Over the next few days, I will look at the stages of change model.  This theory was developed by Prochaska and DiClemente sometime in the eighties and is used quite extensively by health professionals as well as proponents of change to assist their clients.

So each day, I will consider different parts of the cycle.  Feel free to join in the conversation.

Precontemplative

Amy looked at herself in the mirror and saw her mother and her grandmother all rolled into one.  She remembered looking at them growing up and thinking she would never get that big and yet here she was.  She was following in the family traits, it seemed.

Most of the time she did not really worry about her weight and she just downright refused to get caught up in all the fad diets her friends got involved in.  There was always some exotic sounding trend going on – Atkins, South beach, Dukan, Detox, blah, blah, blah…

She was accepting of her weight and had decided there was absolutely nothing she could do about it as all the women in her family were this big.  Her husband and children loved her so who cared?  Occasionally, her knees seemed to be under a lot of pressure and some rude people looked at her a bit funny but apart from that, her life was great.

Sometimes she had to go to the doctor for various aches and pains.  She had recently been diagnosed with diabetes and her list of tablets was slowly increasing.  Everytime she visited the Doctors Office, they tried to get her to talk about the foods she ate but she generally gave non-committal answers and went on her way.  Frankly, she just wished they would leave her alone.  This always happened to the women in her family and unfortunately it was a cross she had to bear.  She had always struggled with her weight since she was a young girl.  She had tried all number of things growing up but had finally become happier inside as she learnt to accept herself.  Why would she upset the apple cart again?

Does that sound a bit like you?

Sometimes our identity becomes tied up in a falsehood.  We manage to convince ourselves that we are in the only place possible for us to exist.  This does not just apply to weight loss but also to other aspects of life.  We allow ourselves to get stuck in a rut and we learn to live there quite comfortably, forgetting there may be another way to be.  We are not looking for a way out because we do not even really see a problem though it is usually as clear as mud to people in your life.

This is the stage of precontemplation.  You are not even seeing a problem yet therefore you are not even considering asking for help.

See you next time…