Seven Attitudes for Weight Loss

I’ve mentioned previously that one of the most important ingredients in a weight control program is more often implied than specifically mentioned: the role of psychological factors.  I know that for myself, I have learned that it takes me about four or five specific psychological “tricks” every day to stick to my program.  As I’ve been working on this blog, I’ve come to realize that I’ve never really listed them all in one place before.

I assume that it’s not just me.  It seems likely that for the vast majority of people, the psychological factors are key to sticking with and succeeding at any significant weight control program.

Twerps!

Before going further, I want to clear something up.  This is not the first time I’ve had a “big weight loss” project.  It’s not a brand new discovery that this kind of goal takes a lot of time and investment and is just super hard.  In fact, I’ve generally had at least some kind of project to get or stay healthy and lose weight.  I’ve immersed myself in biking, martial arts, walking, running, and gyms before.  I’ve recorded my food intake in paper and digital diaries for extended periods of time.  Most of the time, over my whole adulthood, there has been at least some kind of “project” running.  I am not a newbie.

I say this in part because it’s important to state at the outset that of course, this is a huge, time-consuming problem, and not an easy one to solve.  If there’s a “new element” this time, it’s in my committing a vastly larger amount of time and effort to the project than I’ve done before — I’m finished with the “all you have to do is this little bit on the treadmill” philosophy. And I’d also like to think that I’ve learned a lot over the years about stuff that works and things that don’t.

But I also say it because it brings up, again, the problem of our “critics.”

If you grew up heavy, you learned a lot about your critics, and also about how thoroughly rotten people can be sometimes.  Little overweight kids are nearly always exposed to the jeers and name-calling and even downright bullying of other kids.  And of course, kids take all that name-calling inside — it informs their self-images.

Character and weight loss

Pop quiz: Which person in the picture above has the most “strength of character”?  Answer fast — left or right.

You guessed left, right?  The thin woman.  Why?

One of the obstacles in launching a big weight loss project is the psychological mix of messages we tell ourselves about weight loss.  The simple fact is that it is hard to accomplish significant amounts of weight loss.  The stats show that — most of us fail at it, often time after time after time.  (I’ve been working on it since age 8.)

The other simple fact is that it usually seems like it should be easy — to anyone who hasn’t tried it.  In fact, one of the things that isolates overweight people is that thin people (including your doctors and those perky little 22 year old dietitians they send you to) so often look at you and think, “why don’t they just…” and the implied rest of the sentence is, “be like me.  Do like I do.  I manage my weight just fine.”