Description of 5 Essential Skills for Facilitating Sustainable Weight Loss 5 Essential Skills for Facilitating Sustainable Weight Loss is an effective guide for understanding the weight loss journey, including the barriers and the tools for making the necessary “thinking shifts” for lasting change, and was written with both the health professional and the client in mind. Many overweight clients believe that they alone must take responsibility for their weight loss and yet don’t believe they can make the necessary changes. They are likely to try fad diets and then make excuses when they falter, or blame themselves and focus on personal short-comings. 5 Essential Skills for Facilitating Sustainable Weight Loss outlines the major obstacles to weight loss and how to move past them through tools and exercises designed to help your clients create an expansive vision, set effective goals, restore balance in their lives, focus on the positive, raise awareness through mindfulness exercises, build self-efficacy and more.