Weight Loss: You cannot hate yourself to your goal

by Allison Hulett, LCSW.

As a weight coach, I often see clients who live in a painful and awkward state of both desperation and hopelessness. They would do anything to be living their goal weight and often verbally beat on themselves to try to get there – “What is wrong with me?!? Why can’t I do this?!? Ug, I’m such a loser. Why’d I eat that?!?” And then try again the next morning to get it all “right” so they can feel validated. Over and over, for years. Decades.

I used to point out how mean and unkind this was – “Would you say that to your friend?! To a complete stranger?”. But experience tells me that weight clients don’t care about mean and unkind, because if it’ll take them to their goal … so be it!

So, I now tell them very clearly, and in no uncertain terms – hating on yourself will actually keep you from your goal. You cannot hate yourself to permanent weight loss.

Dr. Brene Brown helps us out here when she differentiates “guilt” from “shame.”

Guilt is good. Guilt is when we hold our behavior up to our ideal self, and don’t like what we see. We love and respect our self and want better. “I drank too much last night and took obnoxious to a whole new level. That’s not who I want to be.” So we look, with self love and respect and curiosity and hope, at our behavior and do the work to change it. In turn, we evolve, grow, and connect.

Shame is quite different. It’s a toxic emotion at the root of most destructive and dysfunctional behavior. Shame isn’t “My behavior was bad”, but “I am bad.” Shame is the intensely painful feeling that we are inherently flawed. Ouch. It is a pain so hot, we want to numb it immediately. So when we’re in shame, we’re at our desperate worst. Rage, blame, perfectionism, and hiding. Overeating. Starving ourselves. Shame tells us there is no higher self, just damaged goods.

So I tell my clients from day one that they are not allowed to beat on themselves for any over or under eating. Ever. Never ever. That doing so will only sabotage their weight loss efforts. Instead, they start practicing - every day - the art of true self love and respect. Because if you love and respect yourself, you will take time for your health. For quality foods and exercise. For rest and pleasure. You will set boundaries. Let go of other people’s opinions. You will have space to forgive your failures, learn from them, pick up, and move on. You will evolve towards your higher self with love and compassion and respect… and eventually lose the excess weight.

Being hard on yourself, beating yourself up, might in the moment feel like the appropriate move to kick yourself into gear and achieve your goals. But the opposite is actually true.

So next time you eat 17 little quiche hor d’oeuvres too many at the party or three bowls of cereal at 11 at night, instead of saying afterwards, “What is wrong with me?!? Why can’t I do this?!?”

Try this one, instead.

“I am so amazingly awesome, it hurts. I wonder why, then, I’m overeating?”

And the answers come. Minus the tsunami of self hatred and pain.

“Well, I was bored/insecure/resentful at the party.”

Or,

“I didn’t eat enough today due to my insane schedule/” air and water” diet, so exhausted and starving I inhaled Honey Nut Cheerios at the eleventh hour.”

Ah. Now you can target the actual problem instead of targeting your worth as a human being. And “float like a butterfly, sting like a bee” your way to your goal weight.