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Is losing weight mostly psychological?
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TheLadyBane wrote: »I would say the number one factor in me successfully losing weight has been my mindset. I was morbidly obese for about 10 years. I would sometimes say to myself "things would be so much easier if I wasn't so big" or "I wish I was smaller". I even made a few half-hearted attempts at weight loss that mostly involved replacing lunch with a can of slimfast, but my mindset was not one that would really allow change or progress. I was too comfortable with my reality even if I wasn't happy in that reality.
It wasn't until I woke up one day and was truly fed up with my current state of being that I was able to make changes. Everything changed immediately. My mind was sick of my lack of activity, my passivity in my own life, negative self-talk, my uneducated food choices and the amount of food I was eating. Overnight I made massive changes. I began exercising every day. I paid attention to the food I was eating. I ate to feed my body, not to soothe emotional needs or out of boredom. I learned about portion size and nutrition.
I have lost over 100 lbs and have maintained that loss. I'm still figuring out the right maintenance weight for myself but I am no longer morbidly obese. I've run a marathon. I've hiked 30 miles in one day just for fun. I've achieved the weight lifting goals I set for myself.
I would not have been able to have done any of those things if my mindset hadn't changed and if I hadn't been in the mental space where I could allow change. In my case mindset was the key to success.
I'm hearing you. Somehow, the only time I noticed my size was when I went clothes shopping, and I kept that to a minimum. And then, I lost the roulette spin and developed an obesity-related health issue. (Refluxed veins in my legs, caused in part by the load they were carrying. It's impacted my lymphatic system so, any time I break the skin on my leg, I run a high risk of infection that often needs multiple courses of oral antibiotics to treat. Which is, of course, setting me up to develop a resistance to antibiotics, which would open the door to more problems.)
Doctors told me there was no cure, but the condition can be managed with compression stockings and weight-loss. And... that was it. Three months of home-care nurses coming daily to change the dressing on my wound. Seven rounds of antibiotics to treat it. (Four while they were waiting on the lab work and guessing at the bacteria. Three when they finally nailed the right one.) Being told to take taxis or use a wheelchair cuz I had to stay off the leg? Having to time my showers for right before the nurse visit, because I couldn't get the dressing wet? Let's just say I got all the motivation I needed and it hasn't faded 150 days later.10 -
For me it has been, at least to get started. I reached a mental breaking point where I couldn't be fat any more and decided I had to change. It was a similar feeling when I finally quit smoking a few years ago. I could never kick the habit until one day I could.7
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Seeing as weight loss often starts when something happens in someone's life to make them suddenly realize, in a way they had not before, "Oh my God, I'm fat!"... yeah. Until that happens, you won't even get started with weight loss let along accomplish it.
The mental adjustments that come in the process of establishing good habits have to build on that.2 -
ButterballBookworm wrote: »For me it sure is.
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IMO, no. It's more habitual. ANYONE can lose weight if they work on a regimen CONSISTENTLY and that's sustainable.
People didn't get fat because of their psychology. They got fat because of habitual overeating.
Psychology comes in when one has to make the COMMITMENT to do it. One can be FORCED to do it, but people don't like to be forced and that's why many times weight regain happens.
But again, if it's a habitual regimen one can do for basically the rest of their life, they can sustain weight loss and maintain.
A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition
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Why wouldn't my 50+ years of being overweight and obese not be due to psychological barriers? I know of some which I erected.2
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When everything has to pass through my head to be real (to me), yes, most of weight loss (and everything else) is psychological. What else could it be?
And I say that as a mechanist, and rationalist.3 -
Kimblesnbits13 wrote: »
Then there are quite a few robots posing as humans, even some on MFP.
I am most definitely among them. I eat numbers based fuel, and little else. There are some rare exceptions, usually based upon convenience (protein bars, etc.), but even those are almost entirely absent anymore. So long as it shuts my guts up, fits into my goals, and won't make me vomit outright, my tastebuds will adapt.
It's funny in a way, as I had a psych evaluation done as a teenager. My results were relatively normal, except two areas: anger levels usually only seen in serial killers, but control levels nearing monk status. My guess would be that both of these combined to make my lifestyle change hilariously easy.5 -
For me losing weight is a lifestyle change. Before I ate what I wanted to and when I wanted to. Now I have to be accountable for everything I eat and I only have so many calories to spend. I am incorporating more green stuff (rabbit food) into my diet and am working on staying away from fast food tex-mex and Whataburger.0
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Kimblesnbits13 wrote: »I'm wondering everyone's thoughts on this. I'm very big into mindset changes along with permanent habit and lifestyle changes. In my opinion, losing weight and even maintaining the lost weight is mostly psychological than anything else. I dont think people realize how much internal mindset affects the whole process and because of this, when they've reached goal weight, many will gain it back. It all comes from "within". Whether they lose the motivation, or forget the "habits" that were supposed to be built for a lifetime etc.
I would say that much of this is about behaviour, and managing behaviour needs a number of tools. Those tools might be routine, they might be triggers, they might be objectives. So in that sense yes it's psychological because we each need to understand how we respond in order to identify the appropriate tools, and structure them.
When I'm coaching much of what I work on is encouraging a client to articulate what they want to achieve, identify what will help them to achieve those and then work with them to track progress, manipulate the tools as required and evolve objectives as things change.
Part of it is moving people from hoping to wanting.
So much of the dialogue on here is articulated in hope, and people are looking for instant answers. As in the discussion yesterday with someone looking for fun ideas to break the plateau and burn through that last 100lbs. Many of us appreciate that the 100lbs may eventually come off, but the individual in question is unlikely to be happy with the outcome. So how to move to more meaningful objectives, then routes to achieve those objectives. It's not just a question of go on fitnessblender, which many spout on here.
It's all psychological.
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IMO, no. It's more habitual. ANYONE can lose weight if they work on a regimen CONSISTENTLY and that's sustainable.
People didn't get fat because of their psychology. They got fat because of habitual overeating.
Psychology comes in when one has to make the COMMITMENT to do it. One can be FORCED to do it, but people don't like to be forced and that's why many times weight regain happens.
But again, if it's a habitual regimen one can do for basically the rest of their life, they can sustain weight loss and maintain.
A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition
But doesn't creating and breaking habits involve, at least in the beginning, a bit of one's mental fortitude? I agree it's mostly all about creating good habits and breaking/limiting bad ones, but a person's habits involve one's mental state too, to a degree.
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You may like to read Secrets from the Eating Lab by Traci Mann. There are other ones on weight loss psychology but I enjoyed this in particular. Gives research based reasoning as to why will power is a fragile concept and insight as to how to set yourself up to make good decisions and avoid temptation.
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Yes and no. I mean, like endeavoring to do anything, it takes a psychological toll when you 'fail' Given most people will have tried a few fad diets that teach you to avoid this or that and inevitably ballooned back to original weight (and in some cases more) I'm sure that the psychological affect of non-adherance for a day or two can trigger a toss of the towel. Learning the mechanics of how weight loss occurs (CICO and how many calories are actually required to TRULY gain 1lb of fat etc) is tantamount to success. If you want to look at it as a mindset change, I can get behind the psychological aspect, but as a PP mentioned it's very mechanical and scientifically driven physically speaking.0
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"80 percent behavior, 20 percent head knowledge." Rough estimates, of course--in fact, quoted directly from a non-weight-loss context, though the basic idea applies.
Behavior, driven by good habits, and by willpower to overcome the bad habits. Many people succumb to the bad habits when their willpower runs out, when the focus should have been on breaking those habits.
Hmm. Maybe it's closer to 90% behavior.2 -
My opinion is it is 90% mental and 10% physical. Only because there is a physical need to eat, and it takes a long time and a lot of getting used to for your body to get used to not needing the calories that it once did.1
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To paraphrase the Great Philosopher: 90% of weight loss is half mental.4
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I think weight loss is totally psychological. There's no way my body needs 10 cookies, but once the sugar hits my brain... It's like I say to myself, it's totally fine, I'll do better tomorrow. After I started losing weight it became a competition with myself to see where I could cut calories. That was a mental addiction, not physical. As society, we want to feel like we're accepted by others and fit in. Eating a Big Mac doesn't do that. But if people see you with a Fitbit on eating vegetables, it feels ok to be fat because it gives the impression that, I know this isn't great looking, but I'm working on it4
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For me yes.
I've been on off dieting for years, but I always caved because I hadn't developed the right mindset/motivations to prevent failing. Once I focused on my attitudes towards foods and exercise, I found it much easier to keep to a healthy lifestyle. Of course I still have things to work on, but without this mindful approach I wouldn't have made as much progress as I have. My brain controls what I want, so with an untrained brain I'd make untrained food choices
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"80 percent behavior, 20 percent head knowledge." Rough estimates, of course--in fact, quoted directly from a non-weight-loss context, though the basic idea applies.
Behavior, driven by good habits, and by willpower to overcome the bad habits. Many people succumb to the bad habits when their willpower runs out, when the focus should have been on breaking those habits.
Hmm. Maybe it's closer to 90% behavior.
This.1 -
To an extent yes. And that's mostly because we're free to make decisions and most decisions we make usually are to satisfy us or make us happy.IMO, no. It's more habitual. ANYONE can lose weight if they work on a regimen CONSISTENTLY and that's sustainable.
People didn't get fat because of their psychology. They got fat because of habitual overeating.
Psychology comes in when one has to make the COMMITMENT to do it. One can be FORCED to do it, but people don't like to be forced and that's why many times weight regain happens.
But again, if it's a habitual regimen one can do for basically the rest of their life, they can sustain weight loss and maintain.
A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition
But doesn't creating and breaking habits involve, at least in the beginning, a bit of one's mental fortitude? I agree it's mostly all about creating good habits and breaking/limiting bad ones, but a person's habits involve one's mental state too, to a degree.
A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition
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