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| What can dieting really do for you? |
Let's be realistic. There are many things that dieting can do for you, sure. But there are just as many things that dieting cannot. And one of those things that losing weight can't do for you is to live your life.
It's common to blame being fat on the fact that life is tough, rough, and rocky most of the time.
It's also easy to point a finger at what you look like when you don't get the job that you really want. Money is in short supply, the girl or guy you've been interested in for weeks now still won't talk to you, and you were passed over for the latest promotion -- all because you're fat.
If you're listening to your inner critic and buying into the idea that all of the challenges and feelings you're dealing with right now are due to the fact that you're fat, and you believe that being thin will help you turn your life around, you're going to be in for quite a shock if you ever do manage to make it to goal weight.
At goal, you'll still be broke, divorced, and working at the same job. If you started your weight-loss journey with far too many pounds to lose, like I did, you also won't look like you think you will. You don't go from obese to hot without plastic surgery.
Honestly, nothing about your life is going to change very much. Most of what changes has to do with minor health issues and overall physical vitality, but your inner emotional state -- the way you feel about yourself and the world -- remains pretty much the same.
What Dieting Can Do for You
Let's start with what losing weight can actually do for you.
The only thing that losing weight will fix for you is health problems that are directly related to being overweight or obese. While the media likes to blow this way out of proportion, the truth is that weight loss is directly tied to correcting nutritional deficiencies. The focus is on malnutrition.
- mild to severe insulin resistance
- stall the progression of pre-diabetes
- help you get your diabetes under control
- reverse high blood pressure
- correct cholesterol issues
- eliminate systemic inflammation
- lessen hunger and cravings
- improve food sensitivities
- nutritional advice
- accountability when you weigh in that you don't get when trying to diet by yourself
- corrects mild insulin resistance
- lowers your risk for heart disease
- boosts your immune system
What Dieting Cannot Do for You
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| Dieting doesn't address your emotional condition. |
You'll still have all of the emotional baggage that you didn't eliminate beforehand. You'll be reactive when someone punches one of your buttons, heavily conditioned and habitual, and even have a distorted sense of body image and self worth. You won't suddenly begin to like yourself just because you're thin.
None of that changes due to dieting.
And neither do your limiting and false beliefs that you've been carrying around in your back pocket since childhood. Without all of that extra fat to blame your rocky life on, if you can't find something new to pin it all on, you'll have no choice but to come face-to-face with yourself.
And unfortunately, most people fail that encounter because they are not prepared to see what's going on beneath the surface.
Most diets keep you blind to your true inner condition, and it's the world beneath the surface of your skin that is actually blocking your ability to take charge of your life and begin to live life to the fullest.
Weight-loss stories and television commercials that boast about how their particular brand of diet can help you to stop dieting and start living are just lying to you.
That isn't how it works.
Weight loss diets do a good job of tackling the physical issues that might be unbalanced in your life. A lack of adequate nutrition causes stress on the body, which can chronically elevate cortisol and keep you living in a state of fight-or-flight.
The stress can play havoc with your physical condition, resulting in:
Your emotional condition, attitude regarding life, and even your belief system play a much larger role in the overall quality of your life. Losing weight won't address any of those issues.
When thin, the nature of life will continue to be challenge. You'll have miserable days, as well as pleasant ones, so you'll need a way to deal with the stress without turning to food for comfort. When things don't always go your way, you won't be able to blame the resistance to what you want to do on being fat anymore.
That buffer will be gone.
Instead, you'll have to face the challenge head on, and few people are equipped with the mental and emotional maturity to handle life without some type of reward to reinforce their behavior.
Panic attacks, depression, and anxiety disorders are quite common once you reach goal weight because instead of achieving peace and security, now you're afraid of gaining the weight back. Now, you're afraid of losing what you fought so hard to gain.
Now, everything about yourself that you hid during weight loss is floating to the surface and being magnified.
Life begins to fall apart when the reward your bathroom scale used to give you dissolves. Now, you have to eat correctly because it's the right thing to do and not because you're being rewarded to eat that way.
The good news is that dieting offers the potential of developing self-discipline. All of the restriction you suffer isn't for nothing.
According to the latest scientific studies done on the brain, the area that coincides with self-discipline is underdeveloped at birth and is an area that nature doesn't fix for you. You have to do that for yourself. Diet and exercise can help you develop self-discipline.
But it's not automatic.
Self-discipline takes effort and a strong determination to succeed.
A lot of the success you'll reap depends on your attitude while dieting. If you have a secret personal agenda, if you plan to leave the nutritional eating style you're using behind at goal weight, and go back to eating what you believe is a normal diet, there won't be a change in the brain.
Evolution only occurs once you reach a point where you can see that how you used to be isn't working for you anymore, and you want to do things a different way.
It doesn't happen if you see dieting as a temporary adventure.
You have to be ready for change. Real change. Permanent change. Evolutionary change.
And evolutionary change requires you to take charge of your inner state of being. It requires you to stop making bargains with life and with yourself, so you can find the courage and strength to take full responsibility for all areas of your life -- and not just the physical dieting realm.
You have to be willing and able to own up to your personal choices. Own the consequences. And do what you do because you feel it's the right thing to do -- the only thing to do -- and not because of what you'll get back if you do.
None of that changes due to dieting.
And neither do your limiting and false beliefs that you've been carrying around in your back pocket since childhood. Without all of that extra fat to blame your rocky life on, if you can't find something new to pin it all on, you'll have no choice but to come face-to-face with yourself.
And unfortunately, most people fail that encounter because they are not prepared to see what's going on beneath the surface.
Most diets keep you blind to your true inner condition, and it's the world beneath the surface of your skin that is actually blocking your ability to take charge of your life and begin to live life to the fullest.
Weight-loss stories and television commercials that boast about how their particular brand of diet can help you to stop dieting and start living are just lying to you.
That isn't how it works.
The Truth About Losing Weight
Weight loss diets do a good job of tackling the physical issues that might be unbalanced in your life. A lack of adequate nutrition causes stress on the body, which can chronically elevate cortisol and keep you living in a state of fight-or-flight.
The stress can play havoc with your physical condition, resulting in:
- diabetes
- stroke
- cancer
- high blood pressure
- elevated blood glucose levels
- high cholesterol
- heart disease
Your emotional condition, attitude regarding life, and even your belief system play a much larger role in the overall quality of your life. Losing weight won't address any of those issues.
When thin, the nature of life will continue to be challenge. You'll have miserable days, as well as pleasant ones, so you'll need a way to deal with the stress without turning to food for comfort. When things don't always go your way, you won't be able to blame the resistance to what you want to do on being fat anymore.
That buffer will be gone.
Instead, you'll have to face the challenge head on, and few people are equipped with the mental and emotional maturity to handle life without some type of reward to reinforce their behavior.
Panic attacks, depression, and anxiety disorders are quite common once you reach goal weight because instead of achieving peace and security, now you're afraid of gaining the weight back. Now, you're afraid of losing what you fought so hard to gain.
Now, everything about yourself that you hid during weight loss is floating to the surface and being magnified.
Life begins to fall apart when the reward your bathroom scale used to give you dissolves. Now, you have to eat correctly because it's the right thing to do and not because you're being rewarded to eat that way.
What Dieting and Exercise Really Do for You
 |
| Dieting and exercise offer you the opportunity to develop self-discipline! |
The good news is that dieting offers the potential of developing self-discipline. All of the restriction you suffer isn't for nothing.
According to the latest scientific studies done on the brain, the area that coincides with self-discipline is underdeveloped at birth and is an area that nature doesn't fix for you. You have to do that for yourself. Diet and exercise can help you develop self-discipline.
But it's not automatic.
Self-discipline takes effort and a strong determination to succeed.
A lot of the success you'll reap depends on your attitude while dieting. If you have a secret personal agenda, if you plan to leave the nutritional eating style you're using behind at goal weight, and go back to eating what you believe is a normal diet, there won't be a change in the brain.
Evolution only occurs once you reach a point where you can see that how you used to be isn't working for you anymore, and you want to do things a different way.
It doesn't happen if you see dieting as a temporary adventure.
You have to be ready for change. Real change. Permanent change. Evolutionary change.
And evolutionary change requires you to take charge of your inner state of being. It requires you to stop making bargains with life and with yourself, so you can find the courage and strength to take full responsibility for all areas of your life -- and not just the physical dieting realm.
You have to be willing and able to own up to your personal choices. Own the consequences. And do what you do because you feel it's the right thing to do -- the only thing to do -- and not because of what you'll get back if you do.
it's a great and helpful post. thanks, you saved me
ReplyDeleteYou're welcome. I glad that you found the post helpful.
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