I’ve been active on some weight loss support forums lately, and I have some takeaways that were useful to myself but will also be useful to you.
The one I want to focus on today is the action focus of many users.
While the word ‘journey‘ is used as a descriptor by many, the true idea of that journey as an emotional and psychological one is rarely acknowledged.
Instead their success or lack of is described in terms of action.
- I finally did this…
- I ate better, and I exercised more.
And statements of facts of success or evidence in photos.
- I lost this much weight
- I went from X weight to X
- Here’s a photo before and after
As you can see it’s very focused on what was done, but not on how. The psychological struggle is real. And therefore the emotional struggle can feel overwhelming, but we rarely discuss this part of the journey as significant.
Is it because of that part of society that doesn’t want to appear weak, because trust me, acknowledging the mindset difficulties should not be perceived as weak, but instead as insightful, brave and realistic.
For those who have succeeded, many do not even seem to comprehend that they have overcome some deeper issues, they instead just go to that surface level of “Well I finally got my act together”.
Look deeper – go deeper – what did you actually do to achieve it?
Why is this important?
When I was losing weight (finally), I at first thought that I had finally committed, I had an action mindset. I was just doing it. What I didn’t realise was all the processes that occurred from birth to that moment to get me to that point, and why I hadn’t been able to do it in the past. There are some serious doozies in there. and then during weight loss, there were more. When I studied my grad cert in counselling I discovered some of my beliefs that threatened (If i let them) to have me rebound, yo-yo, and destroy myself. If I had not discovered these issues, I very well right now, could have gained the weight back. Instead I drew on what I had learnt about myself to never go back.
It’s not easy, and for some of us we have some quite difficult psychological reasons for our weight gain. Without addressing them, we may try, and try again to lose weight and sit in that horrid debilitating cycle of shame and guilt.
If you are yo-yoing, and never quite getting there, it is a sure bet that there are underlying reasons why you have not… And we need to get to that point where you can.
When you have freed yourself of unhelpful destructive beliefs around yourself, your weight, your diet and exercise, you are so much closer to success than you can imagine.
What is my concern about the verbalised action focus. Well I’d like to see more people talk about how they feel rather than on the action and the numbers, because it means they are more likely to be successful in the long term.
Here are some examples of how we can describe our success by moving away from the actions and numbers:
- I feel lighter and I can move more easily
- I have less pain
- I sleep better
- I feel confident now
- I’ve decided not to talk to that friend who tries to sabotage my diet
- I’m happier now because….
- I feel less stressed
Talk about the struggles and discoveries like this…
- I think I thought weight loss was impossible because it seemed impossible for my mum, so I ….
- I wasn’t being honest with myself. I said I was in a calorie deficit but I was snacking every night. I realised that was a habit from my childhood where my family would snack while watching movies. So I became more conscious of this habit…it took time to adjust
- When I’m stressed I eat. So instead I decided I would start walking when I felt stressed. Then I realised that it felt like running away from my problems, so I explored what that was about…
- Other people wanted me to lose weight, so I didn’t want to. Then one day I realised that I wanted to for me and whenever the voices of others crept in, I’d remember that it was for me and not for them. It felt empowering
When you talk about the emotional or psychological hurdles you had to get past it also supports others to realise that success is not purely action based. Many people feel they are failures for not committing to the action points, but what they don’t realise is that there are mindset issues to deal with in tandem with action. It gives them permission to look at why they struggle to ‘commit’ or ‘start’ etc
