Self Sabotage?

[pianolady2005]

I've noticed in the last several years that no matter how I choose to increase fitness or lose weight, once I hit about a 10 pound weight loss or so I tend to quit even though I'm nowhere near my goal.  I've kept track of progress and been pleased, and then *poof* I'm just blah about it even though I really need a total weight loss of about 45 pounds.  Does anyone else have problems like this?  Any suggestions?

[XSanguinus]

My advice - Don't look at the scale. Look in the mirror. Don't stop until you're happy with what you see.

[puddletheduck]

I've noticed in the last several years that no matter how I choose to increase fitness or lose weight, once I hit about a 10 pound weight loss or so I tend to quit even though I'm nowhere near my goal.  I've kept track of progress and been pleased, and then *poof* I'm just blah about it even though I really need a total weight loss of about 45 pounds.  Does anyone else have problems like this?  Any suggestions?

 

This is me completely. I've been doing exactly the same thing for -- ooh, about 7 years. I'd lose a bit of weight, get excited about it and then "reward" myself with a months-long food binge (sometimes with exercise alongside it, but nowhere near enough to balance out what I was eating). Then I'd start again, but each time my motivation would be a little bit lower because I'd kind-of expect myself to fail. It got pretty soul-destroying and exhausting. I'd feel like I really wanted to lose the weight and get fit, and the answers (eat less, move more) seemed so simple and obvious, but putting them into practice felt like a daily emotional battle with my own brain.

 

In the past few months, though, I've managed to turn this around. I'm not counting my chickens yet (I know it would be so simple to slip back to my old bad habits) but this time I feel like I've genuinely made a mental break with my old mindset. I've sustained a sensible way of eating, a consistent exercise programme and a balanced frame of mind for the longest amount of time ever for me, and my motivation isn't flagging at all. I'm down about 15 pounds and I hope to lose about another 30 by the end of this year.

 

Here are a few thoughts (off the top of my head) on what's made the difference for me:

 

(1) Take any new eating plan or fitness programme one day at a time. Yes, you have to know underneath that you're committed to it long term. But it can be tiring and intimidating to think "OMG I've got to keep this up for the next 6 months (or whatever) to get to where I want to be." Relax. Be calm. Each day is just one more day of making sensible choices about food and exercise, and the tiny, invisible gains you make each day WILL add up.

(2) Believe you can do it. As I said above, for ages I really didn't believe I could. Then I stumbled on a load of success stories online and onto this site/forum. Reading about real, normal people doing amazing things with their bodies and transforming themselves made me realise you don't have to be some kind of iron-willed person with super-human abilities to look and feel great. You just have to have patience and dedication. I realised that awesome people make themselves awesome; they aren't born that way. Spezzy's story on Steve's blog was a massive inspiration to me.

(3) Think about why you want it. Do you really want it? Does this really matter to you? Maybe you really are OK with yourself 10 pounds down and that's why you get the "blah" feeling. You say you "need" to lose the weight, not that you "want" to lose it. Maybe that's significant. If not, why do you want to be 45 pounds down? What would it enable you to do that you can't do now? How would it make you feel better about yourself? In my case I decided I was no longer happy with 40-50 pounds of fat smothering the crazy, competitive badass underneath. I've got myself into a frame of mind where I no longer exercise to get "thin"; I now just exercise because I want to exercise and eat well because it makes me feel better, and having the extra fat come off is a great bonus.

(4) Take lots of measurements and progress pictures. When I'm having a "blah", "I feel fat" day, looking at all my stats really helps. I don't feel like my body shape has changed much with losing the 15 pounds, but when I look at my progress pics there's a really big difference that tells me the changes over the next 15 pounds (and the next!) are going to be even more exciting.

(5) Lift heavy stuff. I've only been doing it a couple of months but the physical feeling I get from it is amazing, and it balances my mind like nothing else.

(6) Set goals for yourself that are nothing to do with weight loss. Some of mine (off the top of my head): do one pullup, squat my bodyweight, improve my flexibility so I can get my palms on the floor with straight legs, complete a circuit that I do every Saturday in less than 16 minutes.

 

Hope that's helpful. Stick with it - you CAN do it!

[pianolady2005]

Thank you so much for your advice!  I think the biggest part right now for me is knowing that I'm not the only person who has done this.  I know how to eat healthy and exercise, it's just the sticking to it that is hard.  Like you, I'm a little more down on myself each time I try because I half expect to fail and I know that it's my own fault for not sticking to what works.  

 

Right now it's my diet that is the hard part.  I actually found an exercise program that I enjoy enough to stick with, of all things, ninpo (literally, "the art of ninja")!  Lifting my own body weight doing that is starting to firm me up and I'm gaining muscle.  Now I just need to eat better so that some of the fat that's hiding all my hard earned muscle will go away.

 

Congrats on doing better this time around - hopefully this will be the last time around for both of us and we'll make habits that we can sustain :-)

[puddletheduck]

Thank you so much for your advice!  I think the biggest part right now for me is knowing that I'm not the only person who has done this.  I know how to eat healthy and exercise, it's just the sticking to it that is hard.  Like you, I'm a little more down on myself each time I try because I half expect to fail and I know that it's my own fault for not sticking to what works.  

 

Right now it's my diet that is the hard part.  I actually found an exercise program that I enjoy enough to stick with, of all things, ninpo (literally, "the art of ninja")!  Lifting my own body weight doing that is starting to firm me up and I'm gaining muscle.  Now I just need to eat better so that some of the fat that's hiding all my hard earned muscle will go away.

 

Congrats on doing better this time around - hopefully this will be the last time around for both of us and we'll make habits that we can sustain :-)

 

You're very welcome! And that's great you've found an exercise program you enjoy    Try using that as motivation for improving your diet (i.e. eat better to get more out of your workouts).

 

BTW: I looked at your profile and saw that being nearly 30 was one of your inspirations for making changes. Me too! I realised I'd spent almost 15 years not being the person I wanted to be and that time wasn't going to cure me of my seeming inability to make myself less fat. It's somewhat less than awesome to be nearly 30, but if it acts as a kick to make me sort myself out then I'll take being 30 if I get to have a younger-feeling body than in my 20s

[El Exorcisto]

Your issue is goal related, not weight related. If your only goal is to lose weight, then you are sorely missing the point. Losing weight for someone who is out of shape (me as of 6 months or so ago) is always a losing battle, because the end result is always superficial and fleeting. The goal of getting bigger, stronger, faster... These are the goals that are worth pursuing. With any one of these goals, which are always open ended, the side effect of weight loss, or rather an improved self image, will always come as a consequence.

 

Since I started lifting I have gained and inch on my hips and over 6" on my thighs. The needle on the scale has barely moved. My waist however is an inch and a half down, and sometime in the next couple weeks I'll be deadlifting my bodyweight, an idea so foreign to me before all this that I can't imagine who I was or what I was thinking. I can climb four flights of stairs, fast, without wanting to die at the top. These are the successes of getting stronger. I would like some superficial gratification on the scale, but if it never comes and I just get stronger? That's still a win in my book.

 

So in summation, pick a better goal than weight loss. A better self image is a side effect of a proper goal, not a worthy goal on its own.

[puddletheduck]

 

So in summation, pick a better goal than weight loss. A better self image is a side effect of a proper goal, not a worthy goal on its own.

 

+1

[Vintage]

A little vignette from my childhood that stuck with me... I was skiing in Tahoe with my dad, and another guy on the slope took a hard wipe-out, so we paused to make sure he was ok and help him retrieve his poles. He was fine, but said that was the 4th time in a row he had fallen in that same spot. After he got on his way, my dad turned to me and said "You know why he falls every time he hits that spot, right? He did it before, so he's convinced it's going to happen again. And so it does." 

 

 

On a different note, one thing I did at the beginning of this whole "journey" (ugh, I hate that term), was setting out to make changes that I planned on keeping up my whole life. I didn't go on a diet,  I changed the way I eat. Permanently. I didn't make any changes that I couldn't sustain long-term, even though that meant that I was going to lose weight slower than I might like. It's taken me almost 10 months to lose 45 lbs, but it's been pretty damn easy, I've gotta say. Instead of thinking of it as dieting for a while til I could go back to eating "normally", I created a new normal. In the future, I may increase quantities of certain foods to meet different goals like increasing strength, but those will be small tweaks in quantity, not necessarily quality. And if I had to eat just like I am for the rest of my life I'd be just fine with that. Having that set-up and mindset really helps me not slip into the "eh, good enough, I can be done now" trap.

[XSanguinus]

A little vignette from my childhood that stuck with me... I was skiing in Tahoe with my dad, and another guy on the slope took a hard wipe-out, so we paused to make sure he was ok and help him retrieve his poles. He was fine, but said that was the 4th time in a row he had fallen in that same spot. After he got on his way, my dad turned to me and said "You know why he falls every time he hits that spot, right? He did it before, so he's convinced it's going to happen again. And so it does." 

 

 

On a different note, one thing I did at the beginning of this whole "journey" (ugh, I hate that term), was setting out to make changes that I planned on keeping up my whole life. I didn't go on a diet,  I changed the way I eat. Permanently. I didn't make any changes that I couldn't sustain long-term, even though that meant that I was going to lose weight slower than I might like. It's taken me almost 10 months to lose 45 lbs, but it's been pretty damn easy, I've gotta say. Instead of thinking of it as dieting for a while til I could go back to eating "normally", I created a new normal. In the future, I may increase quantities of certain foods to meet different goals like increasing strength, but those will be small tweaks in quantity, not necessarily quality. And if I had to eat just like I am for the rest of my life I'd be just fine with that. Having that set-up and mindset really helps me not slip into the "eh, good enough, I can be done now" trap.

 

That's how it's done! You're not dieting, you're learning how to eat healthy and never going back.

[nanako]

Great advice in this thread already.

 

My advice would be: join a 6-week challenge. And then another. And then another ... You'll find out a lot about yourself, about the things that are important to you, the things you think you should do, the things you actually enjoy doing ...

 

Maybe you don't really want to lose that fat because in some weird way it's protecting you. In that case you might consider training to get stronger. Or, everytime, once you've lost those ten pounds, you get bored and think, "oh, I totally got this, I know how to do it but I chose not to right now ... i can always do it, see (proof) I've already lost 10lbs ..."  So in your head, you avoid potential failure and keep some control.

 

You learn a lot about yourself doing those challenges. And it's fun. And you realize that everybody has their own problems, their own favourite excuses, their own pet mistakes that they keep repeating ... 

 

[iatetheyeti]

I have this same problem (which is kind of why I joined up here). I haven't found a solution that works yet, though I'm determined being here and forming concrete goals will work. Judging from the advice people have already given, it seems to be a good way forward. I reckon mindset, like others have said, is vital. Don't think of your routine/diet as something temporary, make it your way of life.

 

Try not to let yourself get in your way, if that makes any sense at all.

[Krisis]

Wow, I am so glad I'm not the only one!  I will lose 40 lbs one year and gain it all back the next year.  That's what I'm doing right now... again. I swear I've lost like 500 lbs over the course of my life, if only I would keep my butt in gear and not slack off!  

[Amazon Grimm]

Self-sabotage is primarily a psychological issue.  If it is in more areas of your life than just fitnewss, you might be helped by some sort of counseling.  I'm speaking from my personal experience.

[Anivair]

This has happened to me in the past.  I think it's because deep down, I didn't really think I could achieve my goals.  Get that out of your head and know, deep down, that you can get to the place you want to be.  then remind yourself every day.  

[Shereads]

Great advice in this thread already.

 

 

 

Maybe you don't really want to lose that fat because in some weird way it's protecting you. In that case you might consider training to get stronger. Or, everytime, once you've lost those ten pounds, you get bored and think, "oh, I totally got this, I know how to do it but I chose not to right now ... i can always do it, see (proof) I've already lost 10lbs ..."  So in your head, you avoid potential failure and keep some control.

 

 

This so highlights why I have had such a hard time losing weight the last 10 years. I make a goal to get healthy and if I lose weight that's fine but I feel like right now the fat IS protective. So under the fat I'm trying to put a body that is healthier and fitter. Self sabotage is going to be my biggest enemy this whole battle. I threw out my scale a long time ago and when someone wanted to be my coach I sabotaged that. You gotta find what works for you. For me I can't have a scale victory EVER. This is like huge trigger for me to binge. So no scale check ins. I can't allow myself to buy junk food. My husband does it for me  and he knows I won't buy it. This is the outside sabotage I deal with weekly. His excuse is the kids need junk food. My self sabotage happens when I'm stressed and my schedule is out of whack. Then I buy the fast food and ice cream and say to hell with the workout. For me being fat is so safe. I'm not happy about it but it feels safe. getting out of this rut is a huge challenge. Now you know that you are not alone in pulling out of it. As other have said find your triggers and eliminate or find ways around them them.

[Freckles]

Maybe you don't really want to lose that fat because in some weird way it's protecting you.

This really resonates for me because I tend to blame my 'failures' in life on being fat. I tend to see my life in two parts, 'Skinny' before college and Fat College and Post college. I have a lot of issues with feeling like a failure (that I probably need therapy for, which I cannot afford.) but when I couldn't get a job after I lost my job in the 2008 (Hedge Fund was invested with Bernie Maddoff) I blamed my weight because who wanted to hire a fat receptionist in New York? I blamed not being able to get a job in Houston on being fat and not speaking spanish, which is kind of important in Houston. I blamed not getting any kind of full time employment on my weight because, again, who wants to hire a fat, acne ridden, ugly loser? (Ugh. Retail work.)

So...I suppose I'm scared that, if I lose the fat, what will I have to blame my failures on? Myself? That's kind of terrifying. I don't want to be a failure but if I'm fat, then *I* am not a failure. If I'm fat, the problem isn't with me and my inner self, the problem is with other people, who can't see past my physical exterior and see how awesome I really am. So...that's kind of scary. To lose that armor and that easy protection of my ego and psyche.

[El Exorcisto]

You cannot sabotage yourself if the end goal is open ended and somewhat unattainable. If you want to get stronger, well, when does THAT end? If you want to be able to run better, what exactly does that mean? If you want to be able to run up that hill, really fast, and not puke at the top? That is totally attainable but do you really want to live without that ability again?

 

Weight loss is a stupid, superficial goal that is doomed to failure because there is no real benefit. The human body LOVES to store fat when food is in abundance and we live in an abundant time. You need to change your way of thinking away from the superficial and towards the existential.

 

What do I want to be? Not "how much do I want to weigh?" Rip your bodyweight off the floor, even with a belly hanging, and tell me you somehow "failed." Run a mile, non-stop and don't puke and tell me you somehow failed. Chase your kid, for an entire afternoon and chalk that up as a failure. You cannot fail when you put some time into getting bigger, faster, stronger. You fail when you lose sight of those goals and turn it back into a superficial quest for a goal that violates our entire evolution.

 

Instead, embrace evolution and force yourself to adapt. You cannot fight it, but it will become your greatest ally. Caveman had to lug some pretty heavy shit, walk some really long distances, and play with a pile of kids. On an evolutonary timeline we are fundamentally the same as they were, albeit a bit taller. So stop acting so damn civilized and pick up some heavy shit! Or look over there and run, until you fall down exhausted! Or, chase your daughter or son, non-stop, whether your body will let you or not, until you wear THEM out! When you can easily pick up the heavy thing, make it heavier. When you can easily run over there, pick a new spot and run there instead. When you can keep up with your kids, pick up some heavy shit and carry it while you are running with them over there. This very old idea doesn't belong to you, and you are mistreating and neglecting your children if you don't share it with them.

 

Need some motivation? Tack this up in in your squat rack, put a bar on your back, and don't forget to FLEX those abs on the way down.

[I-Jo]

Great post. Spot on... spot- fucking-on. 

 

 

 

That's something I stress to people all the time when they say they want to "lose weight"  I'm like... um.... sigh. facepalm.

 

And try to talk them through the process. It's hard- because losing weight it is just what people do- it's what women do- it's what society says we are "supposed" to do- media- magazines- TV- celebrities.  All of it. It's maddening.

[Sleepy]

Couple of things:

 

1)  What gets measured gets done

 

Write down your goals. Be as specific as possible (numbers and dates).  Instead of "I want to lose weight", it's "I will work out 3 times a week, write down my workouts, eat ~2000 calories a day and I will compare my body fat % 6 months from now".  The Rebel guides are good for this as they are workouts that you print the PDF and just increase the number (of reps or weight) from workout to workout.

 

2) Identify your self-identity

 

 How do you view yourself?  There are many stories of people who achieve their goals (dramatic weight loss, make lots of money, etc.) only to lose it all again.  One major reason is that the way they viewed themself has not changed.  A fat guy who lost tons of weight from fads (HGC diet, weight loss camps, gastric bypass,) will quickly regain the weight they lost.  Their subconcious never 'realized' that they were healthy individuals, so all their habits and behaviors brought them back to their old lifestyle, making them worse than before.

 

You have to start viewing yourself in a new light...  Not as the "person who had it bad, the victim, the fat kid", but instead something that your hard work can define such as "the hero of your story, the phoenix reborn, the one who played life on hard mode and won". 

 

3) Time

 

 Every new year, there is the New Year Gym Crowd.  Give them 3 weeks, and they all vanish. Why's that?

 

It's cause greatness takes time.  You cannot rush it. You can only set up the right habits and let them happen, one day at a time, one stone at a time.  People are always looking for the quick fix, the one thing missing in their life that will make everything allright.  There is no such a thing, especially when it comes to building and maintaining your body.  Don't focus on how you look... That's a bonus.  Focus on the next step, the next workout, the next lift/run.  One day, you will look up and see that you already achieved what you wanted, and more.  It's a way of life

 

 

 

Bonus:  I suggest you imagine yourself working with your goals often as vividly as possible.  The subconcious cannot tell imagination from reality.  If you do this regularily, you can actually trick your brain to believing that that is what you really are.  I imagine myself as a super dedicated hard working guy, who goes to the gym 3 times a week and squats 3 plates on each side.  I am not there yet but I am working my way, one day at a time.  Good luck!

[El Exorcisto]

Sleepy, I think it needs to actually be a little more segmented than that, and the goals need to be performance based and objective. Like "I want to bench press 100 pounds" or "I want to do a chin up." Once that goal is achieved a new one can be taken up, but I find having very specific objective goals to be much better than dietary goals and checking the performance of them at a determined, albeit arbitrary interval. If you are training hard enough calories become largely irrelevant because even if you are gaining some body fat, you are gaining a lot more muscle. As soon as I stopped counting pounds lost and started counting pounds lifted the world became a better place. The scale barely budges, but I look better and better every week.