Maria's Last Diet

Beware! Comparing Yourself to Others May Cause Weight-Loss Problems.

by Maria's Last Diet

Where do you stand in relation to other women? Are they thinner than you? Are they prettier, smarter, better situated, more in control? How often do you compare yourself with other women? Do these other woman who you compare yourself with have to be real, or can they be imagined? Do you compare favorably or unfavorably?

If you set standards for yourself primarily by looking outward like this, your assessment of yourself could reflect the fact that you are unsure of yourself, have reduced self-esteem, are socially anxious, self-conscious, and perhaps even oversensitive to other people’s behavior.

Taking a strong tendency to compare yourself with others into the weight-loss process is a recipe for disaster. Losing a lot of weight always requires looking inward and marching to the beat of your own drum. It’s your weight and your diet and your motivation and your perseverance that are called for, and not some other woman’s. You might pick up a pointer or two from other women, but that is different than flat out comparing yourself.

 

Two Weight-Loss Issues Besides Shedding Those Extra Pounds

by Maria's Last Diet

There is a lot more to losing weight than number of pounds lost. Your own evaluation of your appearance and how significant your weight and shape are for your self-esteem are matters that will surely have widespread ramifications.

Of course you might not feel good about yourself if you are too heavy. But does not feeling good about yourself because of your weight have an impact on being able to lose your unwanted weight? It does and it does.

Some women are motivated to lose weight by not looking like they want to. Their negative evaluation of their appearance and their resulting low sense of self-esteem give them sufficient motivation to get to work at shedding those extra pounds. Some women, however, who also can’t stand their appearance and feel demoralized by their low level of self-esteem, go in the opposite direction. They are motivated to give up their weight-loss journey..

Which are you? And what makes the difference for you?

 

How Involved Are You in Fat Talk

by Maria's Last Diet

Why put yourself down? Why put your body down? That’s what fat talk is all about, isn’t it?

Do you know about fat talk? If you’re a woman, you’ve probably indulged in fat talk. This is where you say something derogatory about your own body to another woman. “These pants make my thighs look fat, don’t you think? ”The other woman may also say something critical about her own body in return. “I know. I have the same problem with those pants.” There you have it—fat talk.

What does the research show? Yes, there is research on fat talk. The research shows that women use fat talk for many different reasons: wanting to be liked, displaying vulnerability, promoting greater cohesiveness with another woman, expressing distress, cultural and personal concerns about shape and size of their bodies, bringing up body imperfections before the other person does, and getting reassurance from the other person that you they are not fat.

 

Your Exercise Routine and Body Satisfaction

by Maria's Last Diet

Believe it or not, the physical effects of you doing your exercising may not be what makes you more satisfied with your own body. It may be the success you have in meeting the challenges of your exercise regimen that makes more of a difference when it comes to greater body satisfaction.

There is something to be said about successfully meeting challenges, don’t you think? The “I can do it”, “I did it” feelings are key to what you think of yourself; and interestingly, feeling that you have the power and the ability to do what you have to or want to when exercising makes you feel good about the body that’s making this effort.

This still does not mean that exercise is what is going to enable you to lose weight. The biggest bang for your buck is still the calories-in side of the equation. What you eat and how much you eat makes all the difference in the world. Feeling good about your body and about yourself as a result of meeting the exercise challenge should help you be more confident that you can meet the other challenge of not eating too much food and not eating so many fattening foods.

Body Dissatisfaction, Self-Disclosing, and Increased Self Esteem

by Maria's Last Diet

You will be surprised to learn that taking 15 minutes out of your day for 3 consecutive days and writing about your deepest emotions and thoughts about stressful or upsetting issues or events regarding your body can do wonders for your self-esteem.

The idea behind this exercise is to get out in the open (to yourself) feelings and thoughts that you might otherwise have inhibited, or detached and forgotten, from your current dissatisfaction with your body. While the immediate result of writing about upsetting events from the past may be an increase in distressing feelings associated with the past events, over the long haul you should experience an increase in self-esteem.  

 

Body Image Issues Are One Cause of Low Self Esteem

by Maria's Last Diet

Does appearance matter? It shouldn’t. Judge a person by who they are and not what they look like. That should be the way. But it’s not. Appearance certainly does matter. Everyone knows that.

There is how you see yourself, and there is how others see you. Then there is also how you believe other people see you. When you think your appearance is being judged by others, if you are dissatisfied with your body weight, you are more likely to believe that others see you and stereotype you as being too heavy, overweight, fat, and as having little self-discipline. Believing that others see you like this will probably be a blow to your self-esteem.

Curiously, it may not matter how much you weigh. The key to this downhill slide in self-esteem is being dissatisfied with your own body. When normal weight women are dissatisfied with their bodies, they too believe they will be judged and negatively stereotyped by others.

 

Body Image Problems and Self-Esteem Issues Cause Trouble Losing Weight

by Maria's Last Diet

Do you —

• wear baggy clothes
• avoid physical intimacy
• turn down social invitations
• avoid full-length mirrors
• disparage your looks

If so, does any of this have to do with what you think of your own body?

Being disturbed by the size and shape of your body is just one more thing you have to contend with if you are carrying around unwanted weight. One solution, of course, is to lose excess weight, and get your body looking like you want it to. But that’s not an easy thing to do when you feel bad about the way you look.

Feeling bad about the way you look can lower your level of self-esteem, which in turn can affect the confidence and commitment you need to reduce your weight.

What’s the answer? Changing yourself is usually not an all-or-none matter. You don’t lose all your self-esteem or all your motivation, confidence, and commitment just because you're bummed about your body. You still will have some of what you need to lose your unwanted weight despite not feeling good about yourself.

Don’t let a drop in self-esteem or disturbance about your body be a weight-loss deterrent. This can happen if you get too disappointed by a drop in self-esteem and forget that sometimes you can even make a little self-esteem go a long way.

 

Do You Think “My Better Body, My Better Self”

by Maria's Last Diet

How much are you worth? Self-worth, that is.

How do you measure your self-worth, especially if you are an overweight person?

Are you on that never-ending quest for a better body so you’ll have a better self?

Do you

•    check your fatness
•    compare your body size to other people’s bodies
•    frequently check your body in the mirror
•    see if other people think you’re fat
•    check your body in car and store windows
•    assess arms, legs, thighs, stomach, face for fatness
•    practice sitting and standing so you don’t look fat
•    see if your clothes can hide your weight

If you use any or all of these indicators as measures of your self-worth, please try with all your might to separate self-worth from your bad feelings about your body. Losing a lot of weight is much more of a burden when you have your self-worth riding on it.

What Does Your Overweight Body Do For You?

by Maria's Last Diet

There you are, overweight. You’ve been this way for a while. You might have lost weight now and again, but for the most part you’ve been too heavy.

How do you feel about your large body size? And in what way does your large body size represent you?

Does your fatness mean that you are unlovable? Does it make you feel inferior, even worthless? Do you feel protected by having so much bulk? Does your heaviness guard against you having to feel vulnerable? Does it enable you to feel full and not have to feel empty? With a big body you might not have to worry about breaking into little pieces, emotionally speaking.

What does your overweight body do for you emotionally—both positively and negatively?

 

Body Image Problems and Difficulty Losing Weight

by Maria's Last Diet

“I can’t stand my body.”

Is this something you’ve said or thought? Well, you’re not alone. Lots and lots of women are dissatisfied with their bodies. Some are dissatisfied with specific parts of their bodies and others are dissatisfied with their body weight.

What have you done about not standing your body? Have you camouflaged what you can’t stand about your body? Did you change your posture or body movements so what you can’t stand won’t be so noticeable? Have you avoided looking at your body whenever you could? Have you been embarrassed in social situations? Has disliking your body given you the motivation to try to lose some weight? Have you noticed that your dissatisfaction with your body affects what you think of yourself too?

Loss of self-esteem, self-consciousness, shaky confidence, downright shame, and other self-limiting feelings can result from not liking your body. These kinds of feelings can interfere with your motivation to do something about your body image. They can even lessen your resolve to lose your unwanted weight because they’ve made you feel no good about yourself.

It can be quite a tangle this “I can’t stand my body” thing.