Unlike AA, the first step isn't admitting you have a problem! Nobody deviates from bone-thinness in this culture without being made acutely aware that they have a problem many times a day—even if you don't actually have one, sadly.

Which is exactly why the very first step to change is undoing that negative brainwashing and establishing a positive, loving relationship with yourself. No baby is born hating him/herself because they're fat; that's a learned behavior and it can and needs to be unlearned.

I utilize many cognitive-behavioral techniques to help de-program you from all the negative messages, as well as a few of my own special tricks I've developed in my journey to self-acceptance. Recommended reading is also highly useful in re-establishing a healthy relationship with yourself, as is beginning to challenge the media onslaught of critical body-focused information.

Often food and eating can be used to mask underlying painful emotions and experiences; it's just easier to stuff them down with food in the short-term than face what may feel like overwhelming issues. The second step of this program consists of uncovering those problems and working through them, one by one, until at last food can just be nourishment instead of our coping technique of choice.

This step is highly variable from person to person: it just takes as long as it takes. One sure way to derail your journey is to try and skip over this step and just make superficial changes while leaving the deeper causes of behaviors unchanged. It's important during this step to allow all your painful feelings to arise and be processed. Painful feelings won't kill us—it's everything we do to try and avoid feeling them that causes all the damage.

Nutrition science is a rapidly evolving field, saturated with a great deal of information that is often conflicting and very confusing. In Step 3, we'll work together to build a healthy relationship to food and eating that will nourish you body and soul. Restrictive regimens rarely stand the test of time, and can foster disordered eating and misery. Every body is different, and learning to listen to the needs of yours instead of dictating to it is crucial. 

Once you're well established on your weight loss road, you will need continued support, especially as you approach your goal and enter the Maintenance phase. Dieting and weight loss are ALWAYS—always—two steps forward and one step back, and occasionally even 2 or 3 steps back. This is a normal part of the process, as the body fights to hang on to and regain those pounds in the face of what it perceives to be a famine.

It can be so easy to give up in the face of these setbacks and challenges, and in fact the majority of dieters do throw in the towel. That's why the percentage of people who are able to keep weight off for years is so small.

Step 4 is focused on ensuring you become one of that small percentage, and successfully maintain your weight loss instead of gaining it all back and then some, avoiding the classic yo-yo dieting pattern. There are things you can do to stay on the right track, proven strategies as well as my own personal secret weapons.

Nobody wants to have finally accomplished this incredibly difficult feat, then see it all slip away again—I'm here to make sure that doesn't happen to you.