by Laurel Mellin, M.A., R.D.

Right this minute I want a pinwheel cookie, the kind with the chocolate on the outside that looks like paint and tastes like plastic. I've loved them as long as I can remember, and I want some so much that I can already see myself putting my computer to sleep and going downstairs to the kitchen to find them. I know exactly which drawer they're in.

This sounds like a trivial situation. And it is — and it isn't. We face these desires all the time, whether for a cookie, a pint of Hagen Dazs, a stiff drink, a cigarette, even a neighbor's spouse. Out of nowhere, we suddenly desire something that we know isn't good for us — something we may not even really want. And yet, so often, we act on these desires and eventually wind up obese or alcoholic or cancerous or divorced. I use the cookie example because it is powerful for me, but our research, at the University of California, San Francisco, into the causes of obesity is making it increasingly clear that all these desires have the same basic roots — and the same basic cures. Let me explain.

Our programs grew over twenty years of studying childhood obesity in which we discovered that most of the children's overweight (roughly 75% as opposed to the 25% that is genetic) was rooted in the most basic internal patterns of their functioning — the inner conversations they had with themselves. We found that teaching kids some very basic skills — self-nurturing, which is like having a responsive internal "mother," and setting effective limits, which is like have a safe, powerful "father" within — brought their minds and bodies into balance and allowed their drives toward overeating to fade.

This is not to say that these children had been unloved or badly parented. More likely, their parents had never been taught these skills so could not pass them along to their offspring, or these children (because of biology, temperament, stress, or environmental demands) needed a larger dose of these skills than other kids — something even highly-skilled parents would find challenging.

Years later, we found that we could teach these skills to people of any age, and we began setting up very successful groups in hospitals nationwide. Most recently, we've awakened to the fact that what we are teaching is a spiritual journey that can help people with a wide variety of unhealthy behaviors — so we've set about studying this spiritual link more directly. While we still don't fully understand why or how, we do know that people who learn to tap more deeply and more effectively into themselves tend to lose the drive to overeat as well as other self destructive behaviors.

The skills required by our method are very simple but like most spiritual tools, mastering them takes a lot of work and time. Eventually these skills become a way for many people to help themselves grow up. To give you a sense of what happens, here is what I do when I'm held captive by my favorite cookie.

I shut my eyes to my computer and to the pile of journals on my desk. Then I take a deep a deep breath and shut out the noise from the street. I notice my thoughts: I want a cookie. I deserve it. They aren't that many calories. I didn't eat a big lunch today. I let those thoughts pass and go deeper to where my feelings are. I'm not sure I'll find any feeling, but I wait. I give myself plenty of time.

How do I feel? Guilty about my taxes. I haven't done them yet. I also feel...restless because I've been sitting at the computer too long…and a little bored because I've been formatting charts all day. So what do I need? I need to call my accountant about my taxes and get some exercise, perhaps take walk. Do I need support? No, not really. I can meet these needs by myself.

These first three questions: "How do I feel?" "What do I need?" and "Do I need support?" are much like a nurturing "mother" — allowing me to begin to soothe myself. But nurturing is only half the process. To be in balance I need to access the good "father," who, by setting limits, fills me with a sense of power and safety. So now I'll ask myself three more questions: "Are my expectations reasonable?" "Is my thinking positive and powerful?" And, finally, "What is the essential pain (the unavoidable risk) and the earned reward (the benefit)?"

So, let's see: What are my expectations? If I do call my accountant he will ask me to set a date to meet, and then I will have to cancel my plans for my weekend and do my taxes instead. Is that expectation reasonable? Not at all. Then, what is reasonable? That I call the accountant, make an appointment for a month from now, and do my taxes a few hours each week until then.

Is this thinking positive and powerful? No. Why not? Because I'm already saying to myself, "I hate doing taxes. I'll never finish." So, instead, I find some thoughts that are positive and powerful. I say to myself, "I'm not the only one doing my taxes. It will only takes three evenings. I don't have to do it all at once."

Finally, I ask myself, "what is the ‘essential pain’ that triggered this misguided need for nurturing, this desire for a cookie?" It is that I have to do something that I don't want to do. Somehow just facing the unavoidable reality that we have to do things we don't want to do takes the sting out of it. That pain fades, and if I then open my heart I become aware that there is a blessing, an "earned reward," for following through with my plan: I'll stop feeling guilty. I won't have to pay any penalties and I'll feel proud of myself.

I feel this earned reward as a sense of safety and power that covers me like a warm blanket. I notice how peaceful and balanced I feel. I turn off my computer, change into my running shoes, and head out the door for a brisk walk. When I return, I check in with myself again, notice the earned reward of feeling healthy and vibrant and strong and readily call my accountant to arrange an appointment, then settle back to my work. Thoughts of the chocolate pinwheel cookies in the kitchen drawer downstairs have long since passed.

You can probably see that if your inner life becomes trained to use these skill naturally and consistently — which people in Solution Groups learn to do — your day will no longer be filled with numbness or deep lows, but will be flush with an awareness of the earned rewards of being alive.

Before I try explain how I believe the Solution works, you must understand one critical fact about weight loss programs. A large body of scientific research shows clearly that, on average, people lose weight no matter what treatment they choose. Virtually all weight loss programs "work." Grapefruit diets, chocolate diets, Christian diets, 12-step programs, prescription pills, personal trainers, fake fat diets, they all "work." In other words, if you put yourself on virtually any weight loss program invented for any magazine at any time, chances are you're going to lose at least some weight.

How can all these wildly different paths all seem to go toward the same destination? The answer is actually pretty simple. Every weight loss program, no matter how good or crazy, sets limits and so give people a sense of control. Sometimes the most strict (or even bizarre) diets seem to work best because they give the strictest limits and thus the strongest sense of control. Nearly every weight loss method also equips people with an source of nurturing: a support group, a personal trainer, or the self nurturing that comes from making of making healthy food choices. This combination of limits and nurturing allows almost everyone to lose weight.

So now we must ask a bigger question: If all these programs, on average, cause people to lose weight (and, at any given time as many as 70% percent of Americans are trying one of them), why has there been a 36% increase in obesity over the last ten years alone? Again, the answer is pretty simple. Americans are eating more — 6% more fat and 12% more calories than ten years ago.

This brings up the final question, why do all these diets fail so quickly? And again, the answer is simple. Traditional weight loss programs — the personal trainer, the weight loss drug, the rigid diet and exercise program — all rely on external sources of nurturing and limit setting, and external solutions are inherently fragile and unstable. The personal trainer can take a hike, other physicians can stop the prescriptions, eating chicken breasts and steamed broccoli gets boring, and a twisted ankle can sideline your exercise. Even the Christian diets and the 12-step diet don't work for long. The drive to overeat is so primitive and so deep that a real solution to weight problems requires far more than mustering the true grit to diet, praying for redemption from gluttony, or calling daily one's sponsor.

By now it may well be intuitively clear to you that for a program to succeed longterm it must create an internal, developmental change. We need to bring new skills inside, to go through what turns out to be a spiritual shift into a new world, a spiritual "growing up." This shift is not a concept but a practice; it is to practice these two very simple, very powerful internal skills until they become so natural they are the constant background music of your day. Then we wouldn't consider not honoring our feelings. We wouldn't fathom holding onto harsh expectations that send us into emotional lows and powerlessness. Instead, most of the time we stay in a state of personal balance in which we are connected to the core of ourselves and to the wisdom and power of the spiritual. In this state of balance we naturally eat when we are hungry and stop when we are just satisfied — not full. We honor our body's need to be active and to feel strong. Any weight that is more than our genetic destiny begins to fall away of its own accord. And, more importantly, because learning these skills is much like learning to ride a bicycle — once we have those skills we have them for life — and because the skills we possess are internal, our weight solution is secure.

Our own data are quite clear. Seventy-two percent of adults who learn our skills experience a spiritual deepening that persists even two years later — and those who experience this deepening lose seven times more weight compared to those who don't. These results occur despite the fact that the intervention is not overtly spiritual and attracts people with widely different spiritual orientations.

We currently have no empirical data to tell us precisely how the synergy of mind, body, and spiritual factors leads to a natural fading of the drive to overeat or to other excesses for people using our method. And it will probably be many years before that research has been completed. Right now, when people ask why our program works, I think back to my early clinical work testing this method on children and families.

One evening in particular at a parent meeting, I became fascinated by the self-described absence of spirituality in many parents of obese adolescents. I remember one mother saying, "I just can't let go. I can't let Kirk be self-destructive. He's ruining his body; his chest is bigger than mine now and he even has stretch marks. It breaks my heart to see him ruining his life."

From the discussion that followed, it became clear why this mother and the other parents in the room had difficulty accepting their essential pain — which was that they did not have complete control over her adolescent's behavior. If they did let go, they felt they was no safety net, no benevolent force or basic strength to take over. These parents could not trust anything to protect their children.

Initially, I was surprised, but not for long. That evening I called Velia Frost, our clinic's social worker, whose response was to the point: "Why would these parents think there was a safety net or a spiritual being in the world?" Many of them weren't nurtured well growing up. They've had no experience of any kind of safety net or beneficial force. Why should they have trust that it will be there for their children?"

Of course, most if not all of our spiritual traditions teach that us that there is a safety net — one that we can find by going inside. What seems to have happened with our program is that, through medical and psychological research, we have found a way to make people more aware of this spiritual safety net and to use it to support them as they lose weight.

Since our research was completed, I have had the privilege of observing several hundred more people use this method. In pondering their experiences, it seems that for most there is an important moment, a point of development and change. It is then that the face of the divine appears to smile upon them and to bring more light into their being. Although there is a period of strengthening these skills, from that point on there is a trend toward improved health and happiness. Weight decreases without excessive restraint, external controls or the substitution of another kinds of excess. There is nothing furtive about this transition. In fact, it is so obvious that those in groups begin anticipate it in themselves as they see occur in others. The number on the scale goes down and stays down from no longer needing the extra food.

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