Everyone says that the weight loss journey more mental than physical, in fact, many will say that it’s ALL mental. I always heard that phrase and understood the journey would be difficult, but I never truly understood the psychology of weight loss until recently. I also never realized how much of a mental battle it’s been until I started reflecting and reading old posts.
Last year, when I lost pound #40, I remember thinking that it wasn’t as difficult as I thought it would be, I was confident and maybe even a bit cocky. But anyone that’s read more than one post of this blog has seen that every time I was at my most optimistic I would soon have a stumble or fall.
It’s really surprising just how extreme the highs and lows have been, and the dichotomy really takes it’s tolls. Even as I write this post, I’m feeling optimistic as I’m training for another 5k and finally rebuilding that wagon. However, admittedly, I’m still incredibly full from the pizza I ordered for dinner, the brownie I had for dessert, and the cola I’m still sipping while writing this.
So why does this happen? I think I need to break it up into a few aspects of my psychological struggle.
Doing the Work
If there is one saving grace in this whole darn thing, it’s that I genuinely enjoy working out. Way back in the day I would spend hours playing a dancing video game called Dance Dance Revolution, a perfect mix of trying to get in shape, my musical background, and my overall geekiness. Here’s a video, I was never nearly as good as this dude is. Orange Theory Fitness really has been a godsend in this latest iteration in that it’s highly effective, it’s different every time, and it’s fun!
Running and 5k training, let’s be honest, I don’t enjoy as much. Mostly because it’s more difficult running outside both regarding physical strain/impact and the mental/emotional strain of having my flab bounce around for everyone to see. However, it is a way to push myself and the sense of accomplishment afterward really can’t be beat.
Mentally, when it comes to physical activity, I generally haven’t had much of a problem with motivation once I get going. My problem lies more with patience. As I’ve previously discussed, I often want to do my best EVERY time I work out. I follow the principle that the only competition I have is against my previous self. I know the only way to grow stronger is to push myself and NOBODY can say what I lack in ability is due to lack of effort.
While I feel that is a great mentality to have, the downside to this mentality is it leads to injury. To this day, I’m still slightly cautious every time I lace those gym shoes because the ankles/calves still aren’t 100%. The tricky part is, they won’t be until I gain more strength, but more importantly, not until I lose more weight to alleviate the stress.
This constant threat leads to self doubt and eventually holding myself back, whether it be from not pushing as hard as I could or needing to sit out because I’ve pushed myself too hard. Either way, it’s frustrating and I need to learn to just put in the work without having to get a PR every time.
The Grind & Temptations
I know how to lose weight. I HAVE lost weight, I know what to do.
Actually doing it, that’s another story.
Here’s a video from Ben Landers of the YouTube Channel Fat Meets Fire talking about his massive weight loss journey, he also has a degree in Psychology, so he can definitely word things better than I can:
He also has a website with coaching of the same Fat Meets Fire name, cool!
Some points I got out of it: the longer your journey is, despite building good habits, the stronger temptation is around you. I can relate to that because when I did lose a bunch of weight, I allowed myself to cheat a lot more. I knew I still had a long way to go, but I felt like I’ve “earned it” because I’ve put in the work. In the end, I ended up undoing a lot of the work I had done.
He also discusses the marshmallow test, where when someone is presented with an immediate reward, but given the choice to pass on the immediate reward for an even greater future reward, the natural instinct is to satisfy the immediate needs. Case in point, it’s much easier for me to cave into my pizza and brownie cravings than think of a skinnier me a couple years from now. Even though I fully understand the pizza won’t satisfy me for long (if at all), and getting skinner for sure will make me feel better and improve my life.
He also touches on the struggle and the feeling of, “this is impossible,” that starts to creep in. Psychologically, I also relate to this, because I’ve been big my entire life, so I don’t know anything different because this is how my life has been. To me, there has been no other possibility. As silly as it sounds, that change is kind of scary in itself.
Coincidentally, another YouTube channel I follow, VlogBros. Hank Green discussed the same psychological principle applied to pretty much any facet of life.
Here, like the marshmallow test in Ben Landers’ video, Hank Green talks about the immediate reward often beating out the long term reward. Even when the “long term” reward is jut 20 minutes away.
He even unknowingly circles to my current predicament when he said, “Sometimes I feel like you can only do so many things you don’t want to do before you just accidentally eat a whole ice cream cake.”
In both videos, it seems like the solution is to simply just suck it up and do it. As the VlogBros commenters said, to quote Dumbledore from Harry Potter, “…there will be a time when we must choose between what is easy and what is right.” I mean, choosing good vs evil and wizarding world and weight loss aren’t on the same plane, but the principle remains the same.
My Relationship With Food
Now, to address the elephant in the room, my biggest obstacle if I want to have long term success: my relationship with food. I always have seen food as something that’s positive, celebrations we’d have cake, every holiday is food centric. With Filipino custom the pancit is needed to symbolize, “long noodles, long life.”
Conversely, food also was seen as something to make me feel better when times were rough. Sad. I eat. Stressed? Eat. Frustrated. Eat. Food is the end all of every emotion, whether it be positive or negative, a reward or comfort/consolation.
I’m a very emotional man. I’m a film/video editor, and a lot of what makes me a great storyteller is that I’m in tune with those emotions. The difficulty is separating them and not allowing them to control my life.
I feel like sometimes I talk about food similarly to how an addict talks about their battle with substance abuse, and I suppose that isn’t incredibly inaccurate. The largest difference is you can’t quit food cold turkey, because you need it to live. Biologically they affect the brain in a similar way, here’s an article from Psychology Today discussing the topic, but any details more than that is above my current knowledge set so I’ll leave it at that.
Moving forward, I’m going to need to do some real inward thinking and learn to deal with things in a healthier way. I know this is my biggest sticking point (and likely has always been) in getting to where I want to be.
For example, my athletic performance has improved to the level it was just before my peak last April/May, clothes are starting to fit better, but I GAINED 3 lbs in the past two weeks, something is wrong. Is it stress alone, or in the ways I’m handling the stress?
What compounds this is despite how much I try to not be emotionally tied to that scale number, I am.
I understand the number can be deceiving because of fat loss vs muscle gain, natural body cycles, water weight, and any number of reasons. But in the moment, I’m still crushed and feel like a failure.
In that moment of weakness, I think about the principles of the meritocracy of our society today, where if you work hard enough, you’ll get it. Then I start to feel like I deserve to be this way and feel this unhappy, which adds to the spiral and puts me in danger of falling off the wagon again.
Furthermore, I’m a planner, and right now a lot of things in my life aren’t going as planned. The chaotic nature of it all gives me anxiety and often times makes me feel helpless, even hopeless.
Despite all of that, there is one thing that I do have 100% control over, and that is Baker by the Pound.
I understand this post took a dark turn, but I’ve always felt giving an authentic and honest look into what goes on in my head during this process is the best both for the blog and myself. If this were to be a journal of a (hopefully) successful weight loss story, you need to see the good and the ugly. If any of you out there ever feel the same way trying to reach your goals, let me know.
Circling back to another thing Hank Green said in the 2nd video above:
“It’s hard to do the hard thing, that’s why they call it the hard thing. And it’s harder for some people to do the hard thing than others and it’s harder at some times than other times… Don’t hate yourself when you mess up. Just do it and not let your conscious mind get too caught up in that decision.”
Once you get past the “that’s what she said” quality of that quote (I also tend to handle things via comedy 🙂 ), it’s something that I can really take to heart. I’ll do some soul searching and write another post soon about my plan of action. As deep and dark as this post has become, recognizing it is the first step to seeing that spot of light shining through the darkness.