Not allowing myself to feel success

kyubeans

Hi there! I've been struggling with my weight and diet for most of my adult life and have yo-yo'd quite a lot, always ending up heavier than where I began.

Well this time, I am fully committed for health reasons and for my general happiness. I've decided that this is a lifestyle change, not a "diet" and I've been sticking to it for officially one month now and have lost 15 lbs! Not only that, but I've also had a very SIGNIFICANT non-scale victory in that... I have not "cheated" once. I have a rule for No Unplanned Indulgences, and have actually kept to it. And even when I do indulge, I track every single bite because I want to know what I'm putting in my body, and learn what is in the food.

So, I should feel upbeat and positive about this particular journey so far. I've never tried such a simple tactic - CICO, track everything, the end. I want to feel optimistic about my future weight loss.

But here's what's going on in my head:
"15 lbs? Not really. It's mostly water weight, probably. Don't get your hopes up."
"You haven't messed up YET. Y.E.T. You will. Soon. And then you'll probably give up."
"Don't celebrate any successes yet; it's too soon."

And the worst one, the one that I found myself saying this morning:
"How dare you be happy about seeing that number on the scale? It's a shame that you even let it get that high. You cannot celebrate that number. It's a horrible number."

Even though it's my first time seeing that number in a while, and it signified my breaking into 15lbs lost!

Has anyone else gone through this negative self-talk before? I know it's a problem and I'm trying to recognize it when it happens and stop myself, but there is a part of me that thinks it's wrong for me to feel happy because I'm so ashamed that I let myself get to this state in the first place. How do you fight that?

vespiquenn

Talk to yourself as you would another person. Would you really say those awful things to or about another person? Probably not. Treating yourself with the same respect should be no different.

Eliniita

First of all,
Congratulations!!
15lbs is a huge accomplishment. I understand that sometimes we (ALL OF US) have those moments where we don't feel like we are enough. We get down on ourselves, and I just want to tell you that those thoughts are garbage!

You ARE accomplishing something, you ARE making changes, and you WILL arrive at your goal. You can do it!

It's okay to feel down sometimes. It's okay if you do slip up one of these days. It really is okay.

Just...keep on going.

kyubeans

Eliniita wrote: »

First of all,
Congratulations!!
15lbs is a huge accomplishment. I understand that sometimes we (ALL OF US) have those moments where we don't feel like we are enough. We get down on ourselves, and I just want to tell you that those thoughts are garbage!

You ARE accomplishing something, you ARE making changes, and you WILL arrive at your goal. You can do it!

It's okay to feel down sometimes. It's okay if you do slip up one of these days. It really is okay.

Just...keep on going.

Thank you! You are so encouraging. I'll try to remember your words next time I feel this way!

kyubeans

vespiquenn wrote: »

Talk to yourself as you would another person. Would you really say those awful things to or about another person? Probably not. Treating yourself with the same respect should be no different.

I've definitely said this to other people! It's crazy how easy it can be to forget to do something for yourself that you do so easily for others... Thank you for reminding me!

amtyrell

Talk back. The bad voice doesn't have to be the only voice. Listen to your friends in real life and mfp.

AliNouveau

Yay congrats on the 15!!! That would be a heck of a lot of water weight to lose

Don't most of us do this? I've got fairly toned legs and I guarantee you when I go to walk to the store soon I'll look down and see jiggling and wobbling and think what the heck then walk by the mirror store (yes there is one) and catch a glimpse of some toned legs and be like how are they the same. We all see flaws we all tell ourselves silly things. We tell others you are doing great only to tell ourselves you're a failure.

As the above post said talk back. Tell that voice you might have gotten that size but you sure as heck are going to fight and leave that behind so back off. Keep up the good work!

88olds

This is a great post.

I opened your thread because if the title. The first thing we have to do is recognize success. Most success denial involves the general category of "not good enough." You do even better, your denial is right up front "you haven't really lost weight, it's water." Then you kick yourself for mistakes you may make in the future. Then "haven't been at it long enough." And finish off with general self loathing, here's a kick for even needing to lose weight.

Weight loss is a solitary pursuit. If you read this board everyday you see person after person wrecked by nothing more than their own self talk. Unless we work to learn meditation, our inside chatter never stops. Our brains are just throwing it out there. "You're great." "You're rotten." There seems to be something about obesity that makes us grab onto "you're rotten" every time it flows by.

My view is the fat is in our heads and there's no way out unless we can master some of our own thinking. Bravo to you for identifying your negative thinking. Fight back. I think I was able to lose because I did what I came to think of as arguing with myself and winning.

Another thing I like about your post is tracking. Tracking is a thing to do. Oddly enough WL is not, it's not a behavior, it's a result of behaviors. Keep tracking everything including miscalculations, lapses and mistakes and you will not fail. Something I read when I started- what happened last time has nothing to do with this time. The past does not control the future. Good luck. Thanks for the post.

One more thing about recognizing success. After I lost the first 25 lbs (I'm down 100+ & not going back) I went and bought a new suit. Game changer. It was real, right in front of my eyes change for the better. Pick a goal and when you get there reward yourself with something to establish the new you. Doesn't have to be clothes, but underscore change. Try to lock something in. Once I saw myself in that suit I was never going back. I still had a lot to lose but it worked.

kyubeans

88olds wrote: »

My view is the fat is in our heads and there's no way out unless we can master some of our own thinking. Bravo to you for identifying your negative thinking. Fight back. I think I was able to lose because I did what I came to think of as arguing with myself and winning.

Thank you. The way you paraphrased the meaning behind each of my negative thoughts really struck me. Success denial, kicking myself for future mistakes, general self loathing. When you categorize them from a distance like that, it sounds so much worse (which is good, because I need to realize this). And combined with everyone else's words and yours to "Fight back", it makes so much sense now. How can I let myself say such things to me? Fighting back and actually winning over the negative thoughts never seemed possible to me. I just wanted to find a way to avoid thinking this way. But I can't control the stream of consciousness, so I have to learn to pick out the positive things and focus on success. Thank you!

88olds wrote: »

One more thing about recognizing success. After I lost the first 25 lbs (I'm down 100+ & not going back) I went and bought a new suit. Game changer. It was real, right in front of my eyes change for the better. Pick a goal and when you get there reward yourself with something to establish the new you. Doesn't have to be clothes, but underscore change. Try to lock something in. Once I saw myself in that suit I was never going back. I still had a lot to lose but it worked.

Congratulations on your incredible loss. I think this is such a good piece of advice. I'll have a little bit of fun coming up with some sort of mile marker reward to underscore the change. Thank you.

88olds

@kyucifer A misconception about fighting negative thinking is that we have to flip the negatives to positives. All we have to do is neutralize the negatives. Some can be flipped, but it's not necessary.

The thing about the past not controlling the future is, I think, neutral. It's just a fact. The future is unknown. "I'll just mess up like last time." Is just a useless prediction. But a disheartening negative thought. Likewise people will start out "This time I'm going to do it!" Well, just another prediction. For me to win an argument with myself I had to be able to get some conviction behind my argument.

Some things took a long time to deal with. Sometimes I would have to stop and say to myself "I have to find a way to push back against this or I'm not going to make it". Sometime I would decide that I deserved to win the argument because I was a worthy cause. I didn't decide I "loved" my obese self, but I deserved to decide what kind of life I wanted.