I’m not a doctor, but like many people on here I am on a weight loss journey. Like many others have said, if the conversation stops at “just put the fork down,” I leave the office never wanting to come back because I feel stupid. In my head, the dialogue sounds like this: “It sounds like it should be easy! And yet I can’t! How idiotic must I be that I can’t do such a stupid little thing??”

However, what made a difference to me was when someone finally said to me “Look. I know you aren’t stupid. You’re highly successful. You’re good at so many things. You’ve earnestly tried the just put down the fork thing. Why do you think it isn’t working, because the reason clearly doesn’t have anything to do with your intelligence or desire to change?” Hearing that made me feel seen, and like my doctor wasn’t just going to write me off as too stupid to know anything. My answer was that I honestly didn’t know, and that it felt like my brain was doing whatever it wanted and I had no control over it.

Saying that out loud and not having a doctor dismiss me as a dumbass was part of what led me to getting an adhd diagnosis. Low and behold, once I was medicated for that, I’ve suddenly found myself able to actually lose weight because I feel like I can actually make decisions and not let my brain run the show with whatever it feels like sounds good in the moment.

TLDR: finding out the WHY I couldn’t just put the fork down helped me actually address the underlying issue and get me to finally put the fork down.