I've been thinking about how hard it is, generally speaking, to lose weight and to keep it off. I've come to a personal revelation:

Losing weight and keeping weight off requires a change in identity.

We talk about lifestyle change, but I think the issue is much much deeper than that. One has to be willing to become a different person. If you think about it, you have to shed/change many deeply-ingrained habits to successfully lose weight and keep it off. You can't eat the same way you did, you can't eat a whole pizza by yourself, you can't knock-back a six-pack of beer, you can't go out regularly for midnight trips through the McDonald's, you can't have a pint of ice-cream for dessert, etc., etc., etc. The food-related changes you make significantly affect your relationships with many people, since many of us use food and going-out as a means to get together with our friends. Some friends are going to feel that you're abandoning them, since you won't go out to the bar every night with them, since you won't split a large pizza with them, or since you won't kill a plate of Buffalo wings with then in front of the TV watching the game.

(I'm being extreme in my examples, and recognize that moderation is still possible, but bear with me on this)

Your interests are likely to change. Many of us become increasingly interested in exercise and other aspects of healthy living. Many of us become less interested in "couch-potato" activities that we used to do with our friends, relatives, and colleagues.

Your physical shape will change. You will literally look like a different person. You will move away from your initial physical comfort zone, and move into a different zone. People will look at you differently, and will think about you differently. Many of your old friends will view you as a fat person who became thin. You may find it easier to begin hanging out with new people who only know you as a thin person, and who share more of your newer interests, like fitness, healthy food, etc.

All of this (and other things I'm sure I haven't mentioned) are cause and consequence of an identity change.

Identity change is really uncomfortable at the beginning. It's so much easier to simply stay the same. I think you have to be really committed to the process to make it through the other side, and to see it "stick." After all, why go through so much upending of your life if you're not really committed?

That's what makes "fad-diets" and quick weight-loss approaches challenging. Maybe they're not really commitments. Maybe we think that we'll just stick with a fad-diet for a few months, lose the weight we want, but we'll be able to be the same person at the end of it? As we know, though, going back to our old habits are not really compatible with keeping the weight off (or losing weight over the long-term).

Thoughts?