At least once a week, someone asks me how I lost so much weight. Just to be clear, I lost about 40 pounds over the course of a couple of months. Once I explain that I lost the weight over two years ago, they naturally want to know how I kept it off. These are usually quick conversations. I try to share the most relevant piece of the story for that person at that moment.
Losing 40 pounds may not seem like a lot to some people, but for me, the journey changed the way I see myself and the world around me. The next couple of posts will summarize my weight loss journey; however, I have to warn you, it was not an easy process until I found the right keys for me.
My Beliefs About Weight
When you want to make any change, it is a good idea to decide what you believe about that thing. In general, we do things because they line up with our beliefs, whether we know it or not. Our beliefs and resulting behaviors typically function to protect us from something we don’t want or to help us get something we do want.
If you are trying to make a change, you will want to explore your beliefs and figure out how you benefit from that behavior. In my case, I believed that being overweight would protect me from unwanted male attention. If I wanted to justify my behavior, I could find many good reasons that this belief was protective. It took me a long time to realize that this was the major underlying belief that was sabotaging my efforts to lose weight.
Of course, there are other beliefs about weight, eating behavior, and health. For instance, some families value eating big meals together. If you show up for family dinner and only eat a few things, some family members may get offended. In an effort to be polite, we may eat for social reasons rather than health reasons.
I also believed that I could exercise enough to “work off” the consequences of bad food choices. Through education and experimentation, I learned that this is not true. Another dysfunctional belief was that low-fat foods were good for me. Wow, was I wrong!
The saddest belief was that I could motivate myself to “do right” by berating myself when I fell short of my desired goals or behaviors. That ended up putting me in a state of mind where I didn’t even want to try anymore. This self-criticism further eroded my self-image, specifically my body-image, making it easier to make excuses than to look for solutions. If this happens to you, check out the post about self-compassion.
There are also emotional reasons that people make unhealthy food choices. That was not necessarily one of my beliefs around food, but it is for many people. My closest example of this is that I find myself wanting high-carb foods when I am tired. I still believe that a quick hit of sugar will give me a brief burst of energy; however, I also know that there are consequences. In the moment, I might not have the mental energy to weigh the pros and cons of the inevitable consequences of the sugar crash.
Changing My Beliefs
After “yo-yo dieting” for my entire life, I finally found the work of Robert Kegan. I have written about his work before in the context of balancing challenge and support. In addition to that aspect of adult development, he also studies why we fail to make the changes we say we want to make. He has a name for this natural tendency: Immunity to Change.
The basic idea behind it is that we have hidden, competing beliefs or commitments that work against our expressed goal. These hidden beliefs, once brought to the light, perfectly explain the behaviors we engage in that sabotage our effort to change. I will write more about working through the Immunity to Change later, but for now, you can check out his website: Minds At Work.
In doing this work, I found that I no longer needed to hold on to extra weight to protect myself. I was able to reframe that belief in the context of my current life circumstances, skills, and abilities.
I also found that I didn’t really want to “lose weight.” What I really wanted was to “gain health.” That’s a powerful difference. It helped me because my previous weight loss efforts were focused on pushing away things I didn’t want. This new focus allowed me to explore and pursue what I really did want.
Assessing Your Own Beliefs
Once you do the work, you may find that you have different beliefs behind your behaviors around eating, exercise, and health. Whatever those beliefs are, it is important that you acknowledge and accept that they are your beliefs. You might even need to practice some self-compassion regarding the fact that you even have those beliefs in the first place.
A more simple version of the Immunity to Change process involves simply exploring the pros and cons of your current and desired behaviors. I am attaching a simple worksheet that will guide you through assessing your own inner conflict about making a change. You are welcome to print it out and ask yourself these questions. Balancing Pros and Cons
Knowing your beliefs is a great first step. Once you can find awareness, acknowledgment, and acceptance of these beliefs, you are in a good position to explore whether or not they are still true. They might be true. It is more likely that they are outdated and more extreme than what is necessary for your current life.
If you want to test your beliefs, just try doing the opposite. For me, I tested the belief that I need high-carb foods when I’m tired. I tried just avoiding that temptation by distracting myself. I tried replacing the high-carb food with a high-fat or high-protein snack. I also tried a brief meditation or short walk instead of the high-carb food. In my case, all of those turned out to be better options than letting my outdated belief guide my behavior.
There is much more to this story, but I’ve been told that my blogs tend to get a little long. In an effort to honor your time and attention, I will save the rest for later. Those who know me personally, know that I love to talk about nutrition, exercise, and sleep. In fact, I could talk about those things all day if someone would listen.
In the meantime, check out your own beliefs around food, exercise, and health. Try to work with one specific problematic behavior at a time. Ask yourself the questions on the Balancing Pros and Cons worksheet. Don’t rush to an answer. Ask the question, take a couple of deep breaths, and see what comes up.
Let me know how it goes.
