If you've ever tried to go on a diet, there’s a strong likelihood that you've tried it right after New Year. Sadly, it’s nearly just as likely that it didn't last til February. There’s a reason for that.

Simply put: diets don’t work.

For so many of us, there’s a compulsion to eat foods we know aren’t good for us, or even to avoid the minimal amount of exercise that would make such a drastic difference in our weight. Why is it so difficult to do what should be so easy?

It’s because your emotions are weighing you down.

For the past 10 years, I’ve been using EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) or Tapping to help myself and others work past pains, illness, and personal problems of all types. The results I’ve seen and continue to hear about are astounding, and nowhere is this truer than with those who tap to lose weight.

One such woman is Rhonda Robinson, who reached out to my sister, Jessica Ortner, and me after participating in our annual free online event, the Tapping World Summit. For years, Rhonda was trying to lose weight with little success.

“I had been on a couple of diets, one supervised by a nutritionist, another by an MD, but I’d always put the weight back on,” reminisces Rhonda. “Even with those sensible diets, my body was rebelling.”

Eventually, Rhonda discovered EFT, which blends principles of Western psychotherapy with an Eastern understanding – most notably used in acupuncture and acupressure - of how energy flows through your body’s “meridian points.” The result is an incredible technique that helps you to uncover the deeper reasons why you’ve been sick, overweight or struggling in any aspect of your life, be it disempowering beliefs or trauma in your past.

“It’s an amazing resource compared to other healing arts because it’s something you can do yourself,” says Rhonda. “If you’re willing to put the time in the sky’s the limit.”

She can speak with authority. After listening to Jessica’s session on Weight Loss for the Tapping World Summit in 2010, Rhonda began tapping and lost an astonishing 40 pounds. Best of all, she’s kept it off.

“Once I started tapping I realized I was holding on to a lot of anger, sadness and grief,” says Rhonda. “The reason I gained the weight in the first place was because my roommate at the time was ill with diabetes and was on kidney dialysis. She was dying while I was living with her and eventually passed away. People started commenting on how heavy I had become, asking, ‘what happened to you?’ It hurt and I felt very vulnerable. It was a difficult time and I held on to all of that.”

Once Rhonda started excavating those buried feelings, she found that she effortlessly started to make much-needed changes in her routine.

“I could feel the energy wanting to jump off of my body. I had to go exercise, it was so hard not to!” says Rhonda, giggling. “I also noticed that when I was preparing something to eat I would naturally set out smaller portion sizes. Once I started tapping, everything was easier and the weight just stayed off.”

“I feel like what’s inside of people is what makes them sick and causes them to carry the extra weight,” says Rhonda. “If my friends and family saw how much I was releasing and crying after Tapping they would have been really worried about me, but I needed to let all of that stuff go. The healing looks so different from what we’re used to, but it was so necessary. Today, I feel better, I look better, and I’m more confident.”

It’s astonishing and inspiring, and echoes what I’ve heard from thousands of others: Tapping simply works.

According to a story done by ABC News, America’s weight loss industry rakes in $20 Billion a year. 108 million of us continue to try diet supplements, programs and workout plans of all types only to fail at attaining or maintaining our ideal weight. Perhaps we ought to take a page out of Rhonda’s book and start dealing with what’s really weighing us down.