Compliments have been helpful in that others are seeing my work. Sometimes I don't think I look at all different.
I did get a "compliment" that I didn't like. A guy I was intimate with called me "zaftig" while we were in bed. I think his "compliment" was a his way of pointing out that I was fat in a covert way. It's interesting that he is one of the few people that has never given me a compliment about my weight loss. I get a kick out of parading my skinny self in front of him (we are only platonic friends now). I know it's childish, but I can't help myself.
But the only affirmations that motivate me are my own.
There are negative comments and then there are insults. A doctor saying, "You are obese. This will cause health problems for you down the line, so you need to lose weight." is not an insult, in my opinion. A friend saying, "You have gained a lot of weight." or a significant other saying, "You've gained a lot of weight. I'm not as attracted to you." also are not insults in my mind. They *are* negative, though. I find them motivating.
People noticing that I've lost weight and telling me that I look good is also motivating.
Honesty is best either way. If you think I'm huge, don't lie and tell me how TINY I am just to make me feel better. And if you think I've lost weight, tell me that, too.
Ultimately, though, it's how I feel about myself that serves as the best and only lasting motivation. I became truly disgusted with myself and had to get to that point to finally do something about it. Any diet I would have started as the result of a hurtful comment would have fizzled out quickly.
I do have a little collection of insults that have been thrown at me in the back of my head, though, and when I'm really feeling like throwing in the towel (which is a lot lately), I refer to those for a little cheap boost in drive.
With specific regard to weight loss, I think the motivation was negative.
Seeing my weight on the scale, knowing that I just kept gaining and was going to end up like one of the half ton people in a documentary. Then I lost a bit, then it all came back in no time at all. That's when I knew I had had enough and had to do something drastic. Photos on facebook were another issue that spurred it on.
But I think I got to this point by too many compliments (though I've never been good at taking compliments, I don't have very good self esteem). When an ex went on about "I love you just the way you are!" (yes he was a Billy Joel fan) when I complained about my weight, I put on 20 pounds. My parents always gave the "I think you're wonderful whatever size you are" nonsense or "Oh it's just puppy fat", as well as telling me that everyone in the family was big and continually making excuses for me. I can't help but be frustrated now that nobody ever said "You are heavier than you should be, for your own good you need to lose weight"/
I have been thinking about this all morning. People hurting my feelings has never motivated me to do anything. Compliments do... I do things to impress people. It is just nice to hear compliments. I like to be told I do things well or that I am creative or that I am looking good.
But that is just icing on the cake for me. Weight loss has been a very personal, internal jouney for me. I have come to realize that I need to change the way I think about food, exercise and myself. I have had to focus on the positive, focus on how good I feel and tell myself lots of positive, self-affirming, happy things.
There were a few things with medical professionals, but nothing like that. My mum a few years ago told me a story that I didn't know, that she had been hauled in to see the school nurse when I had first started at school. The nurse got all pissy with her and said "Zing has been drinking far too much fizzy drinks"
My mum: "She doesn't drink any, she won't touch them"
Nurse: "Well she must have been eating too many sweets"
Mum: "I don't keep any in the house"
And the thing is, all of that's true. I don't drink soda or alcohol, I've never been big on sweets, I don't eat ready meals, I refused to go to any of the traditional fast food places once I got out of childhood.
The only other time was that an asthma nurse I was seeing suggested I might have some additional problems due to my weight, and gave me a leaflet on eating from the food groups (nothing I didn't already know - I mean obviously veggies good, cakes bad!). Nothing talking about calories, or portion sizes, or anything. I understand it can be a difficult thing to bring up because a lot of people are sensitive about such things, but I honestly didn't realise until this past year that it was possible that I could be anything other than huge.
Nobody ever said you are putting yourself at risk of all these diseases, this is what's going to happen to you if you don't make a change. I didn't know there was a link between obesity and diabetes until a couple of years ago, I didn't know what cardio exercise was until about a year ago. So maybe not insults, but at least not pretending that everything was ok.
Well, sometimes I feel like my husband isn't attracted to me because I've gained 50 lbs. since we first got together. That's a LOT of weight. I've asked him if he's less attracted to me and he says no, but I know that if I lose all this weight I'm trying to lose, get back to where I was when we first got together PLUS lose some that he'll be more attracted to me. Whether he admits it or not. And whether it's true or not is irrelevant. It's one of my motivators.
The other is my EVIL MIL. She has been so awful to me about my weight so I'm going to be smaller than her and prove I can look better so she better watch out.
My mother is the sweetest and compliments me all the time saying she can really see a difference already, which is also motivating. So, I guess it's a little of both.
Intentionally hurtful comments from others has never motivated me. I've always been my worst critic (until I unlearned that bad habit).
Thinking hurtful things about my self has never helped in the long-run.
Sure the nasty comments from other people or frome one's self, can ruin appetite for a short while, but in the long-term it's counterproductive.
Negative thoughts are painful, and pain adds stress. Stress releases stress-hormones, and stress hormones reduce metabolism. Stress makes you fatter. Relieving stress, boosts your metabolism.
Not only is being the target of criticism (from others and even more so from yourself0 stressful, it also erodes confidence. If you insult yourself enough, you believe the insults. They become self-fulfilling prophecies. You start to believe that you are a lazy person - and what do lazy people do? Why nothing, of course! And you'll find yourself doing that more often than you did before you have accepted that label for yourself.
Imagining others thinking bad things about you, doesn't just hurt and add stress, it makes you paranoid. You become half convinced that your imagination is reality.
There've even been studies of this. One group of spouses were asked to imagine their spouse betraying them in some way. One group was asked to imagine their spouse doing something nice for them. Another group was asked to imagine something emotionally neutral about their spouse. Then all the groups were sent off to lunch, and observed.
The spouses that had imagined good things smiled more, touched more, and generally seemed to haqve a more pleasant interaction during the lunch than the other groups. The spouses that had imagined betrayal, were more likely to have negative behaviors - even arguments.
It's the sterotype of the woman waking up and hitting her husband with a pillow, because he had cheated on her, in her dreams.
Imagining your husband being attracted to other women, in some part of your brain you're telling yourself that is exactly what he's doing. It's a small chink in the relationship, over something imaginiary.
I look at it this way. I have a choice. I can work at wieght loss by making myself miserable, or I can work at weight loss by making myself happy. The second scenario is a win-win, because not only do I lose weight, I get to be happy while doing it.
I used to diet to punish myself. I didn't (initially) think I was a bad person (I always did think I was a pretty cool person, once people got to know me, and I was outgoing so that usually worked out for me. I even won over people who seemed to want to be enemies)
I punished myself dieting, because that's how dieting was done in the 70's and 80's (and even too-often today). All of the role models I had available, did it that way, so it's how I learned to do it. Hating yourself was just part of the game, so I played along because I didn't know there was a different, BETTER way.
The sad thing though, is that I started to believe I deserved the punishment. Failure proved I was lazy, crazy, or stupid.
Or, I'd get sick of punishing myself, decide that I didn't deserve it, and would reward myself (with food - again because it's what I saw every one else doing. It was also how dieting was done - an endless cycle of guilt/punishment/sadness/rebellion/self-pity/consolation food reward/guilt/punishment..........
Now I look at health changes as ways to pamper myself, not ways to punish myself. I'm making healthier choices, because they do good things for me.
Even when it comes to food, I don't focus on what I'm taking away (calories), but on things I'm adding. I learned that from a doctor who told me not to focus on eating less (calorie restriction), but to focus on eating more - eating more fruit, more vegetables.....
I used to compare diet food to "regular" food (which also sets up the deprivation expectation). Deprivation sucks. Indulgence is wonderful.
So I indulge.
I'm on a tight budget, so indulgences have to be creative, but there are still plenty of healthy indulgences. Ways to look at health changes as ways to pamper, not punish.
A good example right now, is summer fruits and vegetables. I love the "adventure" of trying new fruits and vegetables. Until I started looking (about fifteen years ago, long before I lost any weight) for new fruits and vegetables, I never realized just how many there are.
I found a new one. Mangosteen. I've tried the juice (yummy, tastes like peach, only better. I dilute it with diet Sprite so that it's not so high carb, or freeze it into 15 calorie portion popsicles).
It wasn't legal for import into the US until recently (fruit fly concerns).
A bag of about a dozen plum-sized fruits, was priced at $18. Too steep for me, though I would have paid $1.50 for one fruit (at least once).
I spent $7 on a dragonfruit.... once. I knew it was probably a once-in-a-lifetime purchase, as I can't imagine paying $3.50 per fruit serving on a regular basis. It was fun, and the fruit tasted nice (but not $7 nice, it was kind of bland. Very sweet, with a lot of seeds the texture of a firm kiwi with lots mor seeds, but not as flavorful as a kiwi. It was like chewable, seedy, but plain sugar water).
Pretty, sweet, but boring. Definitely not worth a rebuy, but the experience was worth it, because of the fun of trying something new and frivolously expensive.
I have to say that it's a lot easier to stay on a weight loss plan that feels like decadent/pampering than one that feels like deprivation/punishment. There's never a good reason to give it up. Stop indulging in pleasurable experiences? Why on earth would I want to do that?
You can't compare an apple (at least not an ordinary apple) to cheesecake though. The mundane, better choice, is always going to seem lame compared to the decadent, poor choice.
However, you can make the apple compare better to the cheesecake, by thinking of cheesecake as "boring" (cheesecake, really? Sure it tastes good, but it's overdone. Everyone rewards themselves with cheesecake, I'm more creative and more adventurous than that). Ah, but hunting for the perfect exotic fruit (or even the best apple), now that's a challenge, that's a quest worthy of someone of my skills and intellect.
It's a mindgame that actually works. Yesterday, I bought some pink lady apples (a sweet-tart, juicy, crisp apple, that is heavenly). I had two apples, and I enjoyed them every bit as I ever did cheesecake (even today though I know if I compared them side-by-side the apple would taste horrible after the cheesecake).
I also have Ranier cherries and strawberries in the fridge. Mmm, fruit! The Ranier cherries are a splurge, and yet a bargain ( at $2.50 per pound - half their usual price) this year as there's apparently a bumper crop. Strawberries have also been cheaper this year, and watermelons too.
I still have to count calories (or in my case, exchanges), but there's no reason not to focus on rewards rather than punishments.
I love swimming, so I "treat myself" to the warm water therapy pool ($5 per visit, or $28 for unlimited use during the month. I'm going to switch to monthly as soon as I've gone at least 6 times in a month).
I don't think of myself as forcing myself to exercise, but finding ways to move in fun ways. I'm ridiculously unable to ride a bike long enough for it to be "good exercise," so I do it for fun. The better I get, the sooner it will be "real exercise," but for now it's just something interesting to do (sometimes really interesting. My first time on the bike this year, I'd forgotten how to steer/brake, panicked, and crashed into the side of the garage - no damage to the bike or to me, except to my pride. Funnier than unfortunate).
When there's so many ways to enjoy taking care of yourself, it seems like such a waste to use negative motivation.
I don't react well to negative comments about *my* body. One of my problems with starting this new lifestyle was I am actually pretty happy with my body and have a good amount of self-esteem/confidence. What motivated me was really just me going...ok, let's see how much more awesome I can look and feel. That sounds vain and boastful, I know, but it's an attitude I took on after I got tired of listening to women of alllllll sizes complaining about their bodies. Our bodies are awesome!!!
Thing that motivate me are from me. I want to be able to run competitively; I want to look even better in a bikini. I'm 65 pounds from goal, I am sure most people would not thing I need to *look better* in a bikini--they'd think I need to start not looking horrifying in a bikini! Haha, but I don't care, this is for me. My boyfriend loves me regardless and my family has always been trying to get me to lose weight; nothing said by them one way or another made that change in me, I did.
I'd rather hear nothing about my weight at all - good or bad. I'm overweight, I know it, I'm trying to do something about it. Nobody else's business, really.
I come HERE for support. I get a lot of good tips from the folks who post here. Plus, it does help me to know that "I'm not the only one" with a certain problem, set-back, etc.
But in general, nope. I prefer people - ESPECIALLY THOSE WHO CLAIM TO LOVE ME (mom, daddy, etc) to just NOT say anything. Unless I've LOST noticeable amounts of weight. Then, of course, they can praise me all they like.
I've never had anyone tell me that I'm beautiful and look fine the way I am. I guess that would be a lie to a degree. I get the "you have such a pretty face" comment all the time, which I take as a negative complement even if the intent is to be positive.
I say pain is my motivator because that is what has convinced me to make a change recently. I went to Tx at the beginning of July for a week. I barely fit in the plane seat and had to suck in with all my might and pull as hard as I could to get the seatbelt to fit, I had to do that twice on the way there and twice on the way back. I was too mortified to ask for a belt extension. While we were there we had to walk for miles everyday because we didn't have transportation or had to use public transportation which was very difficult. It was very hard on me, my whole body hurt, it was excruciatingly painful. We also had to sit in stadium seating for 4 days for about 3 hours at a time while we were there, I didn't fit in the seat and I had to scoot up on the edge just to sit down, the seat would creak and groan and I was afraid it would break on me. The arm rests caused bruising on my hips, which is actually just now clearing up. I was so miserable, I cried myself to sleep several nights. What was supposed to be a fun time for me & my husband was not fun in the least. And it was all due to my obesity. It still makes me sad just thinking about it.
I don't want to be that way anymore, I don't want it!
. I was so miserable, I cried myself to sleep several nights. What was supposed to be a fun time for me & my husband was not fun in the least. And it was all due to my obesity. It still makes me sad just thinking about it.
I don't want to be that way anymore, I don't want it!
Last edited by Beach Patrol; 07-22-2010 at 12:31 PM.
I think insults and backhanded compliments have actually led to me being overweight. My parents especially thought it was "motivating" to tell me that I shouldn't eat x or y because it would make me "more fat" and my father particularly used to make comments such as "I wouldn't take you to a dogfight if you were the main contender" and "why can't you be more like your sister?" (Sis, by the way, is fatter than I am now, so there!!)
While you're young and impressionable, hearing this sort of garbage and feeling the shame and tearing pain in your chest that comes along with your parents hating you (even if they didn't, that's what it felt like to me) when they should love you, and not being able to go to them when you get teased at school or asked if you are pregnant when you're 12 because they would get a huge laugh out of it. . . I learned very early to eat my feelings. Sort of rebellious and f*** them, I'll eat more of this than I really want just to show them I don't care what they think.
That kind of attitude has held on through all these years, and now that I'm almost *gasp* middle aged, well past puberty and young adult-hood, still holds to this day. If someone is laughing and pointing, making comments whether directly or overheard, it is perceived by my tiny mind that they are in fact laughing and pointing at me because I'm fat. Directly resulting in a strong urge to empty an ice-cream container into my mouth.
Compliments, well, they are a whole other ballgame. If someone says "You look great" my mind finishes the sentence with "you usually look like crap." If they notice I've lost weight then that means they noticed how fat I used to be. There is no way to convince myself that sometimes, people are just NICE. Haven't run into too many nice people over the years, but lots of A-holes.
Sorry to ramble. Neither shame nor adoration motivates me. I have to do this for myself, because of my health, so I can be around to watch my children and future grandchildren grow up. And spend a fortune on therapy, I guess.
I think his "compliment" was a his way of pointing out that I was fat in a covert way. It's interesting that he is one of the few people that has never given me a compliment about my weight loss. I get a kick out of parading my skinny self in front of him (we are only platonic friends now). I know it's childish, but I can't help myself.
Haha, but I don't care, this is for me. My boyfriend loves me regardless and my family has always been trying to get me to lose weight; nothing said by them one way or another made that change in me, I did.
