Why You Need an Online Weight Reduction Train

See my full interview with Dr. Meredith at the bottom of this article.

Dr. Meredith came to me in May of 2021. An OB/GYN with her own successful practice, she has spent more than 20 years delivering babies and helping women through difficult medical events. Married to another busy physician and the parent of three energetic children, many might say she “has it all” – a rewarding career and a beautiful family.

But building a family and a career came with pitfalls. Between 24-hour shifts at the hospital and rushing to school events and sports activities, Dr. Meredith had developed a mean addiction to sugar and caffeine. Though she had always detested her poor diet, the final straw came when a newly released study revealed a link between high sugar diets and the risk of developing dementia. Her family has a history of dementia; not only was her high-sugar diet putting her heart at risk, it was putting her mind at risk, too. It was time to fix her eating habits for good. 

Dr. Meredith started by working closely with an integrated medicine doctor to change her diet; this involved lifestyle changes and taking supplements to control her sugar cravings. But it wasn’t working, as had none of the tactics she had tried on her own for the past 20 years.

Dr. Meredith wanted to kick her sugar habit and take back control over her food habits, but she needed personalized accountability, support, and advice tailored to her hectic lifestyle to achieve permanent change.

She needed an online weight loss coach like me.

What is an online weight loss coach?

An online weight loss coach is a professional you work with virtually to help you reach your weight loss goals. An online weight loss coach provides advice, support, feedback and accountability to help you lose weight, live a healthier lifestyle, have more energy, and get more out of life.

An online weight loss coach like myself can teach you to change the way you think about food so that you can achieve your health, weight loss, and body goals without restrictions, diets, or disordered eating habits. A great fit for busy professionals, a virtual weight loss coach allows you to access the support and accountability you need to lose weight and keep it off for good when it works for your schedule – on your own time, from anywhere, on any device you choose.

What does an online weight loss coach provide?

1. Advice that’s tailored to your lifestyle

Weight loss coaching isn’t one size fits all, because women aren’t one size fits all. The things that make us special – our careers, interests, hobbies, families, and relationships – are the fundamental building blocks of life, but also present a set of weight loss challenges that are unique to each individual. An online weight loss coach helps you address these unique challenges to overcome the weight loss barriers specific in your life.

With personalized coaching, you receive dedicated, one on one advice that speaks directly to your lifestyle, preferences, and strengths. Dr. Meredith, for example, needed to learn how to plan for several different scenarios: healthy options for when she’s pulling a 12-hour shift, options for when she was on call, options while traveling, and how to avoid the temptation of a junk food binge from the hospital cafeteria or nearest vending machine after a late night. With me as her online weight loss coach, we were able to identify her specific hurdles and together, create a successful plan to clear them.

2. Easy Access

If you have a busy schedule – and let’s face it, most of us do – an online weight loss coach is the way to go. Dr. Meredith wasn’t able to easily commit time from her chaotic, often unpredictable schedule to commute both ways to an individual weight loss check-in, nor could she stop a delivery to attend a support group meeting. Instead, we were able to communicate through video calls, or quickly through emails and texting. Plus, she could watch video recordings and trainings when it worked for her schedule, like after the kids were in bed. 

Compared to traditional, in-person weight loss coaching, online coaching is much more flexible, efficient, and easy to access. If you benefit from group support and you’re worried that online coaching will diminish your sense of camaraderie – don’t. Zoom group meetings are just as effective as gathering in-person. In fact, for Dr. Meredith, witnessing others in the group conquer their own sugar addictions and achieve their own health and weight loss goals was a huge motivator to believe in herself.

3. Support and Accountability

Dr. Meredith explains that it was hard to ask for help – she admits to feeling a sense of shame that she wasn’t able to control her sugar habit on her own for the last 20 years. However, she credits having a trusted online weight loss coach to walk alongside her through this journey fundamental to her success. Similar to a therapist, an online weight loss coach is a dedicated source of encouragement in your life – empathetic and judgment-free.

You might “know” everything you need to do to lose weight, but knowing and implementing are two very different things. When you have an online weight loss coach to support you, it can actually make losing weight less overwhelming. Like so many of us, Dr. Meredith found herself waiting for the “perfect time” to get an online weight loss coach – maybe after that slice of her favorite cake at her daughter’s birthday party next week or after the family summer vacation they have planned to Italy. But if you’re waiting for the perfect time, it will never arrive.

A weight loss coach can help keep you accountable through events where you are tempted to indulge more than you want  – and troubleshoot what happened when things don’t go as planned, giving you the opportunity to try something new next time.

For Dr. Meredith, being held accountable for small incremental changes was one key to her success. Meal planning was something she decidedly did not enjoy, but with my support, we focused on making healthy changes to her breakfast, lunch, and snack habits one by one over time. The result was a noticeable increase and ability to sustain her energy levels throughout the day without the eventual sugar crash she had experienced before.

4. Build a Lifetime of Healthy Habits

As mentioned, small, progressive steps are the key to building lasting habits. Not only will I teach you what to eat – I will also teach you a better way to think about eating. Dr. Meredith and I worked together to both adjust her diet for maximum weight loss and change her mindset about food. Now, she trusts herself to make healthy choices on vacation and doesn’t feel awkward when she chooses a glass of sparkling water over wine on a social outing. Through my online weight loss coaching, Dr. Meredith has learned how to successfully navigate her busy lifestyle and overcome her sugar cravings for lasting, sustainable weight loss.

5. Boost Confidence

Dr. Meredith came to me 10 pounds heavier than she was at the start of the pandemic. After a strong start and a commitment to health and exercise with her partner, the chaos of their unpredictable schedules and having her children attend school at home eventually caused her to relapse back into her old, unhealthy habits.

Since we began working together in May 2021 she has lost 20 pounds, 5 inches from her waist, and 5 inches from her hips. “I didn’t even know I had 20 pounds to lose”, she says, but now that the weight is off and she has changed her mindset, she feels excited about waking up every day and getting dressed. In fact, she is 8 pounds lighter than the day she was married over 20 years ago, but with one important difference – she feels healthy and energized. Why? Because she’s now eating intentionally – she isn’t using sugar to temporarily fuel her fire, skipping meals because she’s too busy, and binge eating based on her cravings from starving herself all day.

She now has more confidence. People she hasn’t seen since the pandemic have been noticeably impressed by her weight loss, complimenting her for her hard work on herself while under quarantine. Dr. Meredith explains how that confidence has changed her outlook on life – she now looks forward to clothes shopping together with her 16-year-old daughter for an upcoming trip they planned together – something she used to dread before. Now, instead of shying away from shopping, she gets to spend more quality time with her family AND look good doing it.

Dr. Meredith believed that it was nearly impossible to lose weight after 50, but has been amazed at the results she’s received just from eating well through online weight loss coaching. She’s now able to control the sugar cravings she has struggled with for the past 20 years, has more energy, is sleeping better, has let go of her perfectionist mindset, and her relationships have improved. With the help of an online weight loss coach, she now feels more in control of her body and life.

If you are interested in losing weight permanently with MasalaBody’s online weight loss programs, apply here!

The post Why You Need an Online Weight Loss Coach appeared first on MasalaBody.

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Exactly How Online Weight Loss Training Varies from Other Approaches

I am an online weight loss coach. I provide my services in a virtual setting to women across the United States and teach them how to change the way they think about food. This mindset change is achieved through one-on-one coaching, customized meal plans, online trainings and participation in virtual group meetings. By recalibrating how the mind perceives food, my clients are able to attain sustained weight loss and weight management.

When I explain that the end goal of my programs is to change mindsets, I’m often asked – how is this possible when you never meet your clients in person? Many think mindset change can only be accomplished through a hands-on, in-person coaching experience.

Others think the whole idea of “mindset change” is nonsense, and that weight loss can be achieved so long as you force yourself to consume specific foods.

Though these methods may seem like good approaches to weight loss, each has pitfalls that are rarely discussed. It’s time for some real talk about Weight Watchers, personal trainers, dieticians, and the dozens of home delivery meal plans on the market, and why their promises of long-term weight loss often fail to deliver.

1.    Online Weight Loss Coaching vs. In-Person Weight Loss Professionals

I’ll start with the obvious reason why online coaching beats out in-person coaching:

Online coaching is way, way more convenient.

Most people struggle with weight loss because they do not have time to make it a priority. My clients are busy women with careers who are juggling work, kids, the home, and the hundreds of responsibilities that come with the mental load of family life. The ability to spare a few hours every week to see a personal trainer at the gym or meet in person with a dietician is a luxury most women don’t have; it’s the first thing that gets axed when a meeting runs over, or an unexpected obligation presents itself.

With online weight loss coaching, you can meet your coach anywhere and on any device with an internet connection. You can easily access trainings and attend online group meetings. There are a plethora of tools that are available whenever it fits into your schedule.

So now you may be thinking, can’t I meet with a dietician or nutritionist online?

This is true, but here is the pitfall with these types of weight loss professionals:

Dieticians and nutritionists provide a one-size fits all diet plan that promotes disordered eating.

Disordered eating is another term for yo-yo dieting, and it happens when people develop a negative relationship with food. Many nutritionists and dieticians concentrate on restricting foods – they tell you not to eat dairy, or sugar, or carbs, but they don’t tell you how to replace the foods you’re eliminating. Their diet for you is all about what you can’t eat instead of what you can eat, which turns food into an obstacle.

Furthermore, the meal plans most dieticians and nutritionists provide are generalized. They don’t survey their clients to find out what they like or don’t like and instead force a predetermined diet on them.

Many of my clients come from cultures that place an emphasis on cooking and eating specific spices, foods and beverages. These clients require a customized meal plan that incorporates the cuisines they grew up eating and still love. Most dieticians and nutritionists fail to do this. A client recently came to me after working with a nutritionist for over 6 months and lamented the following: “I couldn’t eat bread, I couldn’t eat pizza, I couldn’t eat pasta. I was expected to only eat cauliflower rice for the rest of my life.” A life without carbs is no way to realistically live. MasalaBody’s online weight loss programs realize this, and that’s why I customize a food system for my clients that lets them keep the foods they love in their diets.

2.    Online Weight Loss Coaching vs. In-Person Group Coaching

I’ve already established that online weight loss coaching offers a necessary convenience if you’re a busy person and need a realistic way to lose weight.

But now we need to address the dark side of in-person group coaching (programs like Weight Watchers).

In short, there’s a strong chance you’ll be faced with the judgment of your peers when you attend in-person group coaching.

I’ve heard many horror stories about the judgment hurled at in-person group weight loss meetings. For newbies, there’s an assumption that anyone in a group weight loss program possesses empathy for their cohorts and will refrain from criticism. This is far, far from the case; a big contingent of Weight Watchers is accountability, and judgment is not only permitted, it’s encouraged. If you go weeks without losing weight, you’ll likely start hearing criticisms from your cohorts. Weight loss is not linear and it’s common to go multiple weeks without noticeable weight loss, so this is an unfair – and pointless – way to keep people accountable to their weight loss goals. But that won’t stop group members from side-eyeing you as you walk across the room to be weighed.

Even the “skinny” people receive judgment at in-person group programs. If you are deemed not overweight enough, it will get thrown in your face. “You’re skinny, you don’t even need to be here,” is a refrain my smaller clients have had snarled at them at these in-person group meetings.

This unwanted and unhelpful criticism is a big reason why MasalaBody’s clients flock to our programs. When you join the online group meetings, you can show as much or as little of your body as you want onscreen. We also push a strict “no judgment zone” rule. Your cohorts are not responsible for keeping you accountable and have no reason to make you feel bad about your weight.

In a recent online MasalaBody group meeting, one woman shared something she was struggling to manage with the group: she was going on vacation and was worried her husband or travel companions would guilt her into eating foods outside of her meal plan. The members in that meeting – 20 to 30 highly-educated women from all over the country – shared similar experiences and were able to give powerful advice to help the vacation-goer maintain healthy eating in the face of unsupportive family and friends. These are the kind of experiences you want and need in any group setting when you’re trying to lose weight.

3.    Online Weight Loss Coaching vs. Meal Delivery Programs

It has become a trend to use home-delivery meal kits as a form of dieting. You know the ones – HelloFresh, BlueApron, Sunbasket, etc. You sign-up for a subscription and a box containing the ingredients for a weeks’ worth of meals show up to your door. The meals purport to be healthy, and because they’re expensive, perishable, and non-refundable, you’re motivated to eat what’s delivered rather than get greasy take-out. 

But the problem with relying on home delivery food plans, or any program that expects you to eat pre-packaged foods, is that you are not learning what foods boost your metabolism. Again, true weight loss is rooted in mindset. A big part of my programs is that you learn through customized meal planning what foods work with your physiology to boost your metabolism and help you lose weight without feeling deprived. These learnings are integral to changing your mindset – to achieve true success with your weight loss journey, you need to be an active participant in it, and not let someone or something else do the thinking for you.

Though these three methods I’ve discussed may work for some, if you’re a busy individual looking for sustained weight loss, an online weight loss coach is the way to go.

If you are interested in losing weight permanently with MasalaBody’s online weight loss programs, apply here!

The post How Online Weight Loss Coaching Differs from Other Methods appeared first on MasalaBody.

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