It’s no secret that our culture is singularly focused on the need to succeed. But is the struggle for success, and even the achievement of it, contributing to the massive weight gain that the majority of women are experiencing?

The facts certainly suggest that it is.

For the last 5,000 years, masculine energy has dominated our patriarchal culture. It’s all about being better, bigger and faster. Success must be measurable – from what you earn, to what you wear, where you live, what you drive, or how many awards, achievements, and accolades you can pin to your name.

Steeped in an environment lopsided toward the masculine, women have been taught that their emotions and their pleasure is unnecessary for, and even inferior to, success.

We’ve been taught that hard work, not enjoyment, pays the bills. We’ve been ingrained with the belief that happiness and pleasure are the rewards of a string of achievements, and that hardship and sacrifice are the prerequisites to achieve the desired life of enjoyment and deep fulfillment.

A woman on this path may attain the goals she seeks, but only to fin herself feeling dried up emotionally, and burnt out physically, when she eventually gets there.

It’s not because she hasn’t done enough or hasn’t achieved enough. The true underlying reason to her general unhappiness is because she has starved herself of the joyous embodiment of the feminine in the process.

No woman should be deprived of the joyous embodiment of the feminine, for any reason.

Not even when it comes to weight loss.

Yet, the conventional weight loss industry has taught women to ignore our pleasures and adopt a masculine approach.

We’ve been taught to calculate our calories and control our portions. We’ve been told to ignore our cravings, deprive ourselves of the foods we love, and stick to food rules and restrictions that we don’t enjoy. We hop from diet to diet, engage in painful and extreme exercise routines, and then blame ourselves when we don’t see results.

We abandon the program but then pick up something similar under a different name and repeat the pattern.

This cycle of struggle has to end.

If you are done suffering through the punishing approach to weight loss and you are ready to commit to a pleasurable approach instead, voice your commitment in the comments below. Let our chorus of female voices rise up together in mutual support, mutual dedication, to stop listening to “the experts,” and to start listening to ourselves.