Why is this hard?

Steve said:
Okay.

I buy into this concept.

Now, is there a way to pre-maturely make someone want it "bad enough." Or do you have to wait for the "end of the road" so to say?

I know my answer, but what do you all think? Is there a way to generate "hunger?"

If so, how?
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I keep referring back to addiction recovery, I know, but there are so many similarities.

With alcohol, you can't make someone see how much better life is without. They call it hitting bottom - when you finally see for yourself that what you are doing is killing you.

It can be as big as a bad car accident or as small as waking up with a mild hangover and deciding, "Enough."

Maybe with me, with my unhealthy eating habits, my bottom was when we were weighing our farm animals and my husband asked me to step on the scale with one of the babies to weigh - and then to step on alone so that he could deduct my weight to find the weight of the baby. Feh. I didn't like seeing that. I kept thinking the scale was broken. That's denial!
 
maleficent said:
tbis forum has changed drastically i the past year - some for the better some for the worse - almost a year ago when I joined -t he diet du jour was atkins and very very low calorie diets -I spent an awful lot of time posting links I had found - trying to help people and show that ultra low calorie diets weren't the way to go... and people weren't aboout listening (but am I bitter? No.. :D It's really a shame I deleted past diaries just to see the comments that were left abouot how I was doing things wrong because I was having way too many calories :)
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Well I am talking about how it is currently. I think it is good. And how has it changed for the worse? If it shouldn't be mentioned here, I would love to here privately.

When I first joined here, there was a ton of misinformation floating around. But I am talking about online communities in general. Having good information backing the community is critical of course to helping people. But at the same time, I think it gives people the sense of belonging to something bigger. KWIM? Where one overweight person might feel completely isolated and uncomfortable joining a gym.... it tends to change perspective when you know there are thousands of others just like you doing the same thing.

I don't know, maybe I am too optimistic.
 


^I thought this was interesting and relevant to the subject.

I wanted to say everyone has posted honest and beautiful responses as well.

I truly am a food addict. I cannot have one cookie. Or I can’t at this stage of my process. A couple weeks ago I had a terrible binge, where for about 4 days straight I ate pizza, after pizza, after pizza. Why? Because I had one bite, and thought “Well I’ve ruined it! I’m going to have another piece, why not? You know you’re going to, you’ve already failed.” It really was psychotic, and the feelings that result are shame, guilt, hopelessness, I am constantly fighting a battle against myself. The moment I feel out of control and the greedy part of me takes over, I’ve lost, and it is ridiculously difficult to stop the cycle and return to the responsible part of me. I wasn’t an overweight kid, so I haven’t dealt with this as long as most people have, but I have dealt with self-confidence issues for as long as I can remember. It has to do with being confident. If I expect myself to fail, I will. And right now as I’m typing this, I have no idea why I’d feel that I would fail, because I feel really in control in this moment. But I can’t say that tomorrow, or tonight, I’ll feel in control, because I simply don’t know what to do when that overwhelming feeling hits me. Also I want to say that during a binge such as that, I do not enjoy it. I do not think the food tastes good, and I do not enjoy a bite of it. I feel heavy guilt.

Edit: How could I forget anger? I get so angry with myself! I wish I could take that anger, and use it to propel myself towards something positive, such as exercise, maybe if I get the overwhelming feeling again, I will have the strength of mind to overcome it in a healthy self-preserving way.
 
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indigoiis said:
I keep referring back to addiction recovery, I know, but there are so many similarities.

With alcohol, you can't make someone see how much better life is without. They call it hitting bottom - when you finally see for yourself that what you are doing is killing you.
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I don't agree.

I have multiple friends who have had serious addictions (drugs, alcohol, etc)

Some of them, you are right, hit rock bottom before they made positive change.

Others, not so much. Outside pressure came from integral people in their lives that helped them see that enough was enough and it was not only time to change, but it was better for you to change.

So no, I don't think it is necessary to reach rock bottom.
 
Steve said:
Where one overweight person might feel completely isolated and uncomfortable joining a gym.... it tends to change perspective when you know there are thousands of others just like you doing the same thing.
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I joined my gym in january and was really good about going - but it was a frustrating experience not really knowing what to do - so the treadmill and I became very good friends - once the weather turned to not snowing i stopped going to the gym - It's still overwhelming for me to go in there - and while I may have a list of things I need to do and understand how to do them - I'm the oldest one in there and the biggest one too - it's me surrounded by a bunch of straight haired 20 something pilates princesses who are perfectly coordinated and accessorized don't sweat and run on the treadmill... and there's me in her hanes beefy tshirt and non matching track pants :) with frizzy hair in a pony tail... and this was the least image conscious gym in my area... Knowing others on the internet are doing the same thing doesn't help me at all... but tha's just my whiney baby attitude :D
 
maleficent said:
I joined my gym in january and was really good about going - but it was a frustrating experience not really knowing what to do - so the treadmill and I became very good friends - once the weather turned to not snowing i stopped going to the gym - It's still overwhelming for me to go in there - and while I may have a list of things I need to do and understand how to do them - I'm the oldest one in there and the biggest one too - it's me surrounded by a bunch of straight haired 20 something pilates princesses who are perfectly coordinated and accessorized don't sweat and run on the treadmill... and there's me in her hanes beefy tshirt and non matching track pants :) with frizzy hair in a pony tail... and this was the least image conscious gym in my area... Knowing others on the internet are doing the same thing doesn't help me at all... but tha's just my whiney baby attitude :D
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You, my friend, are a PITA! :p
 
Thanks everyone, for your contributions to the thread so far! I was surprised how fast the thread "blew up." Popular subject, obviously.

I had fun discussing it.
 
Self talk is key, I do not have a good self image. Definately for being overweight my entire life. People think that they can just walk up to a heavy person and say very hurtful things. WHY?? Would I walk up to you and say something about you, NO.

After hearing these things for my young life, as I grew up it is difficult to believe anything else. Even when I came home as a child from school my parents, thinking it was helping would say things too. I don't blame them for my weight as it was said before, I am responsible for what goes in my mouth. However the self confidance is destroyed over the years. I look in the mirror and do not see pretty. This then hinders my motivation.
 
Debster63 said:
Self talk is key, I do not have a good self image. Definately for being overweight my entire life. People think that they can just walk up to a heavy person and say very hurtful things. WHY?? Would I walk up to you and say something about you, NO.

After hearing these things for my young life, as I grew up it is difficult to believe anything else. Even when I came home as a child from school my parents, thinking it was helping would say things too. I don't blame them for my weight as it was said before, I am responsible for what goes in my mouth. However the self confidance is destroyed over the years. I look in the mirror and do not see pretty. This then hinders my motivation.
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I can understand this, certainly. Thankfully for you though, years of negative self-talk does not equate to years of positive self-talk to offset the negative thinking and actions. :)
 
I know other people have mentioned this already, but I just love food.

I love trying new foods and making new foods and cooking for friends and family and tasting different flavors. It isn't even so much an emtional eating thing, for me. I just love the taste of certain things and there's nothing that can compare to that.

As my boyfriend knows all too well, I would MUCH rather eat ice cream than have sex, and I think that says it all. It's just immensely pleasurable and thus addicting.

Hunger doesn't even bother me, after so many years of ignoring my body. I don't really eat to not feel hungry, I eat to taste it and be happy for that moment.
 
I think part of the problem for me is a lack of connection between the big picture and the immediate. I have been here a while and know that it's the daily habits and consistent changes that will make the difference. I know that I will be doing this for the rest of my life, and it's not like I'll never have pizza again. I just have to make it a very occasional treat.

But then my roommate gets a pizza and I say "well, I guess this is one of those very occasional treat times", only i say that WAY more frequently than "very occasionally." Next thing I know, every day is a treat day and I'm the exact way I was before. I never "gave up", I just got worse and worse and worse without really realizing it.

It's like I have the big picture in my mind, but when it comes to individual decisions I screw up.
 
This thread is a really interesting one, and reading other people's responses has got me thinking about things that have/do make it so hard for me to lose weight, that I have never admitted to myself as reasons before, quite an eye opener.

I have ALWAYS had the question in my head 'why do i make this so hard for myself?' well as long as I have been overweight. I have beaten myself up so many times for the fact that i *know* what i need to do to lose weight and be fit and healthy, but I constantly go against that.

I am not sure why, but in these last couple of days, something has really seemed to click inside me, I really feel different about everything, my 'omg this is too hard, i cant do it' mentality has been swapped with something very different, and very much more positive. Why? Im not sure. Will it last? I blooming well hope so. I will work hard everyday to keep up this positive vibe I have going. I am sure that this is the key to actually achieving my results.

What has changed? Firstly i now feel like i am really doing this for me. Up until very recently i was doing it becuase i worried about what others thought of me, how society viewed me. I have beautiful skinny friends and i wanted them to treat me as one of them. Now I see that they do, its only in my head they dont so i disclude myself from shopping trips, fashion chats etc, not the other way around.

A BIG reason I always failed was my mothers attitude, kinda bilittling maybe, im not sure how to put it. I know she was trying to support me, but the way she went about it made me always feel rubbish about myself, and when i feel rubbish, i eat, so vicious circle begins.

My low self esteem is my enemy. I have real real issues with binge eating as a comfort. And when I binge, I really binge. Like really really. I do this in secret, and i eat eat and eat some more, and then start eating all over again until I feel better. Which about an hour later would have completely washed off n i'd feel 1000 times worse. I have not had one single even little binge eat for over 10 days now. I know, in the scheme of life ten days isnt much, but in my life, going that long without comfort eating at all, is immense. and i think the fact I managed that is the reason I have this new belief and drive to really do this.

What else happened around ten days ago? I started to exercise. Over the last 6 years or so i have thought about my food a lot, i have tried many many many diets, for very short periods of time, I have gotten myself the education in theory about a healthy balanced diet, but i have never put it into practice for very long at all. I have never understood why I havent been able to keep up, to stop binging, why food and eating is linked so closely to my emotions, and why i will open that second packet of cookies and follow it up with that whole lemon drizzle cake and extra thick cream when i know what i am doing is making me fat, is stupid, and goes against everything i know about nutrition and healthy eating.

One thing i never did before is really try to include exercise. It seems that here i massively missed the point. Exercise has changed the way i think about food so much. Well, maybe it is a coinsidence, but i dont think so.

Before, I could not be in the house with any bad food, because quite simply it was in here, i would eat it, all of it. Now, there is an open bag of crisps (potato chips) on the side in the kitchen, they are my housemates, she told me i could have them, I said no thanks, this was on friday and they are still there, probably stale! Last night my housemate offered me ben and jerrys pish food, i declined the offer and sat and chatted with her while she polished off a bowl of the stuff. This is unheard of.

Sorry, just realised I have rambled on and on endlessly off topic here. So in short, the answer to your question is probably my willpower stopped me, my emotional state, the stuff going on inside my head, my lack of self esteem, those kind of things.

This exercise link to this changing is not something I am at all sure about, but it is the way i feel, so the other thing I would say that made it hard was not understanding the need for the whole package.

I just wanted to be thin. I failed. Now I want to be fit, healthy and happy, and i will lose weight in accomplishing those three goals. But the aims and objectives have changed. And now, for the first time in my life it feels possible, not impossible.

Kato
 
Gotta say I am really enjoying this thread.

I don't have much else to add, but I remember Billy Blanks says in one of my Tae-Bo workouts something to to the tune of, "If losing weight was all physical, everyone would be thin. But it's also emotional and spiritual."
 
I know that for me there is a strong link between eating and emotions. I eat to celebrate, I eat when I'm upset, I eat when I'm angry, I eat to punish myself and others..I also genuinely love foods that arent healthy. In any case, I feel that no amount of nutritional information or knowing what I ought to be eating will help unless I'm prepared to deal with the emotional side of things...which I think I finally am :) But I think sometimes it takes a lot of failed attempts, thinking about making the change and talking about options before someone is mentally ready to put the ideas into action. It's certainly the case for me!
 
Jumping on board a bit late

I've become a night owl once again and was pushing through all of the threads when I came upon this one. I'm not sure how active it will remain but I feel the need to express my own thoughts as a person who has stuggled with their weight and a serious ED. I read through all of the posts so far and made several notes which I thought I had something to contribute to. I'm not going to use quotations because I haven't figured out how to do multiple quotes. Be kind while I try to sum up my thoughts on lots of other ppl's good thoughts.

My attention to read this article was brought on by the idea that Steve's mind is much like my boyfriend's... the inability to grasp my inability to lose weight and be done with it. I'm constantly trying to get Jeff to understand... sending him articles, explaining it and just like I have a mental block when he says "You can" he has the same mental block when I say, "I can't". But I get all of the crap for not thinking positively.

Steve asked "Is it a matter of not REALLY knowing what you want? Or not knowing why"
I do know what I want. I want to be thin. I want to be a shape. A small shape. A shape that's accepted by society. A shape that gets the man of my dreams to marry me. Steve also wants to be a shape. He has his reasons. Now look at it this way, if anyone of us devoted our lives to turning our bodies into the shape of an octagon, people would think we were loons. And if you showed up at a surgeon to have this done, someone would be getting a psych consult and not a plastic surgery consult. I can guarantee that if society had no voice on what shape your body is, I would not have a want to be thin. There wouldn't be a reason. People say that diet and exercise is the healthiest way to live. I agree that being healthy is the best way to live but so is being happy. Anyone who is on this site to lose weight is unhappy about something.... which is their weight. I know my what and my why.

Mal said that she was propelled by vanity to lose weight. (Ok, that's not an exact quote but I made shorthand notes and I'm doing my best... feel free to correct me.) I think that on the majority, people who say it's vanity never realize that it's another form of perfection. ANother reason to WHY I want to lose weight is because somewhere down the line I associated thin with perfect. And growing up mainly in the 90's, how could I not? And why is it bad when it's considered vanity but it's great-excellent-fantastic when you call it healthy living? They really are the same thing except one has a negative vibe and the other doesn't.

Nutrition education- I didn't realize until I was in the 7th grade WHY I was fat. And by that point I was 195lbs.. at age 12. I do believe that nutrition education should be something taught alongside hygiene. When you're young and you are on the verge of forming into a young adult, information is everything. A parent will tell a six year old that doritos make them fat but they never tell them why or how it will. That's the mistake.

When Mal touched on the issue that she's lost an uber-fantastic 150lbs and sees no change, I know how she feels. I've recently lost the 25 pounds I gained last year and I don't see a difference in pics or in the mirror. I learned that because of my ED, I suffer from body dysmorphia. It's a frustrating stuggle to never know when you're seeing the truth or what the truth looks like. Last week I didn't leave the apartment because I thought that I looked too ugly. When Jeff got home from work and found me nicely dressed, with my makeup and hair done and tears streaming down my cheeks, he laughed when he found out I was crying because I thought I was ugly. But no one laughs when a schizophrenic is crying because they see things that aren't there. The mind is a complex, and often rather tricky, thing. And it gets even harder when you're living a sober reality with no perception of what your own reality looks like.

Food addiction- It's called an addiction because it's bad. It's called an addiction because it can kill you. How many people out there collect cars? Cars are pretty and fancy... a new one can even make you feel like you're on top of the world. You've achieved something that allowed you this luxury. But cars can kill. They do EVERY SINGLE DAY. Food does make me feel good. I had a long, daunting day recently and I put one spoonful of Edy's Slow Churned French Silk in my mouth and it felt like 12 hands massaging my entire body. And who doesn't want that?

Along the same lines, I hate that people call certain things treats or rewards. Ice cream should not be a treat or a reward. I'm not saying that it should be part of a regular diet, but like many other things, if it didn't have an elevated connotation , there wouldn't be a driving desire for it. After years of diets and what have you's, I'm going to accept ice cream. If I want it, I'll schedule it into calories for that day. If someone gets a massage on the regular and decides to lose weight, they don't cut out the massage. So why should they cut out ice cream? Reduce intake? Yes. Reduce frequency? Yes. Eliminate? No. It makes ppl obsess who already have a food obsession. When I'm not obsessing, I have crap loads more control of what I'm eating and I eat less because I'm never in fear of the container looming in the freezer.

Steve quote "What is so hard? More problems with exercise or nutrition?"
Nutrition. At least for me. I hate vegetables. If you make me eat them, I will gag while trying to chew and swallow and my eyes will start to water. A very daunting task is losing weight without having veggies in my meal plan. Please, no one should write to me about veggie health benefits or tell me how terrible it is that I don't eat them. I'm one intelligent girl and I certainly know what veggies can do for a person. I WISH I liked them. I wish I liked them enough to eat them and feel like it was a mediocre dining experience. But I don't like them.

Steve mentioned that some people are go getters and some have mental barriers. I used to be very much a go getter until the world shit on me and I was so exhausted from trying day after day and still not being accepted (ie good enough) that I gave up because I'm tired. My college faculty laughed at me freshman year when I said I wanted to be an opera singer. By the time I graduated college I was a first place competition award winning soprano and held the principle role in the opera. Where's my point? I think there are a lot of ppl who work hard, get told that they will never be successful, always come in second, nothing is ever good enough and they give up. Not because they are lazy but because trying your hardest and getting told it's not enough time after time is mentally wearing on a person. It makes you hate yourself.

Now to finish a long post, I had so many other things to write about but I felt the need to stop because a long post is boring.

But for Steve I do want to make one last point. And knowing that sometimes my words have the grace of a toddler trying to walk, I am sorry if this comes out accusatory and snippy. It's not meant to. I think that you are a great person and provide people with a wealthy source of information. However I offer you up some food for thought... I think that in your generous quest to help people with weightloss, you also put them into a box when you vocalize into "not buying" certain, theories?, shall we say. People who dont' lose weight easily deal with resistance, rejection and non-acceptance everyday. Since you don't understand (resist the idea) how a person can know the way to losing weight yet they don't do it, you put them into a negative box that disables them further. You don't accept their fear of being thin because you have never been afraid of achieving your own physical goals. A good majority of people who are overweight are there because it's a coping mechanism for something deeper. But your quest to be buff is not catering to a coping mechanism.

I think that's enough for one post. I hope no one took my thoughts as arrogant. They certainly weren't meant that way. But I'm just as curious as anyone on the how and why.
 
Damn, Wish I had got in here sooner....

Everything good has been said already!!!!

My personal take after doing a little skimming is this:

Why is it so hard? Simple. Pain. It hurts. Bottom Line. At least that was the case for me and most people I know.

Bleeding blisters, cramps, spasms, DOM's, sprains, strains, pulls, tears, salty sweat in the eyes, cuts, scrapes, etc etc etc. if that isnt pain then I am afraid of the real definition....

Humanity spends most of its available energy and drive to make life easier for ourselves, not many, other than sadists and weirdos actually go out of their way to find pain. And really, isn't that what losing weight is all about? Its about giving up that comfort zone and going beyond. We know the medicine in the needle will make us feel better, but does that make the stab less painful? Women know they will love that little bundle of joy shooting out of them, but does that make the 12 hours a labor easy? Does the fact we know it will feel better away AFTER the root canal make the process itself that much sweeter? Hell no!!!

How many of us backed down the last 20 times at the first sign of discomfort? How many of us said "This just isnt worth the effort" after we sprained our ankle or pushed ourselves too hard? How many of us thought to ourselves "Is it really worth it?" when push came to shove? My hand is up just as high as yours.

Of course I can't speak for everyone (dont know many overweight sadists looking to lose weight), but based on what I have read, and yes indeed experienced, NOBODY ever says "God! I just shredded my hamstring and cant walk for a week! I love it!!!" Show me that person and I will show you a very odd individual...

But it is more than just physical pain. We have to give up things that in the past took the place of love, friendship, companionship, warmth, trust, hope, etc. I never had a donut tell me I was a fat loser, wish I could have said the same for people. For a lot of us losing that relationship we have developed with food, lack of activity and sedentary lifestyles is the same as telling someone to dump their spouse and children of 10 years on a whim.

We all know it is better for us to be fit instead of fat. We have had this very basic piece of information drilled into us since we were kids. Knowing what we know now, how could there possibly be even one cigarette smoker in the entire planet?? Yet their are billions. Same reason. They know that to give up the addicition it is going to hurt. Plain and simple. And the same can be said about weight problems.

We all know about how unhealthy it is to be fat, and how society judges us for being overweight, how our lives are being shortened and that life in general is harder and costs us more than "average" healthy people. But the big problem is we all know it will hurt to make the changes. We know that running 1km for the first time is going to make us hurt. And everytime after that, possibly for months till we get used to it. We know we will sweat like pigs compared to the other skinny people in the gym, and it hurts to feel their stares and gawking eyes upon us. We all know the agony we will suffer putting away the cheetos and grabbing a bag of carrot sticks instead. We all KNOW this.

We all know, through experience or the experience of others that there is one thing we must all experience to achieve our goals. And that is pain.

It is a natural human instinct to avoid pain at all costs, emotional and physical. And it is that same instinct that I feel holds us back from becoming the best we can be.

I *#@%^ing HATE hearing people say to me "Oh your so lucky you can lose weight like that...." Makes me want to share some of the pain I had to experience to get here with them, trust me. Luck had nothing to do with it. I suffered the blood, sweat and tears, literally, to get here. I felt the pain, AND PUSHED PAST IT!!!

Ask any successfull weight loser if the journey was a piece of cake and if they never felt any pain in the process. if they say no, they are lying. Bottom line.

Thats just my 2 cents, right or wrong.

sirant
 
i will agree with a lot of what has already been said on this thread. why is it hard for me to lose weight, get fit etc? in my case it is not a lot to do with education.while i know little compared to many, i read widely and part of my job(nurse) is as a health educator, which includes diet and fitness.
i havent always been overweight. as a child and teenager i was long and lanky and through my adulthood have yo -yoed between super slim to obese: slobby to fitness fanatic. my problems are mainly mental. i think the problems started because my mother would go to w/watchers and in need of support would enlist me to be her diet buddy even though at that time i was a normal weight with a healthy attitude to food. throughout the years i have increasingly used food as my "crutch". any stress, worries etc in my life (and i have had plenty) food became my friend. the fatter i became the less i cared. i believe, although ive never been officially diagnosed that i suffer from depression, everything sometimes was too much trouble.
i am also a binger. unfortunately it became an almost everyday thing a real habit, if i didnt have my fix, i would be grumpy and almost panicky at times.
having a lousy at times relationship has been the worst. my o/h suffers from quite severe mental health probs and living with him at times can be horrendous. instead of seeking help, someone to talk to i keep it all bottled in and seek comfort in food.
this time i am not letting anyone get to me, not using my problems as an excuse to eat. i still fall by the wayside occasionally. the more weight i lose the more positive i am and my self esteem is much improved too.
i think that unless you are "in that persons shoes" metaphorically speaking it is very difficult to understand why losing weight, getting fit etc can be such an inconsistant and difficult thing to do. as brunettegoddess said "the inability to grasp my inability to lose weight and be done with it" backs up what i mean...
anyway enough of my ramblings, just done a night shift and i think i better go get some sleep:D . slim
 
Hi!

This is a good topic. I do not have time to read this whole thread, so apologies if this doesn't fit in somehow. (also this is going to be a very quick post, just a thought, whereas I could actually easily write a whole essay on this topic!)

My thought is more along the lines of why people like Steve cannot understand the problems that many on this forum (including myself) have, rather than the problems themselves.

I have a close friend in an abusive relationship. I absolutely CANNOT begin to understand why she doesn't leave the guy. I really can't. But I can see parallels between this situation, and what we have been talking about. We may know in our heads that our bad lifestyles are harming us, mentally and physically, and we may know what we need to do to change. Just as my friend knows her fiance is cruel and violent and she would be better off if she left.

But there is so much more to both situations than logic and reason. Emotion, habit, low self esteem, lack of love for yourself, fear of the unknown, convenience etc etc.

Someone who has not experienced many of these factors (Steve I suspect!), and who looks at these things purely logically, and from a point of view of having healthy self esteem, will never REALLY understand the mindset of someone who struggles hard to change, even when they know what they need to do, any more than I will ever understand why my friend does not leave her partner.
 
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