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.
- A lack of control and willpower. I make excuses for myself and lack balance when it comes to health.
- I am stressed. Stressed with the kids, overwhelmed with life, and not getting enough sleep either.
- 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.
- I hate exercise (or can’t exercise due to medical issues)
- Emotional eating and other bad eating habits have plagued me for years. Maybe since childhood. And I struggle to believe I can change it
- I’m a sucker for junk food. Sweet, salty, bring it on. I can’t resist.
- I just plain love food. Lots of it. Pass the potatoes. And the gravy too.
- 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.
- I don’t care. There are more important things than health and fitness. I’m fine the way I am.
- My physical and mental limitations make me overweight. (depression, hypothyroidism, boredom, hormonal issues, PMS, digestive issues)
- 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…)
- 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.