Before Losing Weight

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

The relationship of a person with his own body is one of the most discussed, and at the same time, one of the most controversial topics in modern culture and in psychological counseling. It would seem that the Internet, the media, glossy magazines are full of texts on how to love yourself and how to reshape your figure. For those who are not satisfied with the approach of popular articles, many serious and not very psychological books have been written. At the service of a modern person is a whole industry entirely dedicated exclusively to the beauty of the body (here there is cosmetology, and plastic surgery, and a huge number of physical exercise programs aimed at correcting a figure, and an unimaginable number of all kinds of diets). Nevertheless, for a huge number of people, one's own body still remains the main source of problems with self-esteem, with a sense of self-worth, with the sexual sphere, with communication and building interpersonal relationships.

In order not to repeat platitudes, we will omit that part of the conversation where one should say about the consumer society, about the imposed ideals and canons of bodily beauty, about the unattainability of model standards, and so on. All this has been discussed many times, but for every single person who is dissatisfied with his own figure, there is little consolation in the fact that the ideal he strives for is unattainable for most average people. So let's not focus on who is to blame and talk about what to do.

Typically, psychologists specializing in body shaping or eating counseling are approached with two kinds of requests. Some clients want a specialist to help them accept and love their body for what it is, stop “complexes” and sharply react to the peculiarities of their figure, learn to be less vulnerable to self-criticism. Others want psychological support in matters of body shaping, reasonably assuming that the root of problems with weight or body shape lies precisely in the psyche, and not only in nutrition, constitutional characteristics and lifestyle. As a result, the psychologist has to work with both types of requests, because it is difficult to help a person correct his figure without teaching him to treat his body with at least attention and care, as it is often impossible to teach someone to love himself without returning him responsibility. for their own appearance. In order to avoid misinterpretations, let me explain in advance: by responsibility, I do not mean at all a feeling of guilt for my appearance or my forms. I am talking rather about the natural right of a person to decide how he will look, about the extent to which our body belongs to us, how much we can control it, feel.

If we focus on psychological theories explaining how our body is connected with our soul, we can conditionally divide them into several groups. The first should be called psychosomatic theories that explain how a person's inner reality is reflected in the state of his body, how existing intrapersonal conflicts break out - in the form of psychosomatic symptoms and in the form of features of appearance. From the point of view of these theories, a person is not a mysterious "soul" in a mortal body, but a single psychosomatic organism, and the processes taking place in it cannot be divided into mental and physical, since they are all interconnected. These theories not only make it possible to interpret the symptoms of many diseases as expressions of internal conflicts and hidden feelings of a person, but also describe how the processes occurring, relatively speaking, "in the head" can affect the appearance, shape of the body, its weight, skin condition and etc. On the one hand, this approach often returns to a person a sense of control over his body, allows him to look at his problems with his appearance through the prism of his deep feelings. On the other hand, the primitive, everyday interpretation of these theories only intensifies a person's disgust for himself, provoking a feeling of guilt for his body. After all, it's one thing to suffer from the fact that the "meat bag with bones" beyond your control, due to natural features and force majeure circumstances, does not look the way you would like. And it is quite another to believe that your appearance is a reflection of your inner world, and to suspect that your soul also has cellulite and stretch marks. And the question like “why do you need to stay that way (fat, thin, ugly, and so on)”, which psychologists often ask clients who complain about their appearance and figure, generally resembles an accusation. The person has no idea about the secondary benefits associated with the appearance that does not suit him, but he feels that the specialist suspects him of this. Yes, there may be these benefits. Yes, most likely, a person has some reasons for staying in proportions that he does not like. But, bringing this theory to the point of absurdity, we can accuse the client that he himself chose a nose of an inappropriate shape or some specific shape of the eyes. The factors of psychosomatic regulation cannot be discounted, but they cannot be elevated to absolute.

Another class of theories linking appearance with mental characteristics can be conditionally called "constitutional" - we are talking about those schools of psychology where the relationship between the type of appearance and the type of personality is considered. At the everyday level, this leads to stereotypes like "all fat people are kind" or "people with big noses are usually more curious", but in scientific psychology there are entire disciplines devoted to correlations between the physiological characteristics of a person and his ways of reacting to external stimuli. Nevertheless, these theories practically do not give answers to the question of how to fix those features of appearance that seem to be problems to a person.

But the third group of theories is of a purely applied nature: without delving into the study of the essential relationship between the state of mind and appearance, they concentrate around practical ways to influence this very kind. This includes various motivational theories aimed at finding reasons that prevent a person from taking measures to correct those factors of appearance that are amenable to this correction. And also ready-made techniques that allow you to level these reasons.

So what should a person who seeks to change their body do? I will talk primarily about weight loss, because weight loss is the most common request in terms of appearance correction. But, with some variations, the same tips apply for those who want, for example, to gain weight when it is underweight, get rid of stretch marks or build muscle.

So the first question you should ask yourself sounds very silly. Why do you need to lose weight? No, really. It seems that this question is too simple, but in reality it is not. Weight correction is often seen as an intermediate goal on the way to some other goal. As a way to get something completely different, to satisfy some other need. If you answered that you want to lose weight in order to find a life partner, make friends, please your spouse more, be popular at work - and so on, then you do not need to lose weight. This will not help you achieve your ultimate goal, and at the end of the journey, you may be seriously disappointed. You will not meet the perfect partner and become an interesting conversationalist just by shedding a certain amount of extra pounds. So get better at realizing your core mission: finding love, building a relationship with your partner, improving your social skills, and the like. In addition, an honest answer to the question of what changes you expect after you get rid of the hated kilograms may indirectly indicate to you the reason for your resistance: perhaps you cannot lose weight precisely because the subsequent changes in life that you attribute potential weight loss, are you scared? For example, women are often deeply afraid of losing weight because they fear a potential new relationship or because they fear that improving their appearance will ultimately lead to increased jealousy on the part of their current partner. So the second question you should ask yourself is: "What changes in my life am I expecting after I manage to lose weight?"

The third question is actually much simpler. Usually people bring the answer to it to the first consultation themselves. It sounds like this: "What am I doing in order to stay in my weight?" There may be different options: I eat improperly, I lead a sedentary lifestyle, I drink medications that affect my body weight, I avoid physical exertion. But in fact, even doing everything right, we often remain at the old weight or even increase in volume, if we have reasons deep down in our hearts not to desire or be afraid of changing the figure.

There is a fourth question, an honest answer to which can bring you closer to your goal: "For whom am I losing weight?" We have all read the necessary articles and books, so that the overwhelming majority of women immediately give the "correct" answer: of course, for themselves. But in fact, here, too, everything is not so simple - sometimes it seems that you are losing weight only for your own sake, your beloved, but in fact, you are driven by someone else's thought - you seem to know that you must, must want this for yourself, that everything The "right" women want it. Or that your husband, your mom or your girlfriends are sure that you should want it. Sometimes the constructions that exist in our heads look bizarre, but, being embodied in words, when they surface to the surface, they may well be corrected.

Why answer these stupid questions? Sometimes the answers are enough to start the change process. Until these or those paralogical attitudes are uttered aloud, you live based on them, and you yourself do not even notice what absurd ideas and beliefs you obey. And then it is enough to call them by their proper names for them to lose their power. Sometimes the answers are just the first step on the way to a long study - you finally see obstacles in the light of day that do not allow you to fulfill your dream. You see what fears are guiding you, and you can consistently get rid of them by understanding their nature, essence, understanding their origin. You already understand that it does not allow you to fulfill your own promises made to yourself - and you can reformulate the promises themselves or find new resources to fulfill them.