THE INSIDE NUTRITION BY TANYA:
EDITION CHAPTER 7
By: Basya Kovacs
WHAT DO WE DO at Nutrition by Tanya when someone isn’t doing well on their diet? Yes, even on an excellent, customized plan, and even with weekly accountability, people struggle. Summer was tough for many clients because of the lack of routine, being away for Shabbos, vacations and family simchos. Some of our clients found that these factors affected their weight. And sometimes the struggle has nothing to do with external circumstances, but rather due to lack of motivation. When a client struggles, I usually suggest that he or she check in with me on a nightly basis. By reaching out and sending a daily food log, we are offering a higher level of support and accountability which usually helps the client get back into a good routine. While this does take a lot of my time, I am happy to offer clients this option when I feel it will help. If my client is willing to go the extra mile by checking in nightly, I am willing to dedicate my time as well. I have seen amazing results with this extra level of accountability and support. At times, I have a client who, despite all my best efforts to help, will still struggle. Often, they will come into my office and say, “Basya, I need you to motivate me. I don’t know what happened, but I just can’t get hold of myself! At the beginning I was so determined to lose weight, but I can’t seem to get myself back into it. Please inspire me!” My response is usually some version of the following: (Spoiler alert: This might sound like a bit of tough love.) “I could definitely inspire you; in fact I consider myself a pretty motivational nutrition counselor. But it won’t help. My acting as your motivational cheerleader will be effective until you walk out the door, or maybe until tomorrow — but then it will be gone.” In other words, you need to find the motivation
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within yourself! I try to remind my client that the weight-loss process can, at times, be exciting, but more often than not, choosing to eat healthy and moderately takes work. Of course, we try to make things easier by providing helpful ideas and troubleshooting tips, and by offering delicious snacks, treats, recipes of the week and daily doses of inspiration, but in the end, the change in lifestyle requires some discipline and sacrifice that may or may not be fun. I like to use parenting as an example. When our children are acting sweet and getting along and are not whining or complaining we are all the world’s best parents. But when the child becomes unreasonable and cranky, we need to do our job as nurturing parents despite the fact that it is suddenly an extreme test of our patience. When something is important enough, we need to do it despite it being difficult — motivated or not. The bottom line is that just like anything worthwhile, we need to stick to it even when we aren’t inspired. We need to be able to envision that the short-term sacrifice will lead to longterm pleasure. In our weak moments, we need to remember that we are giving up instant gratification for a greater goal. The trick is to remember these goals in the moment of struggle. When we are feeling unmotivated and offtrack, we need to be able to remind ourselves of why we are even sacrificing. So when I tell my clients that I can’t motivate them, it’s because it can’t come from me. I try to help them find the motivation within themselves. I try to help them access that same motivation that brought them into our office in the first place — because only that kind of motivation has the long-term power needed to lose the weight and keep it off.