Weighted Wisdoms

09/02/2026

Shame does not motivate sustainable behavior change. It consumes the very capacity change requires.
By the time many people arrive in obesity care, they are already depleted—by poor sleep, caregiving responsibilities, financial limitations, inaccessible environments, weight stigma, and years of being told that their body is evidence of a personal failure.
Then we hand them a comprehensive plan and call them “noncompliant” when their life cannot accommodate it.
In my latest essay, “Shame Consumes Capacity,” I explore why the willpower story is such a bad map for obesity care—and what becomes possible when we ask a different question:
What knowledge, skills, emotional steadiness, physical ability, resources, treatment, and environmental support would make this behavior realistically repeatable for this particular person?
The work is not demanding more from depleted people. It helps restore the capacity we keep expecting them to already have.
Read the full essay on Substack.

Why behavior change in obesity care isn't about willpower, and what it's actually about

08/26/2026

The complications that came with my obesity treatment journey have presented the adventure of a lifetime— next week, I am headed to Toronto for to hear the researchers I admire speak on subjects important to people affected by obesity. I fly home for less than a week, only to head to Tijuana to visit my surgeon’s team and see the hospital he’s building, then fly to London to lecture at the University of Oxford on the Psychological Outcomes After Bariatric Surgery Complications. I am using my lived experiences to make a difference in the lives of other people affected by obesity and the complexities presented with its treatment and long-term outcomes. Never stop telling your story— it will take you places you’ve never imagined possible.

08/25/2026

The person you used to be is not coming back.

That can sound devastating. But sometimes, accepting it is the beginning of something far more honest than trying to get back to “normal.”

Major change doesn’t just alter our circumstances. Loss, weight change, illness, relationships, career transitions, parenthood, recovery—these experiences can dismantle the roles and stories we used to understand ourselves.

And then comes the strange in-between.

You aren’t who you were anymore. But you don’t quite know who you’re becoming.

So you wait. You adjust things. You tell yourself that maybe if the right variable changes, you’ll finally feel like yourself again.

But what if the work isn’t finding your way back?

What if it’s grieving the person you were—and beginning to build the person you’re becoming?

My latest Weighted Wisdoms explores role exit, identity reconstruction, anhedonia, and what happens psychologically when the old story of your life ends before the new one has begun.

08/24/2026

Sometimes you don’t move forward because you’re brave.

Sometimes you move because the place you’ve been standing has become too painful to stay.

There’s a strange space after grief—the acute pain has receded, but you still don’t recognize the person you’re becoming. You know the old life doesn’t fit anymore. You just can’t see what comes next.

We talk a lot about hope in moments like these. But I think hope can ask too much of us.

Curiosity doesn’t.

Curiosity only asks: What if I looked? What if I pushed on the door? What if I let myself wonder what might be on the other side?

My newest essay is about grief, identity, the uncomfortable threshold between who we were and who we’re becoming—and why we may need curiosity before we’re ready for hope.

The Door You Don’t Know How to Open

I’m standing on the edge of something.

08/17/2026

When the scale moves but the mirror doesn’t.

You did the work. The weight came off. Your health improved.

So why don’t you feel better?

I see this often in people after significant weight loss, including those who have undergone bariatric surgery or are using GLP-1 medications. The treatment may be working by every clinical measure, yet the happiness, confidence, or body acceptance they expected doesn’t necessarily arrive with the number on the scale.

That disconnect can be confusing—and painful.

In my latest Weighted Wisdoms article, I explore conditional self-worth, body-image distress, the grief that can accompany significant changes in the body, and why sustainable health involves more than changing your weight.

“The problem isn’t the goal. The problem is what the goal is being asked to carry.”

Read When the Scale Moves But the Mirror Doesn’t:
https://nanetteadamslpc.substack.com/p/when-the-scale-moves-but-the-mirror

You did the work. So why don’t you feel better?

08/12/2026

For a long time, every time the scale moved back up, I asked myself the same question everyone asks: what am I doing wrong?
It took me years, as a therapist and as a person living with obesity, to understand that it was the wrong question.
I talked with the Plus Sidez podcast this week about weight regain: the stalls, the plateaus, the moments the disease pushes back after you've done everything you were told to do. We talked honestly about the shame that comes with it, why self-blame is so common, and why none of us should be carrying this alone.
If you've ever felt like your own body was betraying you, I think this one will land. Link in the comments.

08/10/2026

I spent a good chunk of my life certain I was the odd one out. Bullied in middle school for my weight, then for my music, my clothes, the things I was into. I learned to say "I don't care if they like me" and mostly meant it.

Professionally, that outsider feeling followed me into rooms where I was the only mental health provider talking about obesity, where people seemed to wonder why I was even there.

Then something shifted. GLP-1 communities grew. Patients started speaking publicly about their lives. Obesity started being understood as a disease instead of a personal failing. Suddenly there were more of us, and the conversation I'd been having quietly for years was happening out loud.

I'm grateful for that. It made space for me to speak up about something I care about deeply: how obesity affects our mental health, and why care so rarely accounts for it.

And still, some days, I feel like the kid who didn't get invited. Both things are true at once. I've decided that's okay.

New essay is up. Link in comments.

08/08/2026

Shame has a way of speaking in contradictions.
You’re too much. You’re not enough. You should be different. You should hide this part of yourself.
And over time, those messages can cost us something: our voice, our courage, our sense of belonging, and even our ability to believe we’re worthy of love.
But shame is not the author of your story.
You can begin questioning the messages you’ve carried. You can become curious about where they came from. And you can start choosing something different.
You are allowed to take your voice back.
I wrote more about this in my Substack article, “What Shame Steals From Us.”
Read it here: https://nanetteadamslpc.substack.com/p/what-shame-steals-from-us
💬 What has shame tried to convince you to believe about yourself?

08/07/2026

A friend texted me this morning, after reading my last piece, asking if I'd had skin removal surgery. I haven't. And the honest answer to why turned into this whole article.

The short version: after eighteen years, five regains, and a lap-band journey that cost me savings, self-esteem, and years of believing it was my fault, I stopped trusting my own body. GLP-1 treatment didn't fix that overnight. But the weight stabilization gave me something I hadn't had in two decades: enough steadiness to stop bracing for the next regain and start practicing real body acceptance and loving-kindness toward a body that has been through a lot.

I also write about the changes I've noticed that I'm NOT willing to claim are caused by the medication, because we don't have that science yet. There's a big gap between what people are experiencing and what we can actually prove, and that gap is where I find myself most curious.

If you or someone you love has lived any part of this, I think you'll recognize yourself in it. 💙

Link in the comments.

08/02/2026