12 Reasons Women Think They’re Overweight (Which One Have You Used?)

 

It sometimes takes a little detective work to uncover the root cause...
It sometimes takes a little detective work to uncover the root cause…

The other day I asked my Facebook followers a very personal question. “For those of you who feel you are overweight, what do you honestly think the reason is for you being overweight? No judgment here, I’m just interested in the answers.”

The comments that came in were surprisingly varied and honest.

Of the many answers given, the following list of twelve reasons is a culmination of common themes and answers given.

See if any of them hit a nerve with you personally.

  1. A lack of control and willpower. I make excuses for myself and lack balance when it comes to health.
  2. I am stressed. Stressed with the kids, overwhelmed with life, and not getting enough sleep either.
  3. I’m overly busy at work and home. Often that leads to not planning meals or packing healthy food for the day, or not eating enough. I’m pretty sure that’s affecting my weight.
  4. I hate exercise (or can’t exercise due to medical issues)
  5. Emotional eating and other bad eating habits have plagued me for years. Maybe since childhood. And I struggle to believe I can change it
  6. I’m a sucker for junk food. Sweet, salty, bring it on. I can’t resist.
  7. I just plain love food. Lots of it. Pass the potatoes. And the gravy too.
  8. I think my biggest problem is laziness. It’s too much work to cook. Or exercise. And especially to be consistent with it. Sometimes I can do it well for a while, but then I fall off again, which makes me feel like giving up.
  9. I don’t care. There are more important things than health and fitness. I’m fine the way I am.
  10. My physical and mental limitations make me overweight. (depression, hypothyroidism, boredom, hormonal issues, PMS, digestive issues)
  11. I’m going through a major lifestyle change – there’s not time!! (Just had a baby, changing jobs or schedules, new marriage, moving to a new home, death in family…)
  12. I try and try, but keep falling off the wagon. Why BOTHER?! It’s depressing and embarrassing to fail at this all the time. Hard to get motivated with that going on…

 

That’s not all. Many women also said they didn’t like the feeling of being overweight. Which makes sense.

As these varied answers show, there is no one reason for why we’re overweight. It should be obvious then that there is also no one solution. Still, we think there is, don’t we? Exercise and eat right. That’s the magic fix for everyone. But that’s just behavior. Behavior is always driven by something deeper.

Ultimately, to fix the problem, to actually make a lasting change, we need to understand the root cause.

Once we glimpse what’s driving our behavior, we have a chance. Then we can change our beliefs or behavior to lead to transformative change.

Which of the 12 reasons did you most identify with? Mention them in the comments, or feel free to add your own reason.

 

CONTACT ME here, if you would like help to dig deeper, identify and resolve your own ROOT cause (many times, its not obvious and we are not even aware of it!)  to make longer term success easier and more possible for you.

 

My Patient’s Emotional Pain Nudged Me to Heal From My Own

Emotional eating can feel like the answer
Emotional eating can feel like the answer

I caught myself doing it again.

There I was in front of the opened fridge, searching for peace.

It had been the kind of long, frustrating day no commute could erase. Maybe it was the two patients I’d seen whose troubling stories broke my heart. Maybe their struggles with depression and emotional trauma had hit a little too close to home. Now, an unstoppable string of painful memories threaded its way through my mind.

“I thought I dealt with this already. Why am I rehashing this again?” I sighed and closed the fridge.

Nothing in there would fix this ache in my heart. And it certainly wouldn’t stop the rerun of disturbing images through my mind. I’d have to deal another way. Without snapping at people. Without rolling my eyes and sighing at them. Without withdrawing or stuffing my face.

It’s crazy, isn’t it, how things that happened decades ago can trigger negative behavior in the present. Even stuff we’ve dealt with. Forgiven. Accepted and learned from. Or thought we had.

Many coaches say that forgiveness (and, I’d add, dealing with trauma) is like peeling an onion: it has a lot of layers, and each one makes you cry. I’ve certainly found this to be true as I worked through each painful layer of my past.

The weird thing was that I couldn’t force it. I couldn’t hurry up and heal, or race to the next level. Each layer of healing seemed to come when I was ready, and it would always surprise me when it came.

Like this week. I never saw it coming. But suddenly something like a patient’s suffering can stir up a mess of memories I didn’t realize I still needed healing from.

When that happens, my behavior can get weird. I can suddenly find myself in the fridge, or any other number of bad habits I once had, to help me deal with the pain. Overeating (some kind of carb with peanut butter and jam), staring at TV, grumping at my family, and ignoring my friends.

Has that ever happened to you? Has something triggered old painful memories and sent you headlong back into rotten old habits you thought you’d kicked?

It’s not a bad thing.

I mean, we definitely need to find a way to avoid those negative behaviours. But here’s the thing. Once we become aware of what is triggering our behaviour – once we realize the connection between our past experiences and our current behaviour – we can short-circuit the effects of those old wounds.

We don’t have to continue to be hurt by our past.
We don’t have to let past pain hurt our present.

Practically, what this looks like for me (once I recognize what’s triggering my behaviour) is to close that fridge door and walk in the opposite direction of that loaf of bread. I’ll try to find a quiet place to sit down and let the memories come. I will, once again, (again!!) decide to forgive and let it go, just as I had before. Then I’ll fix my mind back on the present – on my current goals – and choose a behaviour that fits with that.

Instead of going to the fridge to feed my feelings, I resolutely choose to engage with my daughter and grandson. We’ll play a game, talk, go outside for a walk, read a book or sit and play with toys – whatever it takes to engage in healthy activities.

We can break free from our past, from hurt. 
But it takes some self-awareness and the willingness to choose a new path, one scary, difficult layer at a time.

How to you shake free from past hurts when they come knocking?

Please comment on this post.  I would love to hear your ideas!
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