Weight Ranges and Conscious Eating:
a Healthy Approach to Weight Management

A Quick Summary

Main Points on This Quick List

[1] People's weights exist in ranges, not single numbers, although a range can be as small as a single number.
[2] All weight ranges have a floor and a ceiling. It is more normal for weight to vary within this range than outside it. More over, varying within this range is healthy for many reasons; the experience of fitness and having resilience during illness being two of the more important.
[3] Experiencing shock is the only way weight varies outside the current weight range.
[4] Eating a significantly higher than normal amount of food is the most common way people vary their weights above the current weight range. In effect, they shock their bodies into a higher weight range.
[5] Eating a significantly lower than normal amount of food is the most common way people vary their weights below the current weight range. In effect, they shock their bodies into a lower weight range.
[6] The two most common forms of shock deliberately used to lose weight are weight loss diets and exercise.
[7] All weight loss diets use some form of selective deprivation to shock the person into a lower weight range. Unhealthy weight loss diets use sustained selective deprivation. Healthy ones do not.
[8] All weight loss exercise programs also involve some form of selective deprivation. Most focus on significantly and suddenly decreasing the person's food to physical activity ratio. Here again, unhealthy programs use sustained selective deprivation. Healthy ones do not.
[9] When people use selective deprivation to cause their weight to fall below a weight range, it is normal for their weight to "rebound" back up into the original range the day following the fall. These rebounds are healthy compensations programmed into the body for times of illness and emergency.
[10] All forms of weight oriented selective deprivation will plateau when the body begins to come out of shock and starts to compensate for what is experienced as an emergency situation.
[11] All long term forms of weight oriented selective deprivation will result in a loss of fluidity within the person's current weight range. This means the person will lose both fitness and resilience.
[12] Experiencing consciousness before, during, and after eating ("conscious eating") is the only way to maintain healthy weight loss. Conscious eating always involves a fully balanced diet.

Words and Phrases to Pay Attention To

Quick List With Examples

[1] Peoples' weights exist in ranges, not single numbers, although a range can be as small as a single number.

• an analogy for this idea would be the high and low water marks on pier posts which mark the range of the tides, high to low.
• the idea that weight exists in ranges rather than as a weight "number" means it is normal and more likely for a person's weight to vary within the current range, and less likely and normal for this weight to vary outside the current range.
• more important, the idea of weight ranges means weight varies more from the current momentum than from any linear food input and exercise to number relationship. This idea is often noted but rarely seen as important. For example, when people see a two pound change in their weight from the day before, they often believe they gained this much weight even though they did not even eat anywhere near that amount of food and often, were literally starving themselves.

[2] All ranges have a floor and a ceiling. It is more normal to vary within this range than outside it. More over, varying within this range is healthy.

• Weight ranges exist as part of a healthy, fluid, body management system. They exist simply as part of the normal, healthy checks and balances built into peoples' weight management programming.

[3] Experiencing shock is the only way weight varies outside the current weight range.

• Shock is the body's response to emergency situations. Weight lose or gain outside the current norm is one of the body's responses to shock. Further, it is the only way weight changes range.

[4] Eating a significantly higher than normal amount of food is the most common way people vary their weights above the current weight range. In effect, they shock their bodies into a higher weight range.

• Another way to state this idea is to say that when people eat a significantly higher than normal amount of food, it puts their bodies into shock, causing their bodies to lose access to their normal weight management programming. Further, the emergency programming built into all human beings which then applies is to store the food rather than process it.

[5] Eating a significantly lower then normal amount of food is the most common way people vary their weights below the current weight range. In effect, they shock their bodies into a lower weight range.

• Here again, another way to state this idea is to say that when people eat a significantly lower than normal amount of food, it puts their bodies into shock, causing their bodies to lose access to their normal weight management programming. Further, the emergency programming built into all human beings which then applies is to eliminate the food rather than process it.

[6] The two most common forms of shock used to lose weight are diets and exercise.

• Both diets and exercise programs rely primarily on self induced shock to generate weight change. This is true even when these programs include other, more healthy forms of self management.

[7] All weight loss diets use some form of selective deprivation to shock the person into a lower weight range. Unhealthy weight loss diets use sustained selective deprivation. Healthy ones do not.

• Even healthy weight loss diets must include some form of selective deprivation. However, healthy weight loss diets use selective deprivation only in short bursts only, using it to change weight ranges but not to sustain weight change. Unhealthy weight loss diets use selective deprivation to both lower weight and to manage this weight loss.
• Any form of sustained selective deprivation will lower the person's fitness and resilience, as human beings were not designed to live in shock outside of emergency situations. In fact, shock exists to solely to prevent further damage during emergencies and was never intended to be an ongoing way to live.

[8] All weight loss exercise programs also involve some form of selective deprivation. Most focus on significantly and suddenly decreasing the person's food to physical activity ratio. Here again, unhealthy programs use sustained selective deprivation. Healthy ones do not.

• Like the diets above, unhealthy weight loss exercise programs use sustained selective deprivation to both cause and maintain weight loss. Healthy ones use selective deprivation only in small doses and only to move a person's weight to a lower range. After this, gradual returns to normal activity levels wherein activity and rest are balanced decrease shock rather than increase it.

[9] When people use selective deprivation to cause their weight to fall below a weight range, it is normal for their weight to "rebound" back up into the original range the day following the fall. These rebounds are healthy compensations programmed into the body for times of illness and emergency.

• When a person loses weight suddenly and in doing so, crosses into the weight range below the current one even by one half pound, the person's weight, most times, will go be two or more pounds higher the following day. These weight increases are called "rebounds" and at times, can occur even when the person is fasting. Thus, this weight gain can not possibly be from what the person ate nor from a severe lack of physical activity in that these things have not occurred. Rather it is the result of emergency programming built into the body.
• Because rebound is not currently understood, most people who rebound believe they have gained the weight back. This misinterpretation is the main reason people quit weight loss programs.

[10] All forms of weight oriented selective deprivation will plateau when the body begins to come out of shock and starts to compensate for what is experienced as an emergency situation.

• As the body begins to normalize into this state of shock, the emergency weight management programming goes into a second stage designed to compensate for long term experiences of shock. At this point, the weight loss or gain will slow down.

[11] All long term forms of weight oriented selective deprivation will result in a loss of fluidity within the person's current weight range. This means the person will lose both fitness and resilience.

• Health and fitness are directly related to the fluid movement of weight. Weight ranges which have significantly narrowed, such as single number weight ranges, indicate a loss of resilience due to the ongoing presence of shock.

[12] Experiencing consciousness before, during, and after eating ("conscious eating") is the essence of all programs aimed at helping people to maintain healthy weight loss and fitness. Conscious eating always involves eating a fully balanced diet.

• Healthy programming regarding weight, food, and fitness exists in the body from birth. BLocks acquired mainly during childhood but also in adulthood impair peoples' access to this healthy programming. Because this healthy programming gets BLocked, people are then forced to either use will power to maintain some degree of health or be unhealthy. Worse yet, these efforts get increasingly difficult as people age, making will power a poor choice for any long term weight and fitness management. Despite these difficulties, many people continue to see these choices as their only options.
• Developing a healthy ability to be conscious before, during and after eating ("conscious eating") in large part involves healing whatever BLocks the healthy programming already present in all people. As these BLocks heal, peoples' bodies can progressively access more of the previously BLocked healthy programming already present in their bodies. This then allows their bodies to increasingly process more and more foods in naturally healthy ways. Because this natural health involves little to no will power, it is a good choice for the basis of a life long program of healthy weight and fitness management.
• Maintaining one's ability to consciously eat in part involves eating a balanced diet. By "balanced," I mean moderately and sensibly eating foods from all groups. Many weight loss diets (and many other supposedly health oriented diets) involve completely eliminating certain foods or groups of foods. Unknowingly, people who do this decrease, not increase, their health and fitness. Why? People who do this; meaning, people who entirely eliminate a food from their diets, eventually lose to access the healthy programming which exists in them which would normally allow them to process this food in a conscious way. In effect, their ability to consciously process this food begins to atrophy. If they then continue to abstain, eventually, they will lose access to the healthy programming they do have and so, will become unable to consciously process this food, as eating it will put their bodies into shock.
• Eating any food which causes the body to go into shock will cause some form of illness. Assuming this reaction proves the food is "bad" or that this person's body simply can not tolerate this food are two of the more erroneous beliefs in and around food, weight and fitness. In truth, then, the choices are to either to continue to abstain from eating this food, a choice which I call doing "damage control," OR to heal whatever BLocks the body's ability to process this food.
• Damage control is a sane and healthy temporary solution. Healthy choices and long term solutions always involve healing BLocks.