The Psychology of Weight Loss

If we accept this fact - and we must, because it is true - then acceptance should be replaced by understanding, not only because our lives will become much easier and more comprehensible, but also because... Oh, no. That's all. If we understand psychological movements, our lives will become much easier and more comprehensible.

We like to believe, or rather we think, that everything that happens to us only happens to us, when in fact human behavior and our reactions to situations are universal.

This is no different in the process of losing weight, as this universal reaction appears in every human being and accompanies every weight loss process.

But just so I don't write in this pretentious, pseudo-intellectual, I-think-I'm-an-intellectual asshole style, I'll simplify things a bit and go through the processes, or rather the soul-destroying mistakes you make during your diet, and here I'm not even talking about cheating on your diet, because that's when you've already failed, and I wouldn't dedicate a whole post, or even a sentence, to insignificant people.

So, you start a diet and you wait for results. The results will come, of course, but unfortunately, this whole weight loss thing primarily requires self-control and consistency, and here we come to the first point.

 

SELF-CONTROL AND CONSISTENCY

It's the day before your diet officially begins, and you're filled with rage and a desire for action. You're preparing for your lifestyle change like you're going to Mars. You shop for your diet, and as you put healthy things in your cart, you feel incredibly strong.

This is it.

You're really in it now, you really feel it. You feel this is the program where you'll see it through. You buy chicken, fish, vegetables, and all the while you have that satisfying feeling that, damn, you're really starting now. You feel like something good is happening to you, and of course you do, because what you're preparing for is a damn good thing, but unfortunately, most people in this preparation phase already feel like they've done something for themselves. But this is still nothing, my dear.

Do you know what this is like?

It's exactly like preparing for a damn good date, but you only get as far as getting dressed, putting on makeup, but I won't go on, so the usual 4-hour procedure. Yes, you're prepared, you're pretty, and a princess, and all that nonsense, but just because you've prepared and you're standing in front of the full-length mirror at home, that doesn't mean anything. You still have to go on that date, you have to get through the first date, then the second, the fifth, and you have to go to the twentieth meeting too, build, convince, otherwise there will be no security or happy relationship, a "in a relationship" status posted on Facebook, not to mention the shared, very cute profile picture.

Buying groceries for your diet is something like this. Just preparing for it doesn't do anything, because no one has lost weight just by having healthy food in their fridge. You have to eat those foods, and only those foods, and not just on the first day, but for the next seventy days as well.

But we're still only on the day before your diet's first day.

And here comes the first trap situation, when you go shopping, and with that momentum, you grab some crappy food with the excuse that you'll start tomorrow anyway, so you'll have one last crappy meal.

Why? To where? Do you know how stupid that is? It's like you want to tidy up your home, but first you go to the trash can for some garbage and scatter it around your apartment. You wouldn't do that, so why are you stuffing yourself the day before your diet? So you start tomorrow from an even bigger deficit?

There are several problems with this.

• What you eat that day doesn't just make you fat that day
• You'll start the first day of your diet with a massive food coma, such an intense carb craving that it will be a pleasant first diet morning, and correct me if I'm wrong, but you're not the type to stick it out at all costs. Not yet. Maybe someday, if you see it through, but until then, don't make it harder for yourself.

Don't throw garbage in your apartment if you're about to clean, don't stuff yourself the day before your diet, thinking you'll start tomorrow. NO. Your diet doesn't start tomorrow, it starts when you decide you want to change. Either you seize the moment, or we can go to hell, and I'm afraid it's more likely you who will be going, specifically the next morning, when you realize it's not going to work for you.

YOUR DIET DOESN'T START TOMORROW, AND NOT WITH FOOD, BUT IN YOUR HEAD. IT STARTS WHEN YOU DECIDE YOU WANT TO CHANGE.

 

PATIENCE

A very important concept that you should get used to when you start. I know, it's very difficult, you should just see me when a girl texts me that she's arriving at 8 PM, and I look at the clock and what do I see?

4:32 PM, damn it.

We always want everything immediately. A desire comes, a feeling that we want to satisfy immediately, and preferably truly immediately, and this is exponentially true for weight loss too. For weeks and months, you tear yourself apart and agonize that you really need to change now, and then suddenly, for some inexplicable reason, the feeling comes over you that now I'm going to change, now I'm definitely going to see it through. Now it will happen, now I really want it, now I won't eat any more crappy food, now I'll go to the gym and see it through. Of course, these grand promises and the universe-shattering will usually come to your mind after a huge binge, but then very much so.

But let's say you really start and do it. Your determination carries you to the gym, and you feel incredibly strong. It's a great feeling, I know. You go down, you work out like an animal. You have months of anger in you now, which you are rightly pouring into your workouts. You feel a strength in you that people usually feel on the first day. You know, like when you're cycling on a flat section and you put all your muscle into cycling up a hill. For the first few meters, the momentum carries you, but the hill stubbornly holds its own, and after a while, you have to pedal yourself, because the initial momentum runs out, and you have to go on your own steam.

The first workout is something like that. You go with momentum, and you don't feel like it's hard. The workout isn't hard yet, but your psyche will get its first slap in the face here, because what will you do in the gym on your first workout? I repeat, on your first workout? Well, what?

Of course, you'll be looking at yourself in the mirror. I don't want to exaggerate, but I swear there are women who, after lifting a 3-kilo dumbbell and doing twelve reps, start looking at themselves in the mirror to see if the change is already visible.

It's not visible. I assure you, it's not visible, and to make you even calmer, it won't be visible after the third workout either.

IT WOULD BE VERY IMPORTANT TO UNDERSTAND THAT THIS ENTIRE BODY-SHAPING PROCESS IS A PATIENCE-REQUIRING PROCESS THAT TAKES TIME. BUT NOT JUST ANY TIME, BUT QUALITY TIME, AND BY QUALITY TIME HERE WE MEAN ADHERENCE TO A DIET AND CONSISTENT, I REPEAT, CONSISTENT WORKOUTS.

Don't look at yourself in the mirror after the first workout searching for change. Don't look at yourself, because it will be psychologically destructive. Humans are such that if they make an effort, they immediately expect confirmation that what they are doing has meaning, but unfortunately, this is not how it works, and if you understand this, you won't lose your enthusiasm for the whole thing at the very beginning.

 

SEEKING VALIDATION

The search for validation points is also closely linked to patience, only this is an elevated version of it. Here, you're no longer looking in the mirror for thinner lines or a reduction in fat pads, but you want confirmation from other people, which can usually be summarized in a single word that sounds like this:

"Is it visible?"

Is it visible yet? Is it visible that I've lost weight? And all its various forms. We're still at the beginning of the diet, but 6-8 days have passed. Yes. You've been sticking to it for 6-8 days, going to workouts, ideally taking supplements too, and because you're a woman, you need feedback from the outside world.

You need someone to tell you, yes, it shows. However, never forget that most people are malicious jerks, and even if there is some minimal change visible, which is quite questionable after 6 days, most of them still won't tell you yes, it shows, so the best thing you can do is not ask.

Don't rush it.

I used to make this mistake too. When Molnár Peti was my trainer, after the third week I also asked, "Peti, is anything visible yet?" To which Peti said not to ask, that when the time comes and it's visible, he'll tell me himself. He told me not to want to hear what I hadn't yet earned, not to want praise for something that didn't deserve praise. Well, what can I say. Peti isn't a damn legend for nothing. He always knew what to say, and not least, without words, he taught me that only those who have serious achievement and perseverance behind them deserve praise. You see, you've been on a diet for 8 days now, and you think you're doing something, or that you've achieved anything significant. You'll only understand these lines if you've done it for 80 or 100 days and haven't screwed up. If you're past 100 days, then you'll see your current 8-day self, and you'll have plenty of opinions about yourself, like, "Oh my God, what did you want to achieve recognition for after 8 days for absolutely nothing?"

Don't ask if it's visible. Wait until the people around you tell you THEMSELVES, "Wow, Irén, you look great, you've lost weight!" That's when it will be visible, not when you squeeze a simple "it's visible" out of someone, who of course doesn't see it but doesn't want to offend you, or just wants you to leave them the hell alone. And this will still be the better case, because a

– Is it visible?

– No.

After such a conversation, you're just damaging your psyche again, and the first few weeks are critical, and you're still only a few days after the first week.

 

SMALLER CLOTHES

You're following your program. 25-30 days have passed, and now the results of your efforts are truly visible. You see it in the mirror, you see it on the scale, you see it in your clothes, and your male colleagues have also noted that you've lost weight. Most men will mention it if the relationship allows, but the truest manifestation of recognition is that they become much nicer to you.

We are always nicer to attractive women.

Now don't curse me for this, these are evolutionary processes. Women, of course, would rather swallow a kitchen knife than let you know you've lost weight, and the only reason they acknowledge the fact of weight loss is not to praise you, but to find out how you're doing it.

Yes, it's visible now. You're clever. At this point, you'll reach that pit that most women unfortunately fall into: trying on clothes that they haven't, and here the emphasis is on "yet," so they haven't lost enough weight to fit into them yet. You already look quite good in your initial clothes, so you make a very foolish decision and put on an outfit you HAVEN'T lost enough weight to fit into YET.

Well, after this, some absolutely terrible minutes follow, because what will you see? Nothing other than that you look really bad in clothes that are too small, it's extremely unflattering, your love handles show, and then you get incredibly discouraged, when nothing else has happened except that, damn it, you wanted to rush the change again. But I ask, why do you put on a size 34 dress if only a 36, or God forbid, only a 38, fits you?

Soul-destroying. You started at size 40, now a size 38 fits you easily, maybe even a 36, but nooo, you put on a 34.

But where the hell are you rushing to? You've been on a diet for 30 days, God damn it. If it was good to live in a shitty body for years, then it should be good to lose weight in 90 days. After the initial successes, don't immediately start buying bikinis or trying on unrealistically small clothes, because it's not psychologically good for you, and on a relative basis, you won't see that you've lost 2 dress sizes, but that you still look bad in clothes.

Don't rush, don't try on smaller clothes, because it will end in a sense of failure, and we certainly don't need emotional fluctuations, especially not during a diet, and especially not if you are a woman.

 

I DESERVE IT

You don't deserve it. I'm telling you now, you don't deserve it. The more diet days you have behind you, the greater the temptation to convince yourself that you deserve something because you've been doing it for so long. Everyone knows the "this is okay" type of people, right? I know them, and they make me sick. Not because...

But yes.

Exactly for what everyone is thinking right now, because there's only one type of person worse than the "this is okay" people – but here we're already on the verge of hell – the "I'll allow myself" people.

This is actually a very good pre-test of whether you can successfully complete a diet or not. Think back. How many times have the phrases "this is still acceptable" or "I'll allow myself" come out of your mouth? The more often, the more you should get a few cats, or I don't know what, but believe me, everyone will be better off, but most importantly you. You'll save yourself a bunch of days for which you have no desire, no will, no perseverance, nothing.

101 out of 100 women fail their diet because they thought they deserved it, or because they allowed themselves something. At least let's not deceive each other. The moment you cheat on your diet even once, the whole thing will collapse. And it won't be because of that one chocolate, but because of the subsequent ones you'll eat, because you will eat them. And not because you're a weak-willed nobody. Of course, that too, but the reason you'll definitely fail is that your body will say

Your body is fine without sugar if it realizes you've deprived it, but the moment it gets a sugar shock, it starts demanding it like an animal, your brain will demand it too, and your craving for sweet tastes will grow stronger and stronger.

And from here it's just one step to convince yourself why you can do what you shouldn't, and why you're eating what put you in a state where you need to change.

Every action begins with a decision. We decide our own destiny, our decisions are the consequence of where we are currently, our decision how we look. We decide everything, the decision is always in our hands. You decide whether you do it or not, whether you cheat on your diet or not, and by the end of the post, we've returned to where we started.

Everything is decided in your head. Everything is just psychology.