the back yard and eat something fresh and full of vitality. The stress hormones where no longer coursing through my system, wreaking havoc and turning my body into a fat storage machine.

Over the years I’ve found that 65-70% of the clients I work with are using weight as a form of protection. I call this “emotional obesity”. When you work through the issues that are causing emotional obesity and break the association that fat equals safe, the body is much more willing to let go of the weight. After I broke this association and the weight no longer served its purpose - that is, the armor of fat no longer made me feel any safer - the weight all but went away.

Taking a mind body approach that nourishes the body and reduces the physical, mental and emotional stresses that cause weight gain is the most sensible and sustainable way to lose weight. I’ve now worked with tens of thousands of people in 60 countries teaching this approach and we’re getting amazing results. People who have spent a lifetime of yo-yo dieting have now lost weight - 50, 100 and 200 pounds, without dieting by following this exact formula.