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The Link Between Being Stuck and Losing Weight
by Roger Gould, MD
www.shrinkyourself.com
Ninety-five
percent of dieters who lose weight gain it all back, plus some. This
depressing statistic prompted the formation of a group called the
National Weight Control Registry (NWCR), the largest prospective
investigation of long-term successful weight loss maintenance. Comprised
of researchers at Brown University and the University of Colorado, they
are interested in determining what brings success to that five percent
of people who are able to lose weight and keep it off. What they
found was that the people who kept the weight off didn’t just change
their eating patterns, they also changed their life.
Maybe you know someone who has lost weight and kept it off. When you
inquired into how they succeeded, you may have heard them say something
like: "I was ready to start having fun in life", “it was time to get my
career into high gear”, "I was going through a divorce", or "I lost
someone dear to me and realized it was time take care of myself."
How they succeeded
The place where these people were stuck wasn’t just related to their
weight, it was related to some other aspect of their life. When people
are stuck, they’re emotionally hungry. They try to fill this emotional
hunger with food, but it never works for very long. People who have
dieted successfully got fed up with being emotionally hungry.
By dealing with the underlying issues that fueled their emotional
hunger, they were able to turn off their Hunger Switch. Their physical
hunger became manageable. They were able to adhere to a sensible eating
plan and lose weight and keep it off without dieting.
This didn’t happen all at once. They had to contend with the realization
it wasn’t just that they felt emotionally hungry. It was that they felt
powerless to do anything about their emotional hunger. They didn’t
believe they could affect any change in the parts of their lives that
were unsatisfying. They had to prove to themselves that it wasn’t true,
that they weren’t powerless.
In 2007, Shrink Yourself conducted an online survey of 7,500 people. The
results indicated that there is a strong relationship between being
overweight and feeling stuck. For roughly two thirds of serious dieters,
going on a diet was part of their attempt to do something positive about
their life. A way to get unstuck, so to speak.
If you feel stuck in life, you’re not alone. Twenty-eight million people
in this country are on anti-depressants. Most of them are on medication
for sub-clinical depression. What are the areas in your life where you
feel stuck?
Being stuck can be like having one foot on the gas pedal and another
foot on the brake. Your foot is on the gas pedal because you desperately
want to go somewhere -- that somewhere in the future where it feels like
your life is going to be on track. But your foot is on the brake because
you’re afraid.
Emotional hunger indicates where you need to make changes
Emotional hunger is there to indicate where you need to make a change.
When a person eats because emotional hunger is too uncomfortable, they
disable their body’s internal guidance system. They no longer have an
inner compass leading them toward the things they want or leading them
away from the things they don’t want. Once this happens, they are more
likely to get stuck.
For example, one of our online users has a husband who works nights. He
was home for the first night in awhile and was watching football. She
felt emotionally hungry. Her hunger switch got turned on and she felt
like she wanted to go to the fridge and binge. But, she stopped herself.
She thought, I could say something stupid like, “You never spend any
time with me.” But she didn’t. She thought things through. She realized
what feeling was fueling her emotional hunger and she said, “I miss
you.” Her husband turned off the TV. She was able to get unstuck in her
relationship with her husband by being honest with her feelings. When
she did that she could see that even if she ate everything in her
fridge, it couldn’t have filled the space of wanting to connect with her
husband.
By taking the first steps to get unstuck (cleaning out your closets,
resolving things with a sibling you haven’t spoken to in years, managing
your finances, organizing your DVDs or photos), you start moving out of
your rut. The efficacy of this was proven in a study that the
National Weight Control Registry conducted.
Be honest with yourself. Are you ready to get unstuck? Take your foot
off the brake and you’ll begin to move forward. Once you’re moving you
can steer yourself where you want to go.
About
the Author:
Dr. Roger Gould, creator of Shrink Yourself.com and author of
Shrink Yourself, is an Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at
UCLA. Dr. Gould has pioneered the use of online therapy sessions
focusing on weight loss and other issues, and has been acknowledged by
the Smithsonian Institute as a pioneer in the innovative use of
computers in psychiatry. Dr. Gould’s work has been featured on national
television & covered in Time Magazine, The New York Times, Prevention,
Good Housekeeping, Forbes, The Wall Street Journal, Psychology Today,
MSN Health. For more information visit
www.shrinkyourself.com.
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