Why Can It Take a Lifetime to Lose Weight?

I would greatly prefer it if my brain would be less preoccupied with thoughts of doughnuts but it’s running its own show up there. I’ve often mused over what more I could accomplish if I did not have to devote any energy to trying to suppress all those food thoughts that bang around the ole noggin’.

I recently posted about famous people who endure public struggles with their weight. One of the most interesting things to come out of writing my book has been how many people have contacted me about being “Type A+” but say they have been unable to take control and lose weight. They are highly intelligent, very disciplined, often strongly driven people who have a high confidence level in their abilities—except for this one thing—and it brings endless frustration into their lives. Oh man, tell me about it! I lived it myself.

The idea of the very intelligent, very capable, highly disciplined FAT PERSON tends to throw the theory about “broken-ness” on its ear. I’m sure some nasty people would even say “intelligent and fat” makes a person some kind of human contradiction. The corollary of “Ignorance is bliss” is that knowledge can be torment. Perfectionistic people in particular are painfully aware of when something in their lives needs to be addressed, especially when it’s something that’s on-going and can’t be ignored. I can relate to all the problem-solver types like myself who spend their lives like I did—struggling through years that turn into decades, trying to “figure out what’s wrong” and get it fixed before I can expect to lose weight.

Bias against fat people is more that just hate and disgust. It also drives ineffectual weight loss programs and diets that can send you down blind alleys again and again. I spent decades of my life feeling confounded by the insistence that I must have been fat because I had an “issue” that needed to be fixed. Either I was failing at a diet that was impossible for me to follow, struggling through a discouraging exercise regimen I couldn’t maintain, or enduring pointless psychological analysis that never uncovered my “mystery” neurosis. None of it ever worked.

Over the course of many years, I was either repeating a variation on something that had failed for me in the past or I was cycling out and doing nothing specifically aimed at trying to control my weight. It’s a pattern that can literally use up your life.

Taking control of your weight is about letting go of what everybody else is telling you about yourself and instead tuning in very closely to what your own body and mind tell you and show you. Only you can identify your own routines and figure out how you’ll be able to break them up and deal with them. The toughest part is accepting the tricks you know you’ll play on yourself. One simple example—to this day I know I cannot have certain kinds of cereal for breakfast. I will want to snack on the cereal right from the box and eating it will make me want other carbs that I would have difficulty controlling my portion. So I just don’t buy the stuff! I know I need whole grains in my diet so I buy foods that don’t flip my switches, like steel cut oats or quinoa. I’m not a person who can get away with “just one bite” if I’m craving something. I know I have to address the craving and I’ve had to figure out what strategies will work for how my mind and habits work.

You won’t find the answers from anywhere else but from inside yourself. Your body and mind will speak to you. Start listening.