- Fed up with dieting and don’t know what to do next?
- Marisa Corcoran interview highlights
- First steps to take when you’re fed up with dieting
Recently I was interviewed about what to do if you’re fed up with dieting by one of my amazing Mentor’s and a woman I just all round admire, Harvard Grad Marisa Corcoran… more on Marisa coming up!
Here’s a few highlights from our conversation for anyone who’s (drum roll):
Fed up with dieting
This post pulls out some of the key questions Marisa asked me that specifically apply to what to do if you’re ready to say:
…But have no idea what to do next.
Tell us a little bit about how you help women who are fed up with dieting
KELLY CLARK: I show women a really, really simple method of making food a complete non-issue—whether they’re at a wedding buffet, BBQ or it’s a Monday morning and they’re throwing breakfast together. And the beautiful thing about making eating easy and why I love working with women is because when they stop investing all their money, all their time and all their energy on dieting, it opens up this huge space for them to figure out who they are without disordered eating.
Something I hear a lot is:
“I’m a completely different mom when I’m not hungry.”
“I’m a completely different girlfriend when I’m not spending the whole time we’re at dinner hating myself for eating so many o’dourves.”
“It’s shocking. I’m a completely different friend when I’m not cancelling going out so I can stay home and write out a new diet.”
When did you become fed up with dieting?
KELLY CLARK: So for me dieting started when I was 14, after we went on a family car trip. My dad was all like National Lampoon Family Vacation with car top carriers on our station wagon, a Coleman Cooler, propane tank, and all that jazz… strapped onto the top of our car. That summer we drove from Canada to Mexico. It was super fun! But I’d always been an avid runner and we sat in the car for hours a day, ate burgers, fries and pop at diners for lunch and I hit puberty.
Then part way through the trip someone said to me: Kelly have you gained weight?
And I think at that age I wasn’t even aware I had a body.
You know, at 14 I was more watching the world and taking it all in.
But as soon as the “change” in my body was pointed out I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I was starting high school in 2 weeks so there was this urgency to lose weight and feel like me again.
So I started investigating diets and I completely bought into the diet industry’s message that weight loss is all about sacrifice, willpower and discipline. And I started collecting diet rules, tips and tricks.
Stuff like, only eat the white of an egg, don’t eat after 6 pm, chew your food 15 times before swallowing… I had thousands of these diet rules in my head.
But trying to follow these restrictions made my eating disordered.
Just eating a meal… trying to navigate a regular meal and trying to be “good” by following those rules was nearly impossible and always left me feeling hungry or guilty.
After 10 years of dieting—from 14 to 24 years old, I basically got to a breaking point.
Why were you fed up with dieting?
KELLY CLARK: One day I realized things had been steadily getting worse, instead of better, no matter how hard I tried. So I said to myself: I can’t do this anymore!
Immediately I completely stopped dieting. And I didn’t care if I gained weight or what happened. But the crazy thing is that that’s when I lost 30 pounds and food became a complete non-issue. And it felt like overnight.
Like when I stopped dieting and just got into a healthy routine, every single part of my life improved.
My first thought was… Why didn’t anyone tell me this!
Why does it take people so long to get fed up with dieting?
KELLY CLARK: The diet industry makes you think weight loss is all about willpower and if you can’t lose weight it’s a character flaw and you simply like cake. This is how the diet industry grabs you.
When in reality… dieting PRIMES you for overeating.
Dieting makes you binge.
Just like if you’re thirsty for ages and finally get water, as soon as you do you’re going to gulp and guzzle it.
And the same thing happens with food.
It's so true, when you talk about the water. That restricting model is just not sustainable. And so many people are caught in that cycle— Marisa Corcoran, The Copy Chat
If you restrict you’re going to end up completely bingeing or overeating.
Soon those extremes become a habit. Become a pattern. And that’s how disordered eating begins.
Most people who diet end up somewhere down the spectrum of the starve-binge-purge cycle.
There’s so much unnecessary shame around dieting
KELLY CLARK: Yes! And that’s why people don’t ask for help.
Instead they isolate themselves with misinformation. And in that situation things don’t get better—they can escalate quickly or slowly rob years of your life.
When you don’t get help you get on the wrong track. And go full speed ahead in the wrong direction, like I did.
People with disordered eating are highly motivated. The problem is they have the wrong information.
When was your turning point?
KELLY CLARK: When I asked for help.
I spent 10 years trying to figure out how to lose weight. How to make eating simple. How to be healthy, really. Before I asked for help.
Asking for help made me think I was weak. But now I realize, you know, Beyonce doesn’t research her own wind machine. Right? Someone else does that so she can stay in her zone of genius.
Now I realize asking for help is a strength.
Asking for help saves so much time so you can get back to your own expertise.
And when I look back I think: I was hungry for 10 years. I mean, what could I have done in those 10 years? What could I have created?
Now that I have a proven road map, I think, what if I got that information right away?
I could have just got on with my life and saved a decade of heartache.
And that’s why I started my website. I wanted to get rid of the stigma of disordered eating. It’s so common.
If you met me today you’d never guess that I had a full-on, crippling eating disorder.
I actually thought I ruined my life.
And it took me getting to that point before I was willing to stop dieting.
But asking for helping isn’t about solving a big problem. It should be about preventing a big problem. So I always say get help as quickly as you can.
What’s the best thing to do when you’re fed up with dieting?
KELLY CLARK: My clients who are the most successful are like I was.
They’re ready to let go of all the things that are making their eating disordered, like calorie counting and weighing themselves—I did both incessantly for 10 years and never lost weight during that time! But all these diet behaviors are actually barriers to them:
building a healthy relationship with food
& unlocking their HAPPY weight
so they never have to think about it again.
How does your book help people who are fed up with dieting?
KELLY CLARK: Big problems don’t need big solutions.
So my book is super simplified—no calculations or measuring or anything else! And it just has 3 steps that show you how to STOP dieting and get into a healthy routine.
You don’t have to diet to lose weight. You just need to get into a healthy routine.
And all the “action steps” are explained with collages and photos, drawings and so on.
Getting healthy should be fun. It was one of the best times of my life because the whole world opened up to me when I wasn’t at home, writing out a new diet and hating myself for eating something the diet industry will tell you is bad… like pasta.
Eat pasta!
It will help you lose weight.
Eating regular meals made of normal food helped me lose 30 pounds more than 22 years ago.
Life is so much simpler and your body is SO MUCH HAPPIER when you’re not over-exercising because you had white bread for lunch instead of brown. Or skipping dinner because you had a cupcake in the staff room to celebrate Sharon’s birthday.
Stop going to extremes!
It puts your body into survival mode and then it’s hard to lose weight and easy to gain it.
When women are fed up with dieting what does your 1:1 work look like?
KELLY CLARK: What I teach is really back-to-the-basics—similar to what I taught in the curriculum when I was a Grade 2 teacher. It’s all natural and healthy eating.
And the first change my clients feel is in their minds.
They break the starve-binge-purge cycle and stop thinking about food all the time and craving sugary food because all their body’s energy and nutrient needs are met. And suddenly they have all this energy.
A lot of these women haven't shared what they're going through with other people before they meet you and they've tried other things and they haven't been able to get out of the starve-binge-purge cycle— Marisa Corcoran, The Copy Chat
Like one of my clients was so excited because she reupholstered all the headboards in her hotel because she wasn’t, to quote her: “exercising like a maniac” and running 10 miles to make up for eating carbs the day before.
And another woman was telling me yesterday that normally when she goes to her mother-in-law’s for dinner she eats all the small chocolates and treats before dinner and then throughout the whole visit her self talk is all:
“Why did you do that? You’re so weak…”
But now that she’s meeting her body’s needs with balanced meals, she doesn’t do that. She was saying: “I know I can have treats, but I didn’t even want them!”
Then they start to feel their clothes getting loose and so on.
So, ya, your brain is where the change happens first.
Is your course designed for women who are fed up with dieting?
KELLY CLARK: My clients are so different but they’ve all been having the same transformation I had.
What I share is so simple. I don’t teach rocket science! Just simple things. And I wanted to make it really accessible, so people can grab that information and get on with their lives.
When people are willing to let go of dieting and trust my process, they have a beautiful transformation.
I’ve designed my course with my clients in mind.
People who come to me usually have too much theory in their head. They don’t want to hear about the molecular make-up of fat or how to reset their hormones to speed up their metabolism. They want to know what to put on their plate at lunch.
So I’m all about less theory and more action. I want people to start right away. Not wait and see if theory kicks in.
Then when they’re in a healthy, sustainable routine and feeling the results, they can learn WHY my method works.
Why should people be fed up with dieting?
KELLY CLARK: 95% of people who diet gain all the weight back and more. That was me! I tried to lose 10 pounds and gained 20 more. So I was 30 pounds overweight—30 pounds that I lost and regained 100’s of times over 10 years.
You don’t need to diet to lose weight, you just need to cut out the excess.
Small changes make huge transformations.
How do people who are fed up with dieting learn more about your method?
KELLY CLARK: Check out my free ONE DAY Meal Plan (that follows).
It gives you an idea of what I eat in a day and the kind of food I ate to lose 30 pounds and keep it off for the last 22 years. Then you’ll stay updated with more tools to help you unlock your HAPPY weight and never think about it again.
Marisa Corcoran changes lives
Harvard grad Marisa Corcoran began her career as an actress and then built her own stage by creating The Copy Confidence Society and The Copy Chat. Marisa consistently over-delivers, always dreams big (she wants you to succeed as much as you do) and can do a d*mn good impression of the Real Housewives.
I love Marisa for many reasons. She’s a total self-starter. And unbelievably gifted, especially when it comes to “getting” what you care about and want to accomplish. She also lights up a room. Along with her huge talent and general joie du vivre she’s incredibly generous. Marisa Corcoran has raised over 40 thousand dollars for charities close to her heart in just 2.5 years. And she has helped raise 100’s of thousands of dollars by supporting her clients in setting up Summits.
Marisa lives in Georgia with her husband Eric and adorable pooch, Jake.
These kinds of meals and snacks unlocked my HAPPY weight 21+ years ago (I lost 30 pounds without dieting!)
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These kinds of meals and snacks unlocked my HAPPY weight 21+ years ago (I lost 30 pounds without dieting!)
You'll also be subscribed to my newsletter. Don’t like it? Unsubscribe in one click
Sharing what I learned makes the 10 years I STRUGGLED worth it
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