Weight Matters
BITE® Workshop
Fall/Winter 2012

B.I.T.E.® Commonly Asked Questions

Weight Matters Workshop
B.I.T.E. The Body Image Transformation Experience®
For Those For Whom Simple Answers
Haven't Worked

Commonly asked Questions:

Is This You?

Have you ever wondered why you are so capable in so many other areas of your life, but not in your interaction with food and exercise? You use food to regulate your feelings, tension, sexual impulses and anxiety. Are you are "in eat" before you know it, and can't remember how you got there? And does being "in eat" do something for you? Maybe the trance-like feeling that overcomes you as you enter the "in eat" world is a pleasure or a relief from strain. Maybe it's one place where you feel taken care of, and specifically feel the power of taking care of yourself, even though in fact you are damaging yourself. Are all of your important goals put on hold until you can figure out what to do about your eating, weight and body image, or perception of yourself? Are you aware that no matter how many promotions you have been awarded at work, there is no internal promotion; your emotional life remains flat and lacking, except for the momentary relief when you eat? You're ashamed to admit that you castigate yourself for being "fat, ugly, and unworthy." A part of you is stuck inside an earlier time, still listening to an old story about yourself and the world. You haven't been able to shake free; you do and feel the same things same over and over, and you don't know why. Overeating has an emotional resonance that healthy eating doesn't and you can't let it go, no matter how strong your desire to lose weight. Why?

The Complex Conundrum:
Facts: Unfortunately It is Just Not that Easy, Yet There is Hope

Treating the overweight, the medically-defined obese, or disordered-eating person has been a challenging, frustrating, and daunting dilemma for all involved. This has been true from both sides of the treatment partnership—for you, the patient as well as for those in the mental health field and the medical profession. It's an uphill battle.

Many who struggle with weight regulation lose and gain, sometimes over and over. Some manage to stay slim but remain miserable. This is what I call a pseudo-cure or hollow victory because the slimmer body just doesn't feel like you, doesn't feel authentic. It looks like you are cured, but you are not.

If this sounds like you and you if you are tired of simple answers that haven't worked for you, or dare to delve beneath the "how to" of dieting and food regimens, READ ON!

What this Workshop is, and what it is not. This is not another "angle."

First, What B.I.T.E.® is not.

The B.I.T.E.® Workshop is not a simple fix-you-up program, with promises of easy answers. Participating in a B.I.T.E.® Workshop is a unique therapy experience, a challenge and an opportunity to appreciate and fully comprehend what is really going on inside you. It's an opportunity to embark on a process of untangling the complicated meaning of food and overeating in your life, and then to help you change your interaction with yourself and food. Self-perception and body image are central to this. The part of you that responds to a "call to food" instead of developing a capacity to regulate and normalize eating has to be understood and gently let go of. We all have to eat in order to sustain life. But if the pull to eating runs you, and not you it, you're in trouble.

What B.I.T.E.® is

B.I.T.E.® helps move you to a call of action, which is possible with some hard work, to live a life unburdened by the drive to eat under any and all circumstances. B.I.T.E.® teaches self-regulation in a structured program.

And now, WHAT IS the Mechanism of B.I.T.E.®

The B.I.T.E.® method was specifically created for working with individuals or groups in a Workshop context to alleviate the suffering of those with disordered, dysregulated eating problems with resultant unwanted weight. Be it 10 or 50 pounds, this work can be done.

The B.I.T.E.® Workshop

B.I.T.E.® is a structured 20 week program in Workshop form with a follow up ongoing Mentoring group. Each session meets for 1 ½ hours. B.I.T.E.® is one part of a triangle in a treatment program acting as an adjunct focused program which dovetails with existing individual therapy, nutritional, and exercise work. If necessary, I will help you put together such a team. The report by psychotherapists who have patients participating in the B.I.T.E.® program is that after all of the years of talk therapy, the work of the B.I.T.E.® Workshop moves people into action mode and authentic change. They move from fear and disengagement to grappling with the here and now. Participating in B.I.T.E.® is a unique experience because it combines the techniques of group psychotherapy, the latest research in neuro-psychology and Modern Regulation Theory, and nonverbal somatic experiencing and authentic movement.

Workshop I addresses "Why Can't I Just do it?" Why can't I regulate and balance my eating and my interaction with food? The focus is understanding and appreciating your personal roadblocks. Teaching new methods and skills to help you "do it".

Workshop II, Now I See How to Get Beyond My "Fat" Head, shows you how to use your body as a resource to facilitate self expression, and how to redefine your perception of yourself and your body image. We will explore specialized somatic and movement techniques that directly effect your experience of being in your body. You can move from feelings of negativity, disgust and shame about your body towards a more positive body image.

The goal: Mastery of your felt dysregulation when it comes to food. Achieving an attunement with your body such that you can look in the mirror and smile at what you see.