Life Long Issue With Weight

My mother has been battling with her weight for as long as I have been alive and old enough to be aware of it which was age 5. I am now 32 years old. She has tried every diet known to man kind. This is my confusion, every time my mom begins to have some success on one of her crazy diets she goes off of the diet and gains all of her weight back. She gives yo yo dieting a whole new meaning. It is very difficult to watch her beat her self up over and over as she repeats this self destructive pattern. How can I help her?

I believe that you can only help yourself feel better about your mom’s ongoing battle with her weight. Your mom appears to have made a career out of this issue and no one gets to take it away from her, not even you. What I would like to suggest to you is that you begin to embrace this consistent pattern of hers and instead of judging it as self destructive begin to see it as simply your moms ongoing complicated relationship with food and her conflicted feelings about herself. This reframing of your moms situation will feel better to you as you soften the language around the entire issue. Please know that when she is ready to untangle her relationship with food and create a more loving relationship with herself, she will have the backing of her inner-being, the entire universe and of course you, standing on the sidelines cheering her on.