Sometimes when it comes to weight loss, your life depends on it.. For many of us, there comes a time in our lives when we absolutely MUST lose weight or we could develop some very severe health consequences. Our friends have tried to talk to us, our doctors have warned us to lose weight , and we try very hard to diet and exercise, but nothing seems to work. Perhaps you are a victim of dieting self-sabotage.
The 4 Stages of Self-Sabotage
It is more common than you might think. Many of us start out with the best intentions, only to fall back into the abyss of overeating and neglecting to exercise. Temptation is all around us.
- First, the thought enters our mind to cheat. Perhaps we drive past our favorite fast food restaurant or accidentally walk down the ice cream aisle In the grocery store.
- We then begin to entertain the thought of cheating. We lie to ourselves, saying things like “One doughnut won’t hurt me” or “I deserve a little reward”.
- Eventually, we begin to believe the self-told lie.
- We act out and go off our diet. A single doughnut turns into an entire dozen. And the individual occurrences of cheating on our diets become more and more frequent.
Emotions and Dieting Self-Sabotage
Human beings are emotional creatures. The fact that our emotions influence our daily actions is what makes us different from animals. Some of us may eat when we are feeling happy, when we are feeling sad, ore when we are feeling lonely. Food becomes a substitute for those internal emotions that we so desperately want to feel again.
We sometimes self-sabotage because we don’t truly believe that we deserve to be happy, to be fit or to be healthy. Perhaps we have a deep seeded feeling of guilt for some reason. An important first step is to recognize these times in our lives when that little voice inside our head is trying to trick us. Then learn to ignore that inner voice and substitute a more positive message. YES! You deserve to be happy. YES! You deserve to be fit. YES! You deserve to be healthy. Remember, sometimes when it comes to weight loss, your life depends on it.