willpower to eat properly and stay thin. Misery on top of misery.
For about a year, I tried every diet known to womankind. Weight Watchers. South Beach. Atkins. Jenny Craig. I counted calories, carbs, and points. I boiled vats of tasteless, bland, low-sodium cabbage soup. I starved myself with carrot sticks, celery stalks, and sugar-free candies, and then binged on massive plates of enchiladas to “reward” myself for being so “good.”
I got myself into a sick, twisted cycle of dieting and bingeing, losing and regaining, over and over and over. At one point, my body was so malnourished and depleted from the constant dieting, my hair started to fall out.
Watching those blonde strands swirl down the shower drain, I had an epiphany.
“This shouldn’t be happening. I need to stop dieting and figure out some other way to lose weight, because this isn’t healthy.”
It didn’t happen overnight, but in the months that followed, I figured out how to start treating my body like a friend instead of an enemy.
I taught myself how to slow down and actually taste and savor my food, instead of stuffing myself mindlessly. I decluttered my closet and got rid of my “beige, boring mom” clothes—anything that made me feel tired or frumpy. I decluttered my circle of friends, too, and I ended a couple of relationships. Back then, I had a lot of “friends” who didn’t act like true friends at all, and who only wanted to get together to eat poorly, drink, and complain about their bodies, whine about their husbands, or gossip about other women. I didn’t want that type of negativity rubbing off on me anymore, so I distanced myself from those people. It was like a “detox” for my social life. I felt lighter and happier immediately.
I also challenged myself to be a little braver, and to do things that scared me. Little things, like posing for a family photo with my kids, even though I didn’t feel “thin enough” yet. Gradually, I challenged myself to do bigger things, like enrolling in a certification program to become a life coach, and eventually, quitting my job in real estate so that I could do coaching full-time.
Week by week, month by month, I continued to shed all types of things: old clothes that I didn’t like wearing, depressing diet books, stacks of magazines filled with unrealistic images, toxic relationships, and social obligations that bored me.
As I continued to strip away everything that had been weighing me down, an amazing thing happened: I lost weight, too. It happened gradually and naturally, without any calorie-counting or obsessive behavior. It just…happened.
My entire life was transforming, and my body was transforming right along with it.
It felt like a miracle—and it was a miracle that I wanted to share with as many women as possible.
In the years that followed, I started offering weight loss coaching to women in my community, and then eventually to clients that I met online, based all over the world. Women loved hearing my personal story of transformation, and they loved my “no diet” approach to weight loss, which felt so different from anything they’d been encouraged to do before. Over and over, clients emailed me to say “I’m losing weight, just like you said I would, but that’s just the beginning. I also found the courage to apply for my dream job!” or “I finally launched my online jewelry shop!” or “I booked that vacation that I’ve been putting off forever!” or “I asked that cute guy at the dog park out on a date.”
I noticed a distinct pattern: when women stop dieting, and stop obsessing over their size, ironically, that’s when they finally start losing weight. In the process, they become braver and bolder. They start asking for raises at work. They start demanding more help around the house. They lunge after exciting opportunities instead of hiding and waiting until “later.” Their lives expand in all kinds of ways. This isn’t just about “weight loss.” It’s a female empowerment revolution. It’s about treating yourself like a woman who matters, and who’s worthy of respect.
I wanted to write a book about my story—a book that would guide women through a weight loss process unlike anything they’d seen or tried before. My clients told me, “Yes! I’d buy that book in a heartbeat.” My Facebook community—which had grown to over ten thousand fans by this point—echoed the excitement. “Do it!” “Write it!” “I want to buy a copy for my daughter!” “Please write it ASAP.”
I holed up for five days with Alexandra, my writing mentor, and poured out the book. Hundreds and hundreds of pages of material. Stories from my own life. Stories from my clients’ lives. Specific, actionable guidance on how to lose weight without harming yourself in the process—and guidance on how to become braver and feel unstoppable.
After that, we created a very detailed book proposal to describe why this book needed to get published, and why it would be a smash-hit success and sell millions of copies. (Well, hopefully!)
With that, it was time for me to start emailing literary agents. I needed to find someone who would believe in this book as much as I did.
I wish I could say that it was a quick and easy process. I wish I could tell you that I woke up the very next morning and three agents had already emailed me to say, “I love you! Your book is a work of sheer genius!”
But, no. That’s not what happened. What actually happened is…I contacted twelve different agents. And I received twelve rejections. Bam, bam, bam. One after another.
A few agents were actually pretty rude to me, and basically told me:
“Customers want diet books, and this isn’t a diet book, so I don’t think any publisher will be interested in this project.”
I wanted to email back with a sassy tone and say:
“Yeah, I know it’s not a diet book. Because diets suck and they ruin women’s lives. That’s literally the entire point of my book.”
(I restrained myself from saying that, but just barely.)
After receiving the twelfth rejection in a row, I started to cry. Hot, sloppy, messy tears, while clutching my iPhone in my car outside the gym. I’m a strong woman, but twelve “No’s” is a lot for anybody to stomach.
I felt so misunderstood. Why couldn’t anyone “see” what I was trying to achieve with this book? Why didn’t they understand that I was trying to save women’s lives, crush the diet industry, and start a health revolution? Why wasn’t that message coming across clearly? What was I “missing” here?
I have to admit: I felt really defeated and irritated. For a while, I stopped emailing agents. I just completely stopped trying. For about six months, I put my book on the backburner and busied myself with other projects, like working with clients, leading retreats, and doing speaking engagements. It was a full, exciting, and very profitable year for my coaching practice, and there were plenty of other projects to distract me from the book. But oh…the book. The book kept nagging at me the entire time, saying, “Please don’t forget about me.”
My clients kept nagging me, too. “Did you find an agent yet?” “Whatever happened with your book?” “When is the book coming out?” “When can I pre-order it?”
The end of the year was fast approaching. I stared at my calendar. I stared at the book proposal Word document that had been sitting on my computer desktop for ages, ignored and unattended. And I realized: “I can’t procrastinate anymore. It’s time to find a literary agent, get a book deal, and get this book into bookstores. I’ve got to try again.”
I
