I am about 30 lbs. overweight. My weight effects pretty much every aspect of my life. I have zero self confidence, walk with my head down and I haven’t had a date in 3 years. I want to lose weight, but I can’t stop eating. What is it that compels me to keep eating even when I desperately want to lose weight?
Are fat people just kidding themselves? Is it just weakness and nothing else? Do we really not want to lose weight and just say “I can’t stop eating” as an excuse for our weakness?
What about exercise? I sit at the computer thinking “I really should go for a walk” but I never do. Are fat people just lazy as well?
I guess what I’m trying to figure out is, am I weak and lazy or is there something else going on? I almost hope it’s just that I’m weak and lazy. That seems like it would be easier to fix than some sort of psychological problem.
I am not fat, but I am weak and lazy. I think weak and lazy is pretty much the default mode for most humans as it is WORK not to be weak, and, well, some of us are lazy.
Just from my own experience, eliminating most sugar/processed foods eliminated a lot of cravings. I was always that person who could never eat 1 cookie. If I ate 1 cookie, I wanted a second cookie and a third cookie - I wanted to eat cookies until the package was empty. If I don’t eat the first cookie - no issues.
I’m sure that sounds like a terrible way to live long term, but I’m pretty happy 70 lbs lighter. I identified my food triggers and now manage them. I don’t allow packages of cookies, tubs of ice creams or my other trigger foods in the house, but I can handle splitting a dessert in a a restaurant or eating a single serving of ice cream from an ice cream parlour.
Another thing that really worked for me was eating. I know that may sound counter-intuitive, but in my life I had always “dieted” by restricting and being hungry and miserable. This typically led to binging and me feeling like a loser. To lose weight, I concentrated on eating a “whole foods” diet - lots of fresh, wholesome food at 2-3 hour intervals. I don’t like being hungry (and tend to make really bad food choices when I’m hungry), so this approach really works for me. It was also sustainable - I reached my goal weight over 3 years ago and my the food I eat to maintain my weight loss looks exactly like the food I ate to lose weight, I just allow myself 200 extra calories a day and a treat meal once a week.
I think it’s a mistake to assume that people get fat through loss of control and eating like a crazed pig beast. It’s not like that at all, you can easily put on weight by eating just a little too much, every day. The weight consistently creeps up and hey presto, you have your 30lbs excess. The good news is that you can (not so easily :() take it off in reverse, just by eating a little less everyday, and aiming for consistent weight loss over a longer period of time.
If you do absolutely no exercise, then yes, you’re lazy. Can’t really slice this one any other way. There’s a big activation energy to getting fit for some people, who feel that they don’t enjoy exercise. I have never known anyone, though, who didn’t like it once they properly tried it. Exercise is the easy part, it’s almost like a treat. It’s the diet that’s tough - who enjoys feeling hungry?
First off, what are you eating? Sandwiches or ice cream? Food that naturally looks like food, or food painted to resemble something you might want to eat?
If your main source of vitamins and minerals is crap, it’s going to take more of the same to get you what you need. Eat things that are good for you and don’t allow the crap in your abode. Don’t shop while hungry. Don’t shop while angry. Don’t shop while horny, tired, cranky, busy (you’d be surprised) or anything else. Shop when you’re feeling smart.
Fat people lack the same willpower skinny people do. I’ve been skinny since I lost my babyfat, and the only thing that allows me to run faster and farther than the average fat person is tht my body doesn’t have to work as hard to get going.
Decide to do some small exercise. Stretch, even. Then set yourself a schedule for it, and make it fun exercise. (Yes, Virginia, there is fun exercise.) If you do something you enjoy, you’re not thinking about how much longer you have to do it, you’re not cheating on it, etc.
Mindsets change if you’re willing to change them. But they are pervasive. The longer you’ve thought something, like “I can’t lose weight,” and the longer you’ve told yourself you can’t change your life, the more that’s ingrained in you.
Oh, and if you are eating for comfort, boredom or some other reason that isn’t physical hunger, you’re putting calories in your body that it doesn’t physically need. Replace that food with something more useful (like communication) and you’ll be better off physically and emotionally.
I have known several guys who were big and fat in high school, and then started working out, and seemingly within months, they were ripped and had insanely huge muscles. I always assumed that it was because their bodies had just naturally developed strong muscles as a result of having to carry all the fat around, and once they lost the fat, they had very muscular physiques for that reason. But I could be totally wrong.
I think it’s more like your metabolism being cranked up when you’re in your late teens and 20’s, so exercise has more effect. When I was 20, I went from a lifetime of being a pudgy, sedentary geek to being able to do push-ups on my fingertips - during the course of one winter. I tried to perform the same trick again now that I’m 31, with about the same amount of training. Not happening.
I guess, from my own experience, is that it does come down to not wanting to lose weight badly enough to do what’s necessary. I tell myself sometimes that I should write a self-help book generalising this hypothesis to all problems, not just overweight. But how you get to the point of wanting it badly enough, and why for me it came one particular day last year when it might perfectly well (and much to my advantage) have come any time in the previous three decades… ah, now that’s the hard part.
If I were to add another guess, it would be that you, and I previously, and many others, want(ed) to have lost weight, not to do it - like there are far more people who would like to play the piano than want to learn to play it.
But hey, I’m no stranger to the experience of eating food that I don’t even need, want or especially like. :smack:
Supposedly, exercise gives you energy, invigorates you, yadda, while doing the work of burning calories. It also triggers your sleep mechanism (or so says my doc).
I used to have an exercycle in my living room so that I had no excuses. I could watch TV, fine…but give me 30 minutes on the bike. It helped until I broke the bike (it was badly engineered, chain kept coming off, and I finally broke it, fatally, while fixing it). Now I just take a 30 minute walk every day (as far as you know); don’t do anything that’s going to make you horribly sore and make you not want to do it again.
Also, drink lots of water. A health teacher told me that people overeat because they misconstrue the signals from the body. “You’re not hungry; you’re thirsty,” she said.
If you choose to define yourself as lazy and weak you will always be exactly that.
First, stop using this language. Change the dialogue to, “I wish I were less weak and lazy”, or, “One day I hope to be stronger and more motivated.” When you choose to define yourself in a positive light rather than a negative one you change your future for the better.
Second, successful change is created, not in large sweeping swaths, but in tiny baby steps. Drop one small (bad) thing from your diet this week. One thing. A second helping of something or change an afternoon snack to an apple. Leave everything else exactly as it is. Next week, park your car a block further from the store or your office, or get off the elevator a couple of floors earlier and walk up.
I walk outside at least an hour every day. One day a guy–overweight but not obese–stopped me and said “I just want to say thank you. I’ve been fat all my life and I noticed you walking every day. I thought “She walks and she’s so thin. If she can do it, I can do it.” I’m now walking every day and I’ve lost forty pounds.”
I’ve since spoken to him several times. He is now normal weight and hooked on walking every day.
As an overweight man, I believe that “lazy” and “weak” are elements that contribute to my weight. But nothing is really that simple.
I am not weak in many areas. Recently after a long recovery for two surgeries, when I went off pain meds I went into withdrawal. It wasn’t the worst thing I have experienced, but it was pretty bad for about 5 days. Every time I thought about having “just one” to make it easier I reminded myself that doing so would put me back to square one. I never wanted to go through that again, so I toughed it out.
But you can’t go cold turkey on eating. So *having *to eat makes it easier for me to also make some bad choices. (I am addicted to sugar.)
I am not lazy in many ways. I put in 14 hours on a project yesterday and have been working on this same project for the last 10 days straight. It is going to allow me to further my financial goals and I’m pleased to be doing it.
But some days I *am *lazy about exercising.
Tony Robbins has said something to the effect that we aren’t weak-willed, we just have impotent goals. In my words, it just means some things I want a lot more than others, and so I am not lazy in working towards those things.
It is also a little bit: “use it or lose it.” I just came back from a 45 minute walk. My legs hurt, especially my ankles (despite having good hiking boots.) When I was young I could walk for hours. I’ve lost that, but am working towards getting it back.
But back to the goals. In my mind, it can also be about your goals being too big. If you are looking at losing 100lbs, you may find that goal a little overwhelming.
Try deciding you want to walk 5 minutes a day for the next two weeks. That is an easy goal. Add a little to your goals every week (or every day if you can.) Keep in mind that habits only become habits through repetition.
One athlete that I was reading about offered this advice: Treat exercise like your career. You wouldn’t skip a day at work just because you don’t feel like it. Keep the same attitude about exercise and do it every day.
I am a big woman (5’ 9" and about 185lbs) and I kayak, bike, row, hike, garden, re-hab my house and put in a lot of hours at work. I’m very strong and agile, but am “fat” according to all those stupid charts.
So, I guess my response is about perception. I know a lot of so-called fat women who are incredibly active and strong; I also know a lot of skinny women who are lazier than Hell and eat a lettuce leaf here and there to stay stick-thin, but don’t ever exercise and are lazy beasties in general.
“Weak” and “lazy” are certainly loaded terms - but I certainly think it is fair to say that significantly overweight people are wired differently than I. Sure there’s a genetic component, and there are plenty of “solid” healthy people who successfully carry heavy weights. But grossly obese inactive people seem to be lacking in willpower and initiative - if nothing else.
20 years ago I decided to quit smoking - so I did. 4-5 years ago I decided to quit drinking - so I did. When I started putting on a few pounds a couple of years ago - I increased my exercise.
No, I’m not trying to paint myself as a hero or anything. But clearly there is something different between my approach to such matters and someone who does not take specific and continued steps to change something about themselves that displeases them.
Hell - IMO the wonder about such lifestyle choices is that they are among the very few things in life that are entirely at the individual’s control. Whatever societal influences you wish to cite, no one else is shoving food down your maw other than you.
People are addressing your weight issues just fine, so there’s little I can add to that. But I want to address the quoted bit.
Self-confidence issues and excess weight are not the same thing. Yes, they are often linked, but they don’t have to be. You don’t have to have the body of Adonis to be confident, feel good about yourself, and ooze sexuality. (Some on this board will disagree with me. They are simply wrong. Don’t listen to them.)
This is a huge topic, and I can’t even begin to solve it for you in one little post, but I can try to give you a few pointers. You mention that you walk with your head down. Stop it. Activate your neck muscles and walk with your head up. Look people in the eye, and hold that eye contact. Not it a creepy, staring way, but in a confident way. Smile.
I make it sound simple, but I understand the naked feelings that doing that can engender. It’s really very common and understandable. But much like learning to exercise, you just have to muscle through it and do it despite yourself. And like exercise, maybe it’s best to start with baby steps. Once you get good at it, you’ll never go back.
Ask yourself this: If you were (thin/confident/a sex god/supreme ruler of the universe), how would you act? How would your day to day approach to life differ from how it is now?
Seriously? I hate exercise. I do it when I can get motivated enough - I’ve done an hour a day, five times a week for months on end - but I hate it. I hate everything about it. Going to the gym is boring as shit, and no amount of new music on my iPod can make me hate it any less. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t hate it like going to the dentist, but it’s definitely not enjoyable for me; even with a habit I have to force myself to go. Adding weight training helped remove the monotony for awhile until I got used to using all the machines, and now it’s boring again.
I’m a multi-tasker. I very rarely just sit and watch TV, so that’s no attraction at the gym. I want to be engaged. All they need is an exercise-based MMORPG and I’ll be set. :smack:
I enjoy things that involve exercise - say, playing DDR at an arcade with a friend, or gardening - but trying to transform such things into a fitness regimen ultimately always ends up boring. Wii Fit was fun for awhile, got bored with it, I’ll pick it up again once I’m not so tired of it.
As for being lazy, sure. I guess being fat means I’m somewhat lazy since I don’t have a glandular problem or anything. When it comes to routine exercising and dieting, most people are lazy, whether they’re fat or not. Skinny people that I know are typically no more conscious of their diets (and often less) than bigger people I know, eat what they feel like it, and either don’t work out or have to force themselves to work out a little bit a few times a week until they inevitably cave and get tired of it for awhile.
I have the opposite experience - I hate exercise, find it a boring chore. I have never felt an endorphin or any pleasure while working out - I hate it the whole time. And I have tried it - I have had gym memberships and personal trainers. When I was actively losing weight (for over a year) I worked out 5 days a week - yech.
I have absolutely no difficulties managing what I eat - eating healthy stuff and staying within my calorie range for a day. I also hate feeling hungry, so I use a combination of whole foods, calorie counting and volumetrics. I eat something every 2-3 hours.
I do wish I were one of those lucky people that LIKED exercise! I also keep telling myself that I also hate flossing, paying taxes and cleaning the catbox but I manage to get everything done, evercise is just one more thing I have to do.
You sound like you could really benefit from some awareness about yourself.
‘‘I want to lose weight, but I can’t stop eating’’ definitely sounds like you feel out of control about the situation–but what exactly is going on? When you think, ‘‘I want to lose weight,’’ what about losing weight makes you want it? Social acceptance? Physical health? Clothes that fit? What about getting there makes you decide not to take the next step? Fear of the unknown? Lack of belief in yourself?
In my experience, the key to getting at the root of any behavioral problem is to pay attention, in that moment, to what you are thinking and feeling when you make the decisions you do. For whatever reason, you are deciding not to do anything about your weight. I don’t really accept that it’s because you’re weak and/or lazy. Those are pejorative terms which don’t really have much to do with reality. (I know; I used to bludgeon myself with them all the time – they do absolutely nothing to fix problems and only serve to add unnecessary drama to the business of achieving one’s goals.)
So just try, next time you go through this cycle, to take note of what you’re thinking, what you do as a result of those thoughts, and how it makes you feel afterward. ‘‘I can’t stop eating’’ is not going to get you anywhere. Use specifics.
‘‘I was hungry. I chose to eat a chocolate cake because I wanted the temporary stress relief. Afterward I felt guilty and ashamed because I’m afraid no one will accept me if I’m fat.’’
Write it down if you have to–don’t worry about changing your behavior. Just look for patterns that come up.
If you’re anything like me, eventually your rational brain will kick in. I’m not saying it’s going to happen always and overnight, but maybe once a week when you crack open that journal you’ll write: ‘‘I was hungry. I didn’t want to feel miserable like that last time I ate a chocolate cake. So instead I made myself chicken and rice. Afterward I felt full and at peace with myself, and I began to wonder if the instant gratification of that chocolate cake is so important after all–whether I eat chicken or cake, both result in a full stomach, but with the chicken I don’t have a stomach ache.’’
Then when you read that, you’ll begin to see a new pattern emerge – one in which you’re aware of how your choices affect the way you feel. Also your unnecessary/unhelpful thoughts and attitudes will become much more apparent, and you’ll have less tolerance for them. That, ‘‘no one will accept me if I’m fat’’ bit will happen less and less because you’ll see how irrelevant having that thought is to accomplishing your goals.
And when you make an unhelpful or unhealthy decision, at least you are aware of it, and have a sense of control over what happens to you. The truth is, regardless of how you feel, you do have control over the choices you make, and the more you practice awareness of that, the happier you’ll be.
I can’t tell you how many negative behaviors and thought patterns I have silenced just by using the method of self-awareness. When you are self-aware, you have no excuses at your disposal. You must acknowledge that every action you take is a personal choice, and be willing to accept the consequences of those actions. It’s not always the easiest thing to do, but in my experience it’s certainly the most satisfying.