Why You Can't Let Go Of The Urge To Lose Weight

Dieting culture makes us believe that losing weight is the answer to everything. Want to find love? Just lose weight. Want more confidence? Lose weight. Want everlasting health? Losing weight is the way to get there. If we are made to believe that losing weight was the answer to everything, why would we let that go?

Diving a little deeper, taking away dieting behaviors can be like taking away a baby's favorite blanket. Chronic dieting is soothing you in so many different ways. You first need to understand WHY these food patterns keep playing out before a new relationship with your food can occur. These patterns have been there to support your body in navigating something you may have not been ready to look at yet. The constant desire to lose weight could be there as a distraction from beliefs, emotions, and life experiences that feel too big to address.

Today is the day to release any shame or judgment around how long you have been on and off diets trying to lose weight. Your dieting behaviors have been playing out for a reason.

Here are 3 potential reasons the urge to lose weight is still so prevalent in your life.

1. Protection

Focusing on weight loss can serve as protection. If you're constantly focusing on needing to lose weight then intense emotions or old wounds don't have space to be attended to. If the urge to lose weight was released, that would mean everything that has been shoved down and stuffed away inside your body would have space to arise. This might unconsciously feel so incredibly overwhelming that it feels safer to continue to focus on needing to lose weight.

2. Fear Of Rejection

If your body shape has been connected to your ability to feel confident, loved, and accepted then to let go of the need to lose weight can bring up fears of being rejected. The urge to lose weight can provide a sense of control that if you just look a certain way that you may never be rejected or experience abandonment. Additionally, if you experience rejection, a focus on weight loss can increase to protect you from feeling the pain of that situation and use weight as a safe reason for why the rejection occurred.

3. Habit

Neural pathways get stronger with repetition. How long have you been telling yourself you need to lose weight? How long have you been looking in the mirror assessing what needs to change? Sometimes, there is no deeper meaning to the impulse to lose weight. Sometimes it is simply because those habits have become such strong neural pathways in your brain. At this point, the urge to lose weight has become your comfort zone. It is what you know. Thinking about losing weight brings some kind of comfort because it feels like a familiar space to be in.

We cannot change what we're not aware of. Awareness is the first step on any healing journey. If you resonated with one of these reasons on why the urge to lose weight is still so prevalent in your life, you have just taken a bite sized step toward beginning to respond to this impulse in new ways. To create a new relationship with your body doesn't mean getting rid of these impulses. It means showing up for your body in new ways when this reaction to your body image shows up.

If you're wanting new tools to show up for your food and body differently….

I have created the Intro to Somatic Eating™ mini course just for you. The Somatic Eating™ tools you will learn in this mini course will guide you toward the embodiment you need to hear and interpret your body's messages to never rely on an external diet or expert ever again. And for a limited time, I'm offering this mini course at a 50% discount as I want as many individuals to have access to this information as possible.

You can find the link to the Intro to Somatic Eating™ mini course below and if you have any questions, email me at support@stephaniemara.com anytime.