Why Don’t We Help Ourselves Lose Weight?

by patbarone

I received sad news today… a woman I first met on social media, asking for help to lose weight, has had serious complications from surgery intended to alter her stomach’s ability to hold nutrition (gastric bypass surgery).

After years of pretending she was concerned for her health, I watched her dip in and out of diets, always despondent when they didn’t work. She embraced (and had personal evidence) diets were never going to work, but she preferred to keep “trying”, rather than face herself.

Am I surprised? No. Not really.

This is the saddest part of my work as a professional weight loss coach.

I’ve helped hundreds directly with coaching and thousands through my online programs, but not everyone wants to lose weight, and lose weight permanently.

Anne (a pseudonym) gave me permission to share her story with you.

She called me for help, but never quite signed on to begin a coaching relationship. Or a class.

She had a million excuses.

Actually, she was waiting for something to force her to act. (We usually wait for something ominous to force our hand – by then, it’s too late.)

Anne wanted someone else to take away her excuses. The rock-and-roll and in-and-out of diets seems comforting after a while, always living in the future, living in hope with no action.

Of course, hope with no action is fantasy.

Anne knows that now.

Really, she didn’t want to change. Most of us don’t!

Many people cling to the thinnest shred of any possible reason NOT to take charge. It’s a big step. They know there are no excuses available after they begin to work with me – they sense I teach an ultimate form of RESPONSIBILITY. (After all, I teach a class in responsibility called Own Every Bite!)

I get it.

I could not have seen my own weight rise to 242 lbs., if I didn’t have to work through the same shit everyone else has to work through to get to a point of change.

And I’ve had more than one potential client decide not to pursue coaching or healing their food addiction, clinging to their “safe” world of food-as-problem-solver and food-as-soothing-agent, and wind up right back in my office a few years later with a breast cancer diagnosis or diabetes (excess weight is a major contributing factor to both). Even then, they don’t quite see the connection of what they have created in their bodies, but their doctor told them to get their act together.

I don’t really want to see you in my enLIGHTen Your Life! Mastermind Class or as an individual coaching client when your doctor sends you… I want you to show up BEFORE that… when there’s still time for you to make positive change and ALTER the path you are traveling, a path that leads to poor health, body breakdown, and loss of power.

I want to see you when you recognize you have choices and are choosing health and self-care over your old martyrdom story of “everyone else comes first.”

No job, no relationship, and even the kids don’t come before your health. If you don’t put the oxygen mask on yourself first, you can’t help them. You won’t be there to help them.

And you’ll have given them a piss-poor example of how to manage life if you can only cope by stuffing your face.

No, you are not hiding that from the kids either. They know fat. Just like they know if you secretly drink, or drug, or cut yourself.

Believe me, I was once in your shoes. I walked that walk, until I got a new one.

Here’s what I think keeps most of us from receiving help: 

SHAME

It takes some real humble acceptance to recognize and admit we need help, or need to learn a new way to cope.

We often feel, if we avoid getting help, we’ll solve fat alone, and no one will be the wiser to what we’ve been doing or (worse!) what we’ve been thinking about ourselves. Because we feel a lot of shame about our physical condition.

Here’s what I think encourages us to move beyond addictions:

WORTHINESS

Somewhere, deep inside, you have to know you are worth more than the scraps you are getting in life. After all, if you were getting what you truly need, there would be no drive to augment life with excess food.

• That boring job, with the stress and headaches? Yes, you can do better.
• A terrible parent or relative who constantly judges and puts you down? Yes, you can find supportive, loving new “family.”
• The ungrateful children or siblings, who don’t understand your needs? Yes, we all need to be understood and loved. It’s possible.
• A spouse or partner who doesn’t hear, see or revere you? This costs a fortune in esteem.
• The toxic relationship you’ve forged with yourself, where you berate or excuse (or both) yourself for your choices and habits… it’s time to release it.

Overeating is about making up for something, stuffing real feelings, hiding.

We all need to love ourselves enough to choose to live differently.