Ready to Release the Weight and Become the Person You Know You Can Be?
The Releasing the Weight program was created for smart, ambitious women who are ready to lose weight without dieting, deprivation, or restriction.
Unlike dieting, in Releasing the Weight you'll uncover and address the source of unconscious habits that make losing weight a battle. You'll learn how to choose and sustain new eating habits for the long haul, no matter what foods people around you are eating, and without having to give up your favorite foods or social meals with friends, family, and colleagues.
This habit change approach to losing weight is designed to be flexible enough to integrate into a busy life, so that you can take care of your own needs, even while taking care of a career, family, and world-changing-causes.
GET ON THE WAITLIST
INTRODUCING...
THE ANTI-DIET
IT'S TIME TO ESCAPE THE EXPLOITATIVE, HARMFUL DIET INDUSTRY. THERE IS A BETTER WAY.
It's not your fault that dieting hasn't worked for you in the past, or if you've lost weight and gained it back. Traditional diets don't teach you how to make the internal shifts that lead to lasting change. That's why 95% of diets fail.
Traditional diets rely on willpower, motivation, and restriction. But willpower and motivation wax and wane. And what we resist persists.
Releasing the Weight teaches you the tools to free yourself from the relentless push/pull struggle with food.
This time, it's not about starving or getting skinny.
This time, it's about fueling your body and building an internal strength that releases you from the grip of food and the type of hunger that is never fed by what you eat.
Releasing the Weight coaching will help you rewire your brain and free yourself from the tyranny of cravings and calorie-restrictive diets, so that you can lose weight and gain energy, while still eating foods that bring you joy.
You've tried many diets before.
You've gained the weight back.
Here's why it will be different this time.
Research Based
The principles of this program are based on evidence-based findings and best practices from the fields of behavioral and circadian neuroscience and neuropsychology. However, not all all bodies and lifestyles are the same, so best-practices can be adapted to individual client needs and life circumstances.
Power over Cravings
Traditional diets focus on quick weight loss. But unless you fundamentally address the source of your eating habits, the weight usually returns. Releasing the Weight teaches you how to reduce or even eliminate problematic eating habits and cravings, so that you can lose weight and keep it off.
Nourishment, not
Narrowed Choices
No foods are off-limit. There are no pre-packaged foods, pills, shakes, or supplements to buy. There's no strict meal plan, calorie-counting, carb-cycling, or red/yellow/green light labeling. You can learn to lose weight and feel fuller by nourishing yourself with what you are truly hungry for.
Redefining Success
On the path to lasting weight loss, a key to changing habits is expanding your repertoire of wins off the scale. We live in an era of instant gratification. But your body is evolutionarily wired to fight against the fast weight loss that's promoted by the diet industry. Success in this program entails learning the real steps to sustainability, so you no longer have to rely on willpower to decide whether to buy the ice cream or eat the cake.
Quieting the Critic
Do you ever hear a voice in your head that regularly shames and harshly judges your body and your food choices? It's so much easier to lose physical weight when you learn to turn down the volume on the voice that berates you. That voice is so heavy. And not helpful at all. You'll learn to let that go, too.
Science-based Skills
This program is not a diet. And it's not a One Size Fits All fad. This is a behavior change program that teaches you skill sets for changing your unique habits around food. While learning the principles of habit change, you can customize the program to your personal goals and needs.
How Do You Release the Weight?
There are 5 research-based modules in the Releasing the Weight framework, delivered weekly over the course of three months.
After an initial introduction to these five core modules, Dr. Kara shares additional information using a just-in-time coaching approach in response to student progress and challenges.
With this adaptive coaching approach, you get access to the right information, at the right time, taking into account what's happening for you each week as you practice implementing the material you were introduced to the week before.
Module 1: Habit Loops
The first step to changing your relationship with food is getting very clear on habitual behaviors, thoughts, and feelings that keep you from becoming the person you want to be. Sometimes we know exactly what is causing the problem and we get frustrated when we know intellectually what to do differently, but can't get ourselves to do it. Other times, the source of our choices is more subconscious. In this module you'll be supported to map out both the obvious and the sneaky, self-sabotaging habit loops that prevent you from losing weight and keeping it off. You can get started with this process by downloading my free kickstarter guide, or we can do this mapping together.
Module 2: Habit Change
The secret to habit change isn't just repetition, it's repeatedly looking at and paying attention to what we get from a particular behavior. Attention is truly your habit change super power. When you pay attention with clarity, curiosity and compassion (yes, compassion!), you open the door to turning away from behaviors that may feel good in the short term but no longer serve you and towards new behaviors that do. You'll receive access to tools that will help you make the key mental, emotional, and behavioral shifts for losing weight without restriction or deprivation.
Module 3: Your Circadian Rhythms
When you eat can profoundly impact your sense of feeling hungry and full. You'll learn how your body's sleep rhythms impact the hormones that influence hunger and satiety. In conjunction, you'll learn the fundamentals of intermittent fasting and decide where and when to implement this tool to optimize your nutritional intake and weight loss.
Module 4: Knowing What You Eat
There are no restrictions to what you can eat or drink in this program and absolutely no counting calories. But getting a clear picture of what, when, and how much you eat is a critical component to changing eating habits. Often times we think we know, only to be surprised when we take a closer look to find hidden habits such as eating when we aren't hungry, eating too much when we are multitasking, restricting our eating, and eating foods that feed our cravings but do little to nourish our body or soul.
Module 5: Mindset
Cravings that have controlled you will lose their power as you learn to use your mind to reset how rewarding you find go-to comfort foods or eating behaviors that don’t serve you well. This doesn’t mean you have to stop eating favorites or miss out on important social events. You will build your capacity for true choice by bringing your awareness and natural curiosity to Why, What, When, and How you eat. You will also unlearn dieting ideas that have become normalized by the diet, food-processing, and fashion industries that weight you down mentally and that lead to the yo-yo weight loss and regain effect.
WHAT CLIENTS ARE SAYING
"In one month I’m down 7lbs and I’m confident I’ll remove the other weight. I have a bikini to wear for my 50th birthday! Today I was on a call with Kara and had my greatest learning on my eating triggers. The learning doesn’t stop and I’m so grateful to be on this journey. I no longer feel ashamed of my body and eating behaviors, which is quite remarkable to me!"
Caroline Stokes, CEO, Author, & mom of 2 teens
"I've been working with Kara as my coach for a couple of months now. So far I've lost about ten pounds. More importantly, Kara has been helping me release old habits that were no longer serving me and establish new ones that will move me toward my goals for lasting change. She is knowledgeable, supportive, and kind. I highly recommend working with Kara."
Jenny Lisk, Award-winning author & mom of 2 teens
What You Get When You Sign Up For Releasing The Weight Coaching
Private Online Support Group
You are not alone in this journey. As part of our work together, you can ask questions in our private online group, where you'll receive support and resources from Dr. Kara.
Weekly Video Sessions
Join Dr. Kara in a weekly video call. Each session includes content and coaching for developing your habit change skill set. You'll learn from other group members as they share their challenges and victories, and have the opportunity to work 1:1 with Dr. Kara to troubleshoot your own progress.
Resources You'll Love
Changing your habits means learning new information about how our brains and bodies work together, how habits are formed, and how you can change them using science-backed practices. You'll receive content through email and in our private group that will help lead you step by step through mindful habit change.
Daily Accountability & Cheerleading
We'll work together to strike the right balance to help you follow through on your commitment to yourself by posting your progress with balancing macros, and intermittent fasting, and designing your environment to help you follow through on your intentions.
Dr. Kara's Weight Loss Story
As I turned 50, the weight I had accumulated after spending decades at a desk and having two kids was making me miserable. I barely recognized myself.
Truth be told, I didn't really want to know how much weight I had gained. I wanted to love myself regardless of my size. I was intentionally rejecting cultural imperatives for women to be thin. And I didn't want to step on the scale and have yet another reason to beat myself up.
But none of my clothes fit, not even my comfy ones. And I refused to buy bigger sizes. So I was living in one pair of large, tattered, black sweats and a few tees (and this was years before the pandemic!).
I couldn’t bear to see myself in the mirror or in pictures with my kids.
I was exhausted and had little energy for the most basic things that I wanted to do, like take my kids to the park . Activities that I used to love, like yoga, were too uncomfortable with the rolls around my waist. Sex? Forget about it!
Although I desperately wanted to lose weight, I was unable and unwilling to endure the calorie restriction that I had used when I was younger to take off extra pounds. I would gorge in anticipation of starting to count calories, psych myself into it, then give up a few days in when I couldn't take the hunger.
Everything changed when I woke up to my eating habits.
As I learned what was causing the habits and how to change them without forcing anything, I began to release the extra weight from my body and life.
Even though the specifics of everyone's eating habits are different, the underlying habit loops are the same. When we heal our self-sabotaging habits, we can lose weight, and look and feel better, even as we get older. I did it as I turned 50 and so can you!