Ambitious smart women, what are your mental barriers to losing the weight?
Dear fellow young active women,
I am wondering, as we have all information available on everything weight loss related, yet it is sooooo hard to lose it and maintain a thin body (I should know, I have been in restriction/binging **** for 4 years before finally losing the weight 2 years ago, and I am only starting to feel like I am over it), how come we can't just apply all that information?
I am curious, if some 20smt (I am 26) want to start a discussion: what do you think is the hardest when we know what we "should" do and still don't do it?
Which parts of the day, and why?
For sure the information isn't enough, what would be more helpful? (like accountability, support from family and friends, or actual meal prep, etc..)
I am finding myself always digging deeper when I catch myself eating the entire chocolate bar, even if that doesn't happen much anymore, what happened that made me do that even if I didn't wanted ?
I would love to discuss this and have your view point!
I think one of the most difficult barriers is being able to sift through all the fitness Crap and misinformation to be able to make an easy plan that fits in with your lifestyle. Too many money making companies out there pretending their diet or pill or anything is the problem solver. But..... onto the topic of personal barriers.
For me....
1) I think that living by the beach on the West Coast of Scotland is definitely a barrier. This summer is going to be great for my weight loss, but my mood I feel very much reflects the weather. Living in a country where it rains most of the time is a motivation killer, I need to learn to break through that though.
2) Boredom eating! If it is 3pm, I find myself looking for something to do, I am not long out the gym.... I will snack. It will be healthy..... But I will snack, even though I am probably not hungry. I need to leave myself something to do around the house at the times that I might find myself bored.
3) Peer pressure.... I am a pleaser..... which isn't always pleasant If someone else makes an excuse for me, I find myself caving very easily. Family or friends will be like... oh you've been really good though, just have one chocolate cookie, or one little bit of this or that. I am much better at saying no than I used to be, no one is offended either, its just a mental thing for me.
Hey, totally agree with your first comment.
What was annoying me the most was the hours and hours spent reading magazines saying all and their opposite in the same sentence in every diet article!
I totally agree that shitty weather (I live in Paris) are the worst for feeling motivated to eat fresh food and go outside!
I find that snacking on healthy fruits and veggies without guilt during those times of boredom/indecision to go to the gm are actually great as I would also be less hungry later on, and frankly tomatoes and apples slices aren't going to make me gain weight. Anyway if I don't I will really make bad food decision in a matter of hours...
But I am curious here, why do you think t is so hard to go to the gym when we have all the time in the day?
I am guilty of being a people pleaser also, but learned some powerful phrasing from my mum: "No thank you, this really isn't going to make me feel good in my body". After this, people won't say anything, because they won't (or can't^^) say that they want you to feel bad!
Oh I have been working on my No, Thank You's in the last month and I have been doing pretty well. I am trying my best to stop smoking as well. At 28, I have been smoking for about 15 years I was a child smoker. I can now go a month or so without one, but in a social situation I struggle. But now I am trying to properly quit smoking, its habit and not the addiction for me. So the No, Thank You's have came in handy recently.
I think the gym can be difficult for those who have a pretty active work life. When I was working on a bar, at the end of the day, the last thing I wanted to do was go to the gym after working 10 hours on my feet. But I hadn't realised, that I didn't need to.... Working on my feet all day would of been the workout I needed, if only I had the diet to go with it. I could of maybe went to a workout class on my day off or went for a swim after work instead.
For those who office work or don't have as active work life, then I think it comes down to habit. People want to go home and watch their favourite TV programme, or go for an hour long relaxing bath, or they have kids that they have to rush home and spend time with. I am a sleep lover..... I must have 8-9 hours of sleep or I will be fatigued all day. So I know that I am not a morning workout person, I will never get a proper workout done when I am sleepy. I workout best between 6-9pm when the gym is full of people finishing work. But I home work...... so I take an hour during the day to walk the dog, then take just over an hour at night to go to the gym. Now that I am in the habit, I realise that I have more energy than I did before, so now it doesn't feel so difficult to do.
Habit and consistency is key. But only once you make the change, will it be realised
I'm 25 years old from West Virginia. For me the barrier I struggle with is instant pleasure of eating vs long term pleasure of losing weight. It is so hard for me to focus on a long term goal, I am a type of person that is inpatient and will usually go for short term pleasure. My worst part of the day is the evening time. After clean eating all day when I get home after a long day at work I want something to drink besides water and I always crave something sweet or salty just before bed. I'm also a bit of an emotional eater, so when I'm sad, mad or upset I tend to think oh chocolate will make me feel better, but in reality it's just a short term fix, and does nothing to actually make me feel better in the long run.
It would be more helpful if I did not keep a bag of pretzels on my night stand. I only recently started my weight loss journey, and so far many family members have been completely un supportive of my goals. My parents pushed pizza on me, my brother pushed snack cakes and candy on me. Everyone always says "Oh you can have a cheat day" but what they don't understand is that my life has been a "cheat day" and that lifestyle cannot continue. My own nephew making jokes about my weight watchers points. I told them to shut up it's not funny and they didn't say a thing about it again. It's ridiculous why do family and friends do that? I can't understand it.
Great think that you are able to say no to cigarettes! Keep it up!
Exactly, if you have an active life, more workouts are not necessary, the hardest and most efficient part is and always will be the food we put in our bodies actually. Like, when I was in binging/restrciting nightmare, I would run up to 15kms a day! And put even more unhealthy food in my body, so I was still gaining weight, or at least not losing it, just losing my mind! To this day, although I love my gym and working out at the end of the day makes me really happy, I still have days when I just want to distract myself online and be "lazy", but then I allow it without guilt, and it's all ok.
I am so happy to hear that you also need 9 hours of sleep, everytime I share this with friends they think I lie, or that I am sick, but no, it is a real need. Somehow I feel like it has been one of the reason I gained weight when I was younger, I wasn't accepting that need and I was using food to keep awake.
Babs3289, I see what you mean with the short-term satisfaction, I was saying the same to myself, until the short-term leasure wasn't actually so long anymore, as the pain from feeling guilty and fat was hitting even during or just after eating badly.
Now, when I go home at the evening I eat a laaaarge meal of healthy filling food, even if it is so early for dinner, because I realised my body actually needed more food at this time and if I would wait, I would turn to the idea of eating a ton of fatty junk food in less than 5 minutes.
The more I feed myself in advance from feeling hungry with filling whole food, the less I am tempting to go for the chocolate.
This is a real pain to not have your family as support! Maybe you are reflecting their own guilt of not eating healthy (whether or not they need to lose weight), but people always adapt after a certain time, keep going!
Losing weight is pretty easy once I get into the right mindset. The problem is that it can take me a LONG time to actually get on the horse and stay on. I has like fifty 1 day to 2 week diets over the past few years I gave up on. Mostly because the goal was too hard and I got discouraged. I think what really motivates me to keep going is accountability from forums like this, and having just 1 real person to talk to who is supportive enough to listen but doesn't police me about it I guess?
I think realistic goals are important too. I'm trying to do this right this time and am only trying to lose 0.4 lbs a week.
Last edited by bloominbutterflies; 02-22-2017 at 10:28 PM.
I think the problem is that most diets are made for a short term solution. Those who need to lose 25+ lbs, in my case 155 in total, need to take on a new look at food and exercise.
My problem previously was over estimation on weight loss goals. I always thought that 2lbs a week was achievable, but its not sustainable. So I thought to myself.... 1lb a week. 1lb a week would allow me to learn as I go, have weeks that were more than others, but cover for the plateau's. This would mean that in a year, I would be 52lbs lighter than I would be if I was to go on 20 short term diets over the year. I am 58weeks in.... but only 49.4lbs down. So yes... I am 8.6lbs behind schedule. But while I was beating myself up about it, a friend of mine was reminding me that I have had 2 colds lasting 3 weeks each. I was also on holiday for a week to at a lodge in June, Portugal in July, Germany on tour May and in October, not including the typical Xmas gain. So technically..... im not doing too bad lol.
It is very much a mental journey as much as it is a physical one.
First of all: congrats! 49lbs is already a lot to lose!! You have to be proud of yourself, and know that if you can do that, you can do anything!
However, I completely agree with both of you, this is completely a mind game.
Our mind is tricking us into fear of starving so we binge, or fear of deprivation, or fear of failure and even fear of success!
I felt that the main way to avoid that fear and mind blocks is to stop thinking of a long-term high goals (losing 45lbs for example, as we all know this won't happen overnight, it is very hard to keep focused and motivated) BUT RATHER have a "normal day everyday goal" like: "I want to feel good and not bloated or sick", "I don't want to feel guilty and have low-respect for myself because I treated my body badly" or "I don't want to starve myself, nor to stuff myself, I deserve to eat the perfect amount of food for feeling good, at every meal, and any time I am hungry, to treat me with good food".
This isn't so easy at first, but once our mind is wired with those thoughts instead of guilt/fear/frustration/hate thought, our bodies change FOREVER!
I felt like I lost and maintained my weight without thinking about it, and that I actually go back to bad habits when I judge myself of "not being skinny enough" in comparison to other girls or models in media....
And when I focus on being a healthy fit happy woman, all is easy!
Luckily I wouldn't say I had a huge emotional connection with food. At the most...... boredom. A lot of my weight piled on through not understanding nutrition, then into my teens it was more about just wanting a snack and following what my sister ate (who was very skinny). I had some bad jeans..... I ate the same if not less than my siblings, was more active than them, yet I was the chubby kid. I think the family always thought that I would go on a diet one day and it would just disappear. But then I was partying and staying at friends houses eating pizza and you know how it goes. I was just too busy having fun to feel like I really needed to do something about it, I have really good friends (mostly boys funnily enough), so I was never called names by them or anything, was only some kids at school who did that.
Trying to diet in my 20's to get rid of the weight was soo difficult because I didn't know what to do? Like you all mentioned, I thought eating less calories meant less weight, right? Wrong! When I would eat less calories, I would maintain, because my body wasn't being fuelled correctly. After all those years of comments from people saying "stop eating so much fatty" or "don't you think you ate enough today?", meant I would go the whole day at school and have a packet of chips, no lunch no nothing. Then go home and have dinner. I wasn't eating enough, I would get tired and slow and not able to concentrate.
I left school at 15 years old. Then started partying! (this is more popular here in the Uk than the US, its the equivalent to an 18 year old drinking in the states).
Mentally, I have no problem eating clean and counting calories. Its the consistency I struggle with.
I suppose everyone will always have their own barriers, I just want to get to a point where, when I hit my goal, I know what to do to stay there.
I have a strong emotional link to food, but over time I learned to use to to my advantage... even if sometimes it is still there when I feel very sad or tired.
Luckily, I have developped strong strategies for me to tackle consistency over time, and not gain weight back.
The key for me is PREPARATION.
Always having enough food, always having meals ready, or food to eat on the go, not having the barrier of hours prepping the food, or the barriers of having food available.
I take 1-2 hours on sundays to prepare for the entire week and I rely on that mostly
Preparation is Key 100% My sister asked me to go and get her a subway the other day, and I didn't buy a thing for myself. I came home and ate what I had prepared in the fridge.
Overthinking and less doing, seems to be a huge road block for me. I will spend too much time double checking and procrastinating. When I could have just gotten up and done what needs to be done. A perfect example is today I have to "run" 1.67 for my baby steps to 5k app. Normally I do it after breakfast, but before lunch, because I know by night time when I have done all my adulting activities I would have energy. However I have spent the last 30 minutes doing other things around the house debating on if I should go for that walk before I eat or right after I eat. So now my current excuses my phone's almost dead have to be on the charger before I can do it. :/ I need to think a little less and just do. ^.^
For me it was always in my own head; I was convinced I was always fat, would always be fat, and there was nothing I could do about it. In reality, I was a perfectly normal weight for most of my life. Last summer that misconception was corrected and thus began the weight loss journey, for real this time. I don't think it really was an eating disorder, but it was definitely disordered thinking (and eating of course), if that makes sense. Intellectually I knew what I needed to do, but I couldn't until the root issue was dealt with. And I think I'm not the only one; food, weight, and appearance are such big deals for most people. Even my friends who are quite thin have body image issues, so I suspect it's fairly common.
Out of my head though, lack of preparation or being tired/stressed are usually big derailers, especially late evening when I have little willpower left. And what everyone else has said too.
Stress was a big issue for me..... And like mentioned..... after I went and spoke to a professional about managing my time and stress, I felt like my head was clearer, which allowed me to use what I knew to start changing my life for the better.
Ambitious smart women, what are your mental barriers to losing the weight?
If someone else makes an excuse for me, I find myself caving very easily. Family or friends will be like... oh you've been really good though, just have one chocolate cookie, or one little bit of this or that. I am much better at saying no than I used to be, no one is offended either, its just a mental thing for me. 
I was a child smoker. I can now go a month or so without one, but in a social situation I struggle. But now I am trying to properly quit smoking, its habit and not the addiction for me. So the No, Thank You's have came in handy recently.
And what everyone else has said too.
