Can Tony Robbins Help You Lose Weight?

I've always been a fan of Tony Robbins.

I think his work has a great deal to teach us about life in general, but I also think it has a great deal to teach us about weight loss. I've used a lot of Robbins' concepts in my own teaching and writing, particularly as it pertains to breaking nonempowering habits and addictions and forming new, empowering ones. (This is especially useful when you're trying to change your relationship to food.)

Recently, Robbins teamed up with Arianna Huffington to create a program called "Breakthrough: the Power of Crisis." Both Robbins and Huffington felt that the difficult times that many of us have been going through -- the financial crisis, unemployment, foreclosures, natural disasters and more -- present a unique opportunity to really look within, dig deep and understand how we deal with difficult challenges.


He suggests we start by asking five general questions about crisis in general and how we deal with it. And I suggest that answering these questions -- specifically as they apply to your own weight loss journey -- is a fabulous way to begin the process of breakthrough in your own life.

What exactly do I mean by "breakthrough"? Here's how Robbins defines it: "... a moment in time, an opening when what seemed to be impossible becomes possible."

So if you've felt that losing weight is an impossible task, if weight is a challenge that you've never been able to successfully solve, why not take a moment and answer for yourself the five questions Robbins poses about how you've dealt with other crises in the past?

Here are the five questions:

1. What was your life like right before the challenge or crisis hit?

2. What was the crisis you faced? What happened -- what did you feel and experience?

3. What pulled you through this difficult, unjust or impossible time? What was the trigger or catalyst for change? Was it a belief, a strategy, a faith, a person, a tool? What made the change possible?

4. Once you turned the corner mentally or emotionally, what did you do to turn your life around?

5. How is your life better today because you lived through the crisis? How have you transformed? How are you stronger emotionally, physically, spiritually? What gifts do you have to give because of this?

Put your answers aside for a moment, take a fresh sheet of paper and answer these questions:

1. What was my life like before I gained the weight?

2. What changed? What did I feel and experience?

3. What's keeping me stuck? What's standing in the way of my moving forward? What's stopping me?

4. What tools or strategies could I use to break through some of those "stops"?

5. What steps could I take today that would make a difference in my own health?

If there's one thing I believe about weight loss, it's this: Weight loss is never just about weight loss. It's about breakthrough and transformation. It's about meeting challenges. It's about telling the truth. It's about scrupulous honesty. It's about looking in the mirror. It's about finding strengths you never knew you had. It's about persevering. It's about never giving up. It's about a vision for the long haul.