What do you think will be different once you “lose the weight”?
Will you be more loved?
More liked?
More popular?
Take a second and actually answer this for yourself…
Now, how would you feel if you lost weight and those things didn’t happen?
What if you lost weight and your life didn’t get better — instead, it got worse?
I think it’s really important to prepare yourself for the negative emotions that come with weight loss.
Because until you expect life to get worse, you will continue to self-sabotage because your current reality won’t match up with the fantasy in your head.
Self-sabotage often happens when life gets worse, but you expect it to feel better, so you reach for something (like food) to numb the pain, which puts you right back at square one.
This is quite a big pill to swallow, so I will explain this at great length:
Those that struggle with overeating often fantasize about life at a lighter weight. I personally did this a lot, and still do sometimes, if I’m being honest.
Some examples of weight loss fantasies include:
- Getting so much praise from others, being looked up to and everyone wants you to share your secrets with them… AKA external validation.
- You’ll be the hottest person in the room so you’ll clearly need a stick to beat all the men away with!… AKA you think you’ll be more lusted over.
- Having mind-blowing sex, because for once you won’t feel so insecure about your body, so you won’t be in your head the entire time… AKA all your body-image worries will disappear…
Now, what if… what if none of that happens?
What if you lose the weight, and the praise doesn’t come?
And the sex still intimidates you?
And the men aren’t fighting over you?
The reality of weight loss isn’t as pretty as the magazine and billboard ads paint it out to be.
When you lose weight, I guarantee that certain parts of life will get more difficult.
Prepare for this.
Although some parts will get better — like enjoying your new body — other parts will get worse. To name a few…
- You will deal with others behaving jealous and edgy around you because now you heighten their insecurities with your new bod.
- You will deal with more failure because now that weight loss isn’t sucking up all your time, you have moved onto bigger things, and those things come with risks.
- You will deal with more rejection because if you start to put yourself out there more often, you will increase the instances of approval and rejection.
Now, why am I telling you all of this awful stuff?
I’m sharing the harsh reality so that you don’t self-sabotage.
By preparing for life to get worse, you won’t fall back into compulsion if/when it happens.
And it will happen.
Another way of saying this is that, if you’re trying to stop overeating so that you can feel better, it’s not going to work.
You need to be here to feel worse in the short-term and enhance your character in the long-term.
Oh yeah, and stop overeating and achieve your natural weight in the longterm, also.
Practices like stopping to get present, drop into your body and feel your feelings, asks you to be willing to feel worse, so that you can build skills that help you stop overeating for the long-haul.
Emotional eating is always about our feelings and the desperate desire to numb them.
As you master feeling your feelings and explore other self-care practices, you will have more negative emotions to deal with because you aren’t buffering them with food any- more.
There won’t be any food to soften the blow. You have to actually feel bad and not do anything about it sometimes.
See my blog on emotional eating for how to tackle emotional eating without simply saying to yourself ‘don’t eat emotionally.’
Fortunately, when we train in feeling uncomfortable, we get better at feeling uncomfortable without being swept away by it.
Will you sign up for this? Here are some reasons why you SHOULD sign
up for this:
- You will get sh*t done because now that you’ve stopped trying to please everyone, you can finally take action and accomplish your goals.
- You will move with momentum because now that you’ve stopped doubting yourself so much, you have more time to DO THINGS.
- You will achieve more success because, with all that action, you’re increasing your risk of failure, but after enough attempts, you will succeed.
Doesn’t sound too bad, right?
I’m almost done with the “negative” pep talk, but one more thing…
I believe that life is supposed to be 50/50 good and bad. And even if that’s
not true, believing that 50% of life is supposed to suck helps me feel
less bad when I do feel bad.
Try this belief on for yourself, like a new coat that you’re not sure you want
to purchase yet, and see if it helps.
I’ve found that when we embrace the 50% of life that feels bad and let it
feel bad, we can overcome our eating patterns much quicker.
So, this is your invitation. It’s an invitation to feel your feelings and expect
life to suck after you “lose the weight”— at least sometimes.
Although this isn’t a very sexy promise, it will help you avoid so many frustrating episodes of self-sabotage, backsliding, and gaining more weigh than you lose.
It’s time to surrender. You’re ready.
Let yourself be shaped by the courage it takes to feel.
