In a culture that loves instant gratification and every struggle-to-success story there is, what’s not to like about the idea of taking a pill to lose weight?

With all of the hype, hope, and hoopla happening around weight loss drugs, I have some thoughts to share with you about what stands out for me about them.

I think it’s important to address both the inner and outer games of losing weight, because you cannot successfully lose and keep weight off if you do not address both. I feel this is true for weight loss drugs just as much as it is for more traditional approaches to releasing weight.

Here’s why:

If you’ve ever gone on a diet, you’ve experienced the addictive “high” of what it feels like to lose weight – especially if it was a diet in the “crash diet” category, meaning it is meant to help you drop weight fast.

Suddenly you feel differently about yourself. You feel good. You feel sexy! You feel like you can do and be and have things that weren’t possible when you were carrying that extra weight.

This “high” that I’m referring to, in addition to the weight loss itself, is often what we’re chasing when it comes to wanting to lose weight. We believe we’re going to feel so much better about ourselves – even if we’ve not done any of the inner work to warrant feeling that way.

This is another example of focusing on the outer goal – to release weight – without ever addressing any of the thoughts, feelings, and beliefs we hold about our body weight and appearance, and how that impacts how we see and feel about ourselves.

When we start hanging how we see and hold ourselves on weight loss, or on a weight loss drug… I get very uneasy. Because self-esteem only ever comes from doing inner work and giving our inner world the attention and respect it deserves

It can’t be gotten, in any real, significant, and lasting way, via a pill, a diet, a fast, or any other “get skinny fast” method out there.

I think what we need to name is that our culture is so filled with “weight hate” that we are willing to risk life and limb to be thin. That millions upon millions of dollars are being spent on research to finally make weight disappear.

That our worthiness as women, as human beings, is so wrapped up in our appearance that we’ll do crazy things to our health and bodies to look a certain way.

There is a reason why carrying more weight than we want is such source of emotional pain for so many women. We’ve been programmed since childhood to believe that having and maintaining a beautiful (a.k.a. thin body) is the only way we’re ever going to feel good about ourselves.

And so, we diet and exercise and diet and exercise. If we can’t reach our goal weight, then we end up feeling like a failure.

But the truth is that we are worthy of feeling good about who we are no matter what we weigh. We are worthy of pursuing our dreams no matter what we look like.

We are already worthy.

If we are singularly focused on weight loss – via weight loss drugs or otherwise – we must also realize that this alone may not help us to feel good about ourselves. Because our confidence and belief in ourselves comes from a deeper place, and weight loss along cannot guarantee that. Ever.

The other place where I feel we need to be cautious when it comes to weight loss drugs is when we think about how these weight loss drugs work on the human body to promote weight loss.

There is no nourishment or care for the body happening when we take a weight loss drug. In fact, these drugs put the body into an altered state of some kind, that then suppressed appetite.

For me, weight loss drugs in general do not align with best practices to care for our bodies. Imagine the stress and strain that we’re putting our bodies through by taking a pill to suppress our appetite and then shed weight.

The fact that most of the weight that is lost in this form of weight loss is muscle and water weight is also noteworthy. Then, of course there are other important things to consider.

Did you know you have to keep taking these drugs for the rest of your life? That they come with significant (and sometimes horrific) side effects? That you very often end up trading health and vitality for being thin?

As much hype and hope as there is right now about weight loss drugs, thus far, in the entire history of weight loss drugs, there has never been a weight loss drug that didn’t have adverse side effects.

The way I orient to weight loss is that it is a journey – a journey that is as unique as every person on this planet is. This journey is about learning and growing, and seeing the weight that you want to lose as your teacher.

Now, if someone I loved was considering taking a weight loss drug, I would gently share my concerns with them, and ultimately, I would try to talk them out of it for all the reasons I’ve written about here.

But if my loved one chose the weight loss drug route, I would support and encourage them to stay attuned to and track their body, their health, and their overall experience. And I would cheer them on every step of the way.

Because we’re all doing our best to be happy. And if this is the road they choose to travel, my wish is that it unfolds in ways that bring them to the happiness they desire.