I see client’s who have lost an enormous amount of weight and all is going well for them, and then they start to approach their goal weight and all of a sudden their weight either plateaus or starts to creep back up.
This is text book self sabotage.
What’s really going on for us at a deeper level is our excess weight is acting as protection because something is deemed to be unsafe. It’s common for those who are single for the excess weight to serve as protection from intimacy and/or a relationship. It also means that you can reject yourself before someone rejects you, and you can blame your body for being single. Our body acts as a scapegoat for our disappointments. It’s easier for us to blame our bodies rather than blame other parts of ourselves.
Often we don’t know who we are or how to be at a smaller weight. It’s unfamiliar territory and with that comes fear. If we don’t do the work on the inside, at a subconscious level we will never get to our ideal weight or we will get there fleetingly.
So what can we do?
You need to get to know your fat – if it could talk – what would it say?
- What are you trying to protect yourself from?
- What’s scary about being at your ideal weight (or smaller/slim etc)?
- Who are you at a smaller size? What do you gain by being smaller? What do you lose?
- What pressure comes with being smaller?
Often we feel (perceived) pressure if we are smaller. Maybe people expect more from us, or maybe we expect more from ourselves? Maybe we would be more assertive and that means more conflict that we might have been avoiding for many years?
Start to get to know what purpose your excess weight serves. It’s trying to protect you for all these years but maybe it’s been overprotecting you and it’s time to step into your personal power.