Today we’d like to introduce you to Candice Seti.
Candice, before we jump into specific questions about your practice, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story
Not sure how much detail you want here, so I’m just gonna throw out my whole story! 😉 When it comes to weight loss and diet dependence—I’ve been there! Growing up I was a beanpole—skin and bones. I could eat anything, anytime, without impact. A half-gallon of ice cream, sure. An entire pizza, no problem. Of course, I didn’t really appreciate how lucky I was until the end of high school. That’s when I noticed that other girls had issues with weight and often talked about calories, and dieting—things I knew nothing about. Well, I maintained my ignorance in those areas until I was about 24 years old.
That was when things started to change. I didn’t notice it at first. Yes, I was buying clothes in a bigger size, but I didn’t give it a second thought It didn’t seem to be such a problem. That is until I stopped and took a good, long look at myself. I found I no longer liked what I saw when I looked in the mirror. I no longer felt comfortable in my skin. The biggest problem with this was that I HAD ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA what to do about it! I had never paid attention to health, ingredients, calories, ANYTHING! I just ate. A lot.
So, naturally, I went on one of the diets I saw advertised on TV. Everyone loses weight on those diets, and besides, they were so easy, right? I went in every week, weighed in, and picked up my food. And I lost weight—40 pounds when all was said and done. I was thrilled! I felt great. I was proud of my success and was happy in my skin again. So, of course, I stopped the diet.
I’m fairly sure you can guess what happened to me during the next year. Yep, you guessed it! I started to gain it all back. When it was less than ten pounds of regaining, I wasn’t so concerned, but as more and more of the weight I had so recently lost came back, well, I was frustrated! As you might expect, my natural reaction was to decide to go back on the diet. I mean it worked before! Shouldn’t I just do it again? Well, I did—three more times. Until I finally said, “What the ???”
This was my magic moment—the moment when everything changed for me. It just clicked in my head that it didn’t make sense. Was I going to have to keep going back on this diet every six months for the rest of my life? Was I stuck going back and forth with my weight? Wasn’t there any long-term solution? Did I have to live like this?
So, I decided to do something different. Do things my way—even though I wasn’t quite sure what that meant. 😉 Thanks to the diet program, I knew well how to count calories and that whole game. What I knew nothing about was my relationship with food. I didn’t know how I used food, why I ate when I did, how I made the food decisions I made, or what made my body feel good. So, being a psychologist, I decided to become my clinical study. I spent time examining my relationship with food and my body until I could finally answer all the questions I had about managing my weight.
To say I learned a lot in this process is the understatement of the century. I had no idea how reliant I was on food to make me feel better, to cure my boredom, and to give me energy. I had no idea that the most common reasons I ate were because I was bored or because food just happened to be nearby and available. And I REALLY had no idea what foods made my body feel good. It was almost as if actual physical hunger didn’t even fit into the equation when it came to my eating. Dieting had made me lose sight of what my body needed and when it needed it. Instead, dieting had replaced my body’s wisdom with rules and regulations that promised to make weight loss “easy” but instead made weight gain even easier!
So, after learning all this about myself, through a lot of trial and error, I was able to make changes. Changes to my thinking, changes to my behavior, and changes to my lifestyle. Changes that I have easily kept up since—for more than a decade. Once that happened, I never went on a diet again. And I never worried about my weight again. I felt good, I was in great shape, and more importantly, I was happy.
The process was so eye-opening for me that I decided to devote my life to sharing it with others. I knew I wanted to continue my practice as a psychologist, but I wanted to tweak it to focus on weight management and the relationship people have with food. I wanted to help others the way I’d helped myself and give them the same freedom that I had attained. I went back to school and got certified as a nutrition coach and a personal trainer so that I could truly focus on the whole picture with my clients. And I have loved every minute of it!
Please tell us about your practice.
I am a licensed clinical psychologist, certified nutrition coach, certified personal trainer, certified weight management specialist, and certified insomnia treatment clinician. As far as I know, I’m the only one of me! 😉 The only person with this unique set of skills and education. I am a psychologist in private practice and I specialize primarily in weight management therapy, eating disorder treatment and non-medication insomnia treatment.
I used my own experience with diet dependence to form the backbone of my treatment approach with weight loss and weight management. I help individuals gain awareness of their eating issues beyond dieting (emotional eating, self-sabotage, mindless eating, etc.) and help them develop a healthy relationship with food.
Through this work, I have also developed specializations in working with eating disorders and insomnia. Eating disorders, especially binge eating disorder, is a very common co-occurring disorder in the population I work with. And sleep is so vital to a healthy weight management plan that I wanted to further my knowledge and specialization in this area as well.
In addition to my brick and mortar practice, Me Only Better, I also offer services online via The Weight Loss Therapist. I offer several DIY programs for individuals that want to work at their own pace (weight management, binge eating, PCOS weight loss, menopausal weight loss, etc.) and I also offer coaching programs and video counseling.
I am so proud of what I do because I can help people who feel lost, dependent, and insecure gain a whole new awareness of themselves and their capabilities!
What is “success” or “successful” for you?
For me, success is all about making others feel secure and confident. This is something I strive for with all of my clients: helping them develop a healthy body image, a strong sense of self, and true and limitless belief in themselves.
Contact Info:
- Website: MeOnlyBetter.com TheWeightLossTherapist.com
- Phone: 619-345-4355
- Email: dr.seti@live.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/weightlosstherapist/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WeightLossPsychologist/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/WeightTherapist
- Other: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTkK20g1p_wUm91suvpUbcQ?
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