Are You Ready To Lose Weight!?: Figuring Out And Tackling Any Psychological Issues

Most people think they are ready to lose weight just because they don’t like their appearance or feel like they could lose some pounds. This isn’t the case. After all, if this were true, practically everyone would be skinny. When there is a large weight gain (like my 70+ pounds in four short years), there is often a psychological issue behind it. The sooner you figure out this issue (if there is one), the sooner you will be able to deal with everything else.

In order to aid you in figuring out if there’s a psychological reason behind your weight loss, I am going to use my story as an example:

I have really big issues with control, but very different than a lot of other people’s control issues. My issues with control are that I always need to feel as though I am in control of myself. If someone tries to control me, it REALLY bothers me. Upon reflection, I think this is because of my parents’ relationship. My dad was always VERY controlling of my mom and had serious control issues. I don’t have problems when it comes to controlling other people (in fact, I’m pretty lax), but I do have serious issues when people try to control me.

When I was younger, I felt that there were people in my life who were trying to control how I should look through negative reinforcement. By saying things like “you’re getting pudgy,” “you’re fat,” etc. (which by the way, I was 5’ 3’’ and 115 pounds and later 128 pounds when I was told these comments so I wasn’t fat at all), I felt like they were trying to control how I looked and felt about myself.

Logical me knew I wasn’t fat because I would get tested in gym class and would fall in the middle of the normal range. But the other me that had been criticized since I was in sixth grade by family members had major body image issues. It wasn’t that I necessarily thought I was fat when I was younger, I just hated my body. My parents and my grandma had taught me before I had even entered high school to hate my body by making comments about how I was fat or “getting fat.”

The truth is, I wasn’t fat during this time at all. I have a medium frame and will have huge boobs and thick legs no matter how skinny I get. It’s just my genetics. So basically, when they were calling me fat…that’s what they were talking about. I was naturally thicker than other girls my age because of my body type. I developed boobs in the beginning of sixth grade and developed way before a lot of my friends did. So because of this I deserve to be ridiculed by family members?

This is where older, more smart me gets angry. How are grown adults who should know better have the nerve to criticize a girl who is growing into her body? I can remember counting calories in the seventh grade and doing hundreds of sit-ups even though I didn’t really understand why. I just knew that this is what you were supposed to do if you wanted to lose weight, which is what several older adults in my life made me feel like.

Do you think I would have hated my body if I didn’t have the adult role models in my life criticizing my weight? Would I have been worrying at such a young age about my body if it wasn’t for their comments? No, probably not.

So I developed psychological issues and when my parents (and others) began to put more emphasis on my looks, I began to gain weight (and lots of it). I wanted to show my parents what negative reinforcement (their primary parenting method) can do. I was going to do the unthinkable in my family *GASP*….I was going to stop caring what I looked like and start gaining weight. And I didn’t stop until I proved my point effectively and was obese. This was something subconscious me needed to do in order to get back at my parents for all their superficial BS they had put me through my whole life.

I know, to some people this may sound like the most ridiculous thing in the whole entire world..because in reality, I was just hurting myself. I can’t tell you why this was my train of thought because I didn’t even realize it at the time, but it just was. After I found Sparks, I did realize I was just hurting myself. But quite honestly, I’m glad I gained all that weight…it made me a way more understanding and compassionate person. Plus, I will never have body image issues ever again. This was a huge issue for me when I was younger because of all the crap my parents and society fed me about how I SHOULD look. Now I realize, the only way I should look is what makes me comfortable, not what makes OTHER people comfortable. Very few people actually meet society’s standards anyway…and nine times out of ten it’s not the people who are judging you (i.e. both my parents and my grandma, the three people who drilled my appearance are all three overweight).

So are there psychological issues holding you back from losing weight? Really dig for the answer to that question, especially if you gained a lot of weight in a short period of time (and there wasn’t a reason like a pregnancy behind it). Also, if you have failed to lose weight after trying numerous times…there’s most likely something that is holding you back. Most people have the willpower to do whatever they want when they REALLY want it. You won’t be ready to lose weight until you figure what these issues are. It is crucial to your success with whatever type of program you decide to follow (whether it be rigorous or slowest loser style).