This is my take on Sustainable Weight Loss…
Back in the 90’s I went through a period of time where my weight was completely out of control. No matter what I did to lose weight, I just kept gaining. I tried every diet I could. I worked face to face with the late Dr. Atkins himself. I went to the Pritkin Institute, I met with doctors, nutritionists, acupuncturists, fitness trainers, naturopaths and homeopaths. No matter what I did, I just kept gaining.
Sure I’d lose a little weight with whatever diet I was on at the time, but then the weight loss would stop. Eventually I couldn’t take the restriction anymore and I’d have a big binge and all the weight I lost would come back with a vengeance. By 2001 I was over 400 pounds.
In 2002 I had given up. I stopped trying to lose weight and instead I started trying to heal my life, my mind and my body. Paradoxically, by not focusing on losing weight anymore and instead focusing on healing, the weight started to melt off of me.
Over a 2 year period from 2002-2004 I lost over 220 pounds and I’ve been the same weight since. I don’t diet in restrictive sense. There’s nothing I ‘can’t’ have and I don’t measure quantities or count calories. I eat whatever I want, whenever I want and as much as I want. But because I’ve focused so much on healing my mind and body, I simply never crave junk food anymore and my body now desires extremely healthy foods.
For me weight loss has now been completely sustainable for over 12 years….
There’s a lot of talk these days in the news about how impossible it is to lose weight and keep it off in the long term. In particular, one New York Times article revisited some of the success stories from the Biggest Loser a few years later and virtually all of them have gained their weight back and more.
Many doctors are now saying that dieting doesn’t work and some of them are going as far as to say that you can’t lose weight and keep it off in the long term.
What I’ve learned is that when a doctor says that you can’t do something, what they really mean is that the methods that they use do not work. It doesn’t mean you can’t do it, it just means that their methods are not effective. So I’d like to offer an alternative version of what it takes to create lasting, sustainable weight loss.
In a nutshell, sustainable weight loss comes when you address the real issues that are causing your body to hold onto weight.
Sure, eating junk food and not exercising enough will cause you to gain weight. But what causes you to crave junk food, or be too tired to exercise? You might say it’s all just weakness, laziness, lethargy and indifference, but there’s actually a lot more to it.
Having lived through the experience of having a body that just wanted to gain and gain, to now being in a body that’s effortless thin, I can tell you that weakness and laziness have very little to do with it.
There’s a certain hormonal condition that can happen in our bodies that can put us into fat storage mode. I call this set of hormonal changes “The FAT Programs” because they are part of a genetic program we inherited from our ancestors, designed to help us gain weight for survival reasons. When these FAT Programs are activated, our cells stop responding to two very key fat regulating hormones, leptin and insulin.
You may be familiar with the terms ‘leptin resistance’ and ‘insulin resistance’. Both are extremely common in people who suffer from weight issues. When we have leptin and insulin resistance, our bodies get transformed into human fat storage machines. We can become insatiably hungry and crave junk food constantly. Also, our metabolism slows down, so we’re chronically exhausted. We become very efficient at making fat and we lose the ability to burn fat.
When you combine these hormonal changes together in a world of all you can eat empty calorie junk food you have a recipe for disaster. This is what causes morbid obesity. I lived through this and unfortunately millions are living through it as we speak.
While it’s true that cutting out all junk food will help, since both leptin and insulin resistance causes junk food cravings in the first place, it becomes very difficult to be sustainable. It’s a vicious cycle. So what do you do?
Stress can be caused by mental, emotional and physical issues, so you have to take a mind-body approach to healing.
The way I lost weight and the way I continued to stay thin is by addressing the stresses in my life that can cause leptin and insulin resistance, and you can do that in the following ways:
Many of us are chronically malnourished and that causes our cells to not function properly. So add lots of superfoods and real foods, like live salad greens, green juices, super greens, spirulina, chlorella, sprouts. The key is to add these foods for medicinal purposes. Don’t think of them as food, think of them as medicine. You’re eating them to heal.
There’s a lot of studies out now that show having unfriendly bacteria in your intestines or having leaky gut can cause chronic low-grade inflammation. So add lots of fermented foods, like sauerkraut, kimchi, nutritional yeast, probiotics, coconut kefir, coconut yoghurts and nut cheeses. Also add bone broths as they have collagen that helps heal the intestines. Again, the focus is always on adding for medicinal purposes. I usually have a couple of tablespoons of fermented veggies before each meal for example.
Not having enough sleep elevates cortisol levels, which causes leptin and insulin resistance. So get lots of sleep. Also take a nap in the afternoon if you can. Again, for medicinal reasons 😉
Mental stress, just like any other type of stress causes hormonal changes in your body. For some of us, it causes the hormonal changes that activate The FAT Programs. So develop daily mind-body practices to heal mental stress, such as meditation, visualization, yoga and chi kung.
Emotional issues can cause an elevation of stress hormones and emotional trauma can cause weight gain. So address any emotional trauma’s you’ve had in your life.
Toxicity is a chronic stress that can causes weight gain. So for starters, drink lots of water to help flush out toxins. When possible add organic produce. If you eat meat, try to make sure it’s organic and grass fed/free range or wild caught. By having more organic produce and following the other suggestions above, which will also help detoxify your body, you can develop a ‘detoxification lifestyle’. A detoxification lifestyle is when you’re passively eliminating toxins in a gentle way, day by day, so that each day you are cleaner and healthier.
Sometimes your life is the problem. When you ignore the issue in your life that are not ideal, such as being in the wrong career, relationship or location, it causes chronic stress, which can cause your body to gain weight. Be willing to make some changes if need be. Use visualization and affirmations to help you make the life changes that are necessary. When meditating ask for help from your intuition, higher self, invisible guides, guardian angels or God. However you conceive the invisible support in your life, connect with it and ask it for help. Then when the time comes and the opportunity presents itself, allow yourself to take a chance if it feels right, even if it’s a bit scary.
Those are the real keys to sustainable weight loss.
They’ve worked for me and they’ve worked for thousands of people that have followed The Gabriel Method over the years.
You may not lose weight instantly by focusing on the real issues, but you will be steadily transforming your body from the inside out.
By eliminating the root causes in this way, you will disempower the hormonal dynamic that has you addicted to junk and spiraling out of control. The most common ‘complaint’ I get when working with clients this way is that after a while they say they are just ‘not that hungry’.
My response is that that’s exactly what’s supposed to happen when your body wants to let go of weight. When you work with your body this way as opposed to fighting cravings night and day, weight loss is so much easier because you’re not at war with your body anymore.
Your body wants to be thin when you address the real issues. Losing weight and keeping it off then becomes totally natural, normal and sustainable.
Let me know your thoughts below. Also if you’d like to know which issues affect your weight most, you can take our FREE Fat Trigger Quiz here and we’ll send you a full report about your Fat Program Stresses and how to address them.
As many of you know, back in 2004 I lost 220lbs with a non-diet, no restrictive eating approach, and I have been the same weight ever since.
I went on to publish my first book The Gabriel Method, and it sold in over 60 countries, and quickly became a best-selling book around the world.
But with that much publicity, and millions of people starting to see my before and after photos, naturally people started to comment…
“Your before and after photos are photoshopped!”
The truth is, I have not had any surgery done for the excess skin, and on certain areas of my body,I do have some lasting stretch marks.
My photos are real. They have NOT been PHOTOSHOPPED.
To settle the issue once and for all, I decided to come back to Perth, Australia and do an interview with Fiona Castle of Design Images, who first took my photos back in 2004.
It was also a great time to do a 10 year anniversary shoot, to show the difference in my body since 2004. I’ve been able to maintain the same weight during the last 10 years… I just don’t quite have the same washboard abs as I did 10 years ago! But pretty close 😉
In this interview with Fiona, you can listen to her part of the story of the 1st photoshoot, and get a little sneak peek into the 10 year anniversary photo shoot.
I’d be honored to work with you to support you in achieving incredible results naturally and permanently in your weight loss journey. First we’ll figure out the real reason your body is holding onto weight, and then I’ll provide you with some powerful resources to guide you through an enjoyable weight loss journey.
Also be sure and check out some of our other amazing success story videos here.
The best way to kickstart your weight loss journey, is to get some added support from myself and my team of certified Gabriel Method Coaches.
You can try out my Support Group for Free for 30 days. In there you’ll find hundreds of resources and a path to guide you through these resources.
Thank you for joining our Gabriel Method Community. We are so excited to have you be a part of this growing community of over 400,000 people all over the world.
If you have struggled with your weight, and are ready to stop calorie counting once and for all AND lose your excess weight… You are in the right place. We are here to support you.
Back in 2002, I weighed 409 lbs, and over a two and a ½ year period of time, I lost 220 lbs, and have kept that weight off ever since without dieting or restrictive eating.
I discovered the answer to a really important question that not many people talk about when it comes to weight loss: WHY is your body holding onto the fat?
I’ve now made it my life’s mission to share my discoveries and techniques of a diet free approach with as many people as possible. Every week we are updating our resources with cutting-edge information and our community is growing in leaps and bounds.
So whether you came here wanting to lose 20 pounds, or 200 pounds the tools and insights I’m going to share with you will help totally transform your body and your life.
No matter what stage you are in your weight loss journey, or inspired health path, you’ll find resources and inspiration to support your “inside out” transformation. I call it “inside out weight loss” because first we have to identify what’s happening on the inside – from digestion to emotional challenges, to trauma – and then we can start transforming the outside.
Over the coming weeks, we’ll talk more about these concepts as well as the Gabriel Method FAT Programs, and how to identify which of the 10 Triggers are causing you to hold onto excess weight.
You can look forward to hearing from us on a regular basis with…
Here’s a few tips you’ll find helpful to get started…
Take a moment to join the Gabriel Method Facebook page, as this will be our primary method of communication outside of email updates and so you won’t want to miss a thing.
As part of the Gabriel Method approach, we use visualization as a powerful tool to assist with weight loss.
Our most popular visualization is the Evening Visualization. You can use this before going to bed at night, to relax, relieve stress and lose weight while you sleep.
You can use the player below to listen to this visualization on the page, or you can click the arrow to download.
I want to give you this visualization as a gift to help you get started on your journey. This is one of the most effective ways to start seeing tangible results in a short amount of time. My clients who achieve the most dramatic weight loss results largely credit their success to using my visualizations every day. So give it a try, and let me know what you think.
You may notice a little pop-up on the bottom right of your screen. That right there is someone waiting and ready to assist you with any and every enquiry about The Gabriel Method that you may have. Got gut health issues? We can help. Need some extra support during this journey? We’ve got you covered. Jump on to be connected to a real person who truly cares about helping you reach your health goals, 24/7.
If you know right now that you need an extra level of support and don’t want to tackle this journey on your own – you don’t have to! We offer many levels of personalized coaching, but the Support Group is our most popular group. It is an exclusive community of thousands of members who support and uplift each other. This is also a place where you and I can connect directly, and you can get weekly coaching sessions with our Gabriel Method Certified Coaches. As a new member, I’d love if you tried the Support Group for 30 days, completely free. This is a genuine gift, as I personally know how challenging weight loss can be, and I’d like for you to experience an extra level of support and success. We are here for you during this path. To claim your 30 days free, you can head on over to this page to get all the details.
If we can help support you in any other way, please leave us a comment below, and we’ll be sure to answer your questions and direct you in the best way possible.
I look forward to hearing from you soon!
The weight loss journey can be extremely frustrating, exhausting, confusing… and at best a rollercoaster.
I know this journey very well. Back in 2001, I weighed more than 400 pounds.
After years of yo-yo dieting and trying every different diet on the market, my weight had reached an all time high of 409 lbs, and I had nearly given up.
And then I had turning point…
On September 11, I narrowly missed being on UAL flight 93. That experience left me feeling like I was living on borrowed time. Here I was killing myself working in a high-stress Wall Street job that I hated, and the universe had just given me a second chance.
So I decided to get off the dieting roller coaster once and for all, and I promised never to diet again. Instead I was going to try to figure out why my body seemed to be forcing me to gain so much weight. I spent hours a day learning everything I could about the biochemistry of weight gain and weight loss.
I learned that losing weight sustainably and permanently isn’t about counting calories. It’s about creating the proper hormonal environment in your body that’s conducive to weight loss.
And I discovered that each of us has a set of F.A.T. programs that causes us to hold onto fat. These programs are built into our DNA.
F.A.T. stands for “Famine And Temperature.” Thousands of years ago, chronic exposure to famines and cold temperatures while living outdoors triggered a hormonal change in our bodies that made them very efficient at gaining weight. Today, we no longer have to worry about these threats but we still have these survival programs and sometimes our bodies get tricked into activating them.
I refer to these F.A.T. programs often, as they are part of the foundational principles taught in the Gabriel Method and understanding and addressing these F.A.T programs is the answer to sustainable and permanent weight loss.
The important aspect to understand about your F.A.T. programs, is that they can be switched ON, causing you to hold onto excess weight, or they can be switched OFF, which allows you to shed weight easily and effortlessly.
The easiest way to find out why your F.A.T. programs may be ON is to know which of the 10 triggers is setting it to ON. You can take a short quiz here to find out what trigger is causing you to hold onto excess weight.
Many years of research into hormones, enzymes, neurotransmitters, and chemical messengers that cause weight gain lead me to my discovery of the F.A.T. programs.
When your F.A.T programs are ON, certain subtle hormonal and chemical changes take place in your body that will virtually ensure that you get fat and stay fat. For those of you that have a biology background, what I’m specifically referring to is chronic low grade stresses that cause insulin and leptin resistance. If you don’t have a background in biology, don’t worry…
Diet and exercise are a like a bandage that covers the problem short term, but long term, to lose weight and keep it off, you must treat the underlying causes of your weight problem.
Since stress and emotional issues can cause an unfavorable hormonal environment, the issue needs to be addressed from a mind-body perspective.
We need to take a holistic approach that looks at our psychological and emotional life, as much as what and when we eat.
I finally discovered which of my F.A.T. programs were switched on, and over a two-and-half-year period I lost 220 pounds without restrictive dieting.
I’ve been the same weight now since 2004, and I still don’t diet. I eat whatever I want, whenever I want. I do eat very healthy, but it’s not an effort because my body no longer wants to carry excess weight. That’s because my F.A.T programs have been switched off.
When you identify which of your F.A.T. programs are switched on, then you can begin to target your lifestyle changes, and switch them OFF. Once switched OFF, many of my clients and community members report that the weight just literally fell OFF of them.
Watch this short video of Sharon Henry, who lost 110lbs once she identified the F.A.T. program triggers that were causing her to hold onto excess weight…
What do you think of the concept that a survival program (The F.A.T. programs) can cause you to hold onto weight?
I’d love to hear your thoughts. Share by commenting below.
MEDICAL DISCLAIMER: The information and resources provided to members are not meant to diagnose, treat, or prevent any disease or illnesses. At all times, you are responsible for your own health, and Jon Gabriel, The Gabriel Method PTE LTD, and the entire coaching team encourage you to follow this program along with the approval and supervision of a trusted health care provider.
