Therapy to help with weight loss issues?
 

Does anyone go to therapy to help with weight loss and body image issues?

I'm in the counseling field, so maybe I am quicker to jump to the conclusion than most, but I think I need to see someone. I spend way too much time thinking about my goal weight and my skin issues... It distracts me at work and keeps me up at night. I also think that if I continue to see someone long term, it might help to avoid gaining the weight back.

How would you go about finding a therapist?

Did I see a counsellor for weight issues? Nope!

I went to counselling to sort out my issues that basically came down to me being a codependent doormat. It was a painful process to fix my relationships with the people in my life, and the way we relate to each other.

But in hindsight? I got my self respect through that difficult process. And I could never lose weight to make myself love myself. But now I genuinely do? I can do it :) Weight loss never crossed my mind when I went for counselling. I'd given up. Sure, that's not typical. I have issues around food, like a long history of self abuse, and I used food as a form of that, just a less obvious one. For some it really is just calories in / calories out. But I was overeating because I hated myself.

In the end? Counselling kicked this off for me. Most definitely beneficial.

DEFINITELY.

It can only help. Big yes vote from me.

Edit: I'm in the UK, so get counselling on the NHS. Outside the UK, I don't know how that works, what with insurance and all.

Not typical? I'd had totally given up on weight loss before I managed to kick it off this time!

I scuba dive and wetsuits are expensive. I had one I liked that fit at 230 lbs. When I gained enough weight not to fit into it, it hung in my closet for a year and then I sold it. At that time, I could never imagine losing the 20-30 lbs to get back into it. So that was my first wetsuit, then I had to buy another when I grew out of it. Then I had to buy 2 additional wetsuits on the way down! And I'll need a new one for my next warm water dive trip in the fall.

So that's 5 wetsuits so far. And one I could have worn again if I had believed that one day, I would lose the damn weight. I can't believe I had lost faith in myself :(

I did go to therapy for 2yrs to deal with my weight issue. It helped me understand that my disordered bingeing stems from my guilt and emotional issues. However, finding out the reason why I'm a disordered eater did not fix my disordered eating. It's good information to know but now I am busying myself with the mechanics of losing weight. I don't want to blame my past anymore because I can't fix that. Therapy is a useful tool for dealing with your present anxiety and for understanding why you have evolved to become how you are. But it's not a cure.

re:
 

Maybe send a PM to CherryPie99. She's been where we were, is a counselor, and could probably lead you in a good direction.

Here's her blog:
http://jenhudsonmosher.blogspot.com/

I think this is an excellent point. I've never bought into the Freudian view that understanding is tantamount to fixing. It's just like with physical pain: identifying the source of your pain as a specific nerve in your spine won't make the pain go away.

F.

If worrying about weight loss & body issues is keeping you from working & sleeping, I'd say you should definitely get some help. It's keeping you from enjoying your life! I would ask around & see if a family member or friend knows a good counselor/therapist that they trust & would be comfortable recommending. If you don't want to do that, there should be lists available online from your state's licensing board website for counselors or psychologists. Also, insurance companies have lists of places/counselors if you have coverage for mental health.

I don't think finding the source/cause of a problem can "fix" it in & of itself, but pinpointing a cause can provide a lot of good information. If you find that specific nerve, you can learn what happened to cause the pain & how you can prevent it from happening again. If nothing else, it gives you a starting point. Understanding why something happened alone won't fix it, but it certainly can't hurt.

For me, I've found EBT (emotional brain training) to be an excellent practice to figure out why I overeat, why I hang on to being fat, and how to disentangle myself from those behaviors. You can read about it at http://www.ebtgroups.com/about.

I've been to outpatient therapy at an eating disorder clinic in Santa Barbara. It helped me somewhat, but found that I needed something deeper to get at the roots of my issues with food. It was good for me to understand how I was making the wrong choices and what better choices were available to me. I also saw a therapist about my food issues, but I don't think it helped me at all. Didn't find any solutions to my issues.\

But with the EBT, there are solutions! I have been free from compulsive overeating for a long time. My weight loss is very slow, but I'm certainly not losing ground. I'll never go back to eating like I used to.