When I started learning about food and diet years ago, one of my teachers told me something I’ll never forget. He said, “Food is just the first step to health. It’s the beginning of the path.” As a student on the road to becoming a nutritionist, I couldn’t believe that he would say such a thing. My thoughts went from disbelief (What the heck is he talking about?) to a shade of pity (How sad that he doesn’t understand how powerful food is!) and then became maybe a bit condescending (Well, he doesn’t really know much, does he?).

At that point, I was passionately focused on my belief that one’s diet is the most important part of one’s lifestyle with the biggest impact on weight, health and overall well-being. I was inspired and fascinated by the specific properties of foods. It amazed me to learn that antioxidants can neutralize aging free radicals, that there are compounds in certain foods, herbs and spices that can optimize organ functioning and the quality of your blood while simultaneously increasing outer beauty. And I was equally intrigued to discover how certain foods are congestive to the body and can contribute to diseases and aging. I simply wasn’t open to the idea that there could be something more important to a person’s health than food and diet, and I stubbornly believed that I knew better than my own teacher.

It took me years to integrate his profound words from that day into my own work. I now realize he was teaching me that physical matter is only the beginning. It is easy to start on the path to wellness by changing your diet, since food is visible to the eye and gives you something tangible to focus on. But my teacher was right. There are so many factors beyond food that contribute to our health, weight and, yes, even our beauty. I just couldn’t see it at the time.

The Real Defining Factor in Health and Weight Loss

When I think of my reaction to my teacher’s words that day, it allows me to reflect on how much I myself have grown as a teacher. After all, we are all lifetime students. And while, of course, I still appreciate the powers of natural foods, I now embrace the fact that there is more that we can do to change and to improve our health and beauty, to transform the shape of our body, and to realize our inner joy, to boot! I have expanded my focus to how true healing actually comes from within. Specific foods can be very supportive to your body in healing itself. But ultimately change originates and sustains from you and your power. It’s initially daunting, but an exciting and incredibly empowering revelation.

As I examined more and more health information devoted to the minutiae of certain nutrients and more studies attributing “miraculous” healing properties to specific tinctures and powders, I could feel my passion dragging me the other way. I was so sick of hearing about the next super food that also happened to be a “natural” fat burner. Over time, it became clear to me that what’s on your plate, which can be precisely quantified and qualified, described in terms of dimensions and measurements, is only one factor contributing to your health and your weight. After observing and working with hundreds of people and spending thousands of hours with them, I understand that weight loss is a result not only of the foods you eat but also of what is going on with you as a whole person.

If you are skeptically wrinkling your nose at this concept, remember that I, too, once firmly believed that food was the be-all and end-all when it came to losing weight. But the nonnegotiable fact remains that we are not one-dimensional beings whose health and weight can easily be manipulated by adhering to a numerical formula. Otherwise, we could have all stopped the diet game with the advent of Weight Watchers and everyone would now have the exact figure they desire.

It’s obviously true that what one eats can either facilitate or impede weight loss, but more and more I see rarely discussed emotional, mental and spiritual imbalances as underlying root factors in sustained weight loss. By spiritual I mean the degree to which you have a conscious connection to the interrelated parts of you that comprise your whole being, as well as a connection to all of life and the universe, however you personally define it.

This is why I’ve always felt that the word nutritionist doesn’t adequately describe what I do. I always work with the whole person and approach his or her life holistically, while a nutritionist in the standard sense relies on only dietary and food protocols. I prefer the simple term teacher. I teach my clients not only about diet but also about the various aspects of balancing and nourishing themselves as whole people, such as becoming mindful of their self-talk, grasping the roots of their underlying beliefs and discerning the ways in which their actions may be contradictory to their goals or intentions. I help them to reconnect to their spiritual side through such methods as meditation, yoga and spending more time in nature.

The core of my teachings is the same whether I’m working with someone on a significant weight-loss goal, those stubborn last five pounds or a general health goal. It goes far beyond the concept of emotional eating. Certainly, consuming more calories than your body needs will often cause you to gain weight, but what I’m referring to here is the way your thought patterns actually shape the visible, physical structure of your body. This happens on a deep, subconscious level. In Quantum Healing, Deepak Chopra discusses how some obese people have been known to gain weight on diets containing only the minimal number of calories needed to sustain basal metabolism. He writes, “The reason for this is that the brain can actually alter the metabolism in such a way that the calories are stored as fat instead of being burned up as fuel.”(1)

The Interconnectivity of Mind and Body

There are many ways in which our thoughts and emotions affect our bodies. Have you ever been under an extreme amount of stress and ended up gaining weight? Though my weight does not fluctuate by a large amount, I have definitely put on a few extra pounds when there was a big change happening in my life. When I first came to Los Angeles for extended periods to work with clients, the demands on my time and attention by multiple people and the long hours were definitely stressful, and I put on some weight. I could tell because my skinny jeans became even more uncomfortable, and it was around then that I stopped wearing pants with no stretch, which were constant reminders to me of my weight.

The connection between stress, which originates in your mind as a perception of a given situation, and its body-altering outcomes, such as high blood pressure, strokes and heart attacks, has been well researched and widely accepted. Is it so hard to believe that your mind can affect your weight, too?

Dr. Zofia Zukowska, chair of the department of physiology and biophysics at Georgetown University Medical Center, has led numerous studies that reveal that the body reacts to stress by packing on the pounds not due to overeating, but due to the nervous system’s response. She says, “[S]tress induces obesity by way of the nerves that go to the fat tissue in that particular region of the body… . Neuropeptide Y stimulates blood vessel formation, which feeds tissue growth, and maybe that gives you increased fat deposits around the waist.”(2) In other words, your emotions affect your nervous system, and your body can respond by holding on to fatty elements to help protect your delicate nervous system.(3)

Kathryn’s Story

Kathryn was a client of mine who worked in high-end retail. Like many sales jobs, hers was high stress, with constant new goals to hit. Kathryn was also holding on to a lot of anger toward her mother, who had been very cold and critical of Kathryn when she was a child and had never given Kathryn the type of love she wanted. Even as an adult, Kathryn had fought constantly with her mother, who accused her of not behaving “correctly” at family gatherings or of saying the wrong things. She was simply longing for love and validation from her mother, but she was also investing a great deal of energy into holding on to this resentment. At some point in nearly every conversation, she mentioned her “crazy mother,” and she often employed destructive tactics, such as not allowing her mother to see her granddaughter for extended periods of time.

When Kathryn came to see me about losing weight, she’d been about thirty pounds heavier than she wanted to be for as long as she could remember. This was uncomfortable on her five-foot-two-inch frame. But even as I glanced between her consultation forms and her facial expressions, I could feel the tense, angry energy that was emanating from her. “So how much weight can I lose in two weeks?” she demanded and then revealed that she wanted to lose weight for a destination wedding she was attending.

The rage toward her mother that she held inside was present in other areas of her life. In the interactions I witnessed, she was snappy and critical of her husband and ceaselessly negative. She complained about everything from restaurants and the weather to driving conditions and her daughter’s teachers. She was simply resentful of life in general. And, unsurprisingly, she had battled a lifetime of constipation.

I changed Kathryn’s diet, and she started drinking my Glowing Green Smoothie, a cornerstone of the Beauty Detox dietary program. Previously, she had been following a low-carb, high-protein type of diet, so there had been a lot of fiberless food in her diet that had deposited acidic by-products in her digestive tract. Sure enough, the addition of more fiber to her diet marked the beginning of Kathryn’s awakening. I believe it helped to dislodge some stuck energies, and since energy transcends all forms, physical entities like fiber can sometimes be the impetus to create emotional or mental shifts.

Kathryn felt very emotional during the process of shifting her diet. She cried and felt sad and experienced periods of emotional roller coasters characterized by extreme anger … but she also had glimmers of real peace. It was not what she had expected to happen. After all, she had come to me simply wanting to lose weight. But we discussed what she was feeling extensively, and the more she was able to verbalize “stuck” resentments that she’d held inside her for so long, the more aware she became of their presence in her daily life. Awareness creates space around negative thoughts, a way to acknowledge them so that you can start the process of letting go. It doesn’t change what’s taken place, but it does create a new understanding that you don’t have to keep reacting in the same ways.

It was a long process, but over time Kathryn was able to release a lot of the anger that she had inside. Not coincidentally, her bowel movements also became regular and substantial (nothing less than a thrilling improvement for her health and beauty). The combination of emotional release work and dietary changes allowed Kathryn to shed thirty-three pounds of excess weight and keep it off. Now she is much more present, quicker to smile and far more joyful … and she also doesn’t mention her mother in every conversation anymore!

How Your Emotions Affect Your Vitality

There is a great deal of scientific evidence to support the link between mind and body. In his book The Second Brain, Michael D. Gershon, MD, states that there are over a hundred million nerve cells in the small intestine. We have more nerve cells in our gut than in our spine. Gershon notes that the gut is the only organ that contains an intrinsic nervous system, one that is able to “mediate reflexes in the complete absence of input from the brain or spinal chord.” He says, “The ugly gut is more intellectual than the heart and may have a greater capacity for ‘feeling.’”(4) In other words, your gut (really your digestive tract) is sensitive to what is going on with you emotionally and mentally, not just physically.

We all know that our emotions can affect our stomach. Have you ever felt butterflies in your stomach when you were nervous about something, or even vomited as a result of a bad case of nerves? Emotional thought patterns, such as anxious thoughts or thoughts fueled by low self-esteem, directly impact the nervous system and especially the nerves in the gut. This can impair the gut’s vital function, namely, digestion. And impaired digestion may lead to the inefficient release of toxins and waste, making weight loss more difficult.

Researchers have discovered that the neurotransmitter imipramine, which is produced in an abnormal way in people who are depressed, is found not only on brain cells but also on skin cells.(5) Why does the skin produce a “mental” molecule? This phenomenon suggests that feelings, such as depression, affect our entire body, including our skin and its appearance. Insulin, which is a hormone linked to the pancreas, is now known to be produced by the brain, and the stomach is said to produce brain chemicals, such as CCK.(6)

Research conducted at Stanford University reviewed studies on the acute consequences of emotion suppression and found that both expressing and suppressing negative emotions, such as anger, anxiety and tension, can lead to cardiovascular and other issues.(7) The University of Wisconsin and Princeton University collaborated on a study that found that the brain activity related to negative emotions suppresses the body’s immune response and thus its ability to fight disease. The study’s leader, Richard Davidson, says that emotions play an important role in regulating systems in the body that influence health.(8)

Your mind has a profound effect on your physical body. What you think and how you feel impact your weight and how you look, as well as your overall vitality. I know that this may seem new to you and different from other ways you’ve thought about your weight and shaping your body, but it is in our very nature to be a completely whole, interconnected being. Embracing this truth is the foundation for full immersion in the Beauty Detox program, and it is the key to your best body and most joyful life.