Overweight people have a distinctly different relationship with food than their thinner counterparts. Healthy people know the purpose of food, which is to provide sustenance and nutrition to maintain the body’s delicate balance. Overweight people, on the other hand, give food multiple purposes. This often results in overindulgence or abuse of food.

Overweight people typically have a lack of control over their lives, which results in a lack of control over the types and amounts of food they intake. I believe this is because they don’t know themselves, and, therefore, are unable to control their urges. To put it bluntly, the tendency to overweight begins when we are young in response to not having our needs met appropriately. Regardless of what those needs are, when they aren’t answered and addressed, we develop a habit of turning to food as a solace. After all, food does meet at least one of our needs, so it’s natural to turn to it in an attempt to quell other needs.

This all follows a basic truth: children have emotional and physical needs which they are dependent on others to meet. If the child’s needs are misunderstood or if they’re not addressed, the child will have a tendency in the future not to express his or her needs. When the outside influences they depend on fails them, they learn to silence their needs. Think of it as a protective mechanism. When a child’s true feelings or immediate needs aren’t addressed on a repeated basis, they learn to keep them to themselves so they won’t feel the disappointment when they’re not met in the future.

So, what does this have to do with gaining weight? How does it relate to our eating patterns and habits? Well, first let’s look at the obvious. When we’re children, we cry when we’re hungry. We actually feel hunger and know the signs. We also know when we’re full. When our body is satisfied, we have no desire for nourishment. But what happens when a person doesn’t get the opportunity to experience those signals of fullness and satisfaction? They don’t know when to eat and when to stop eating. Food becomes something different to them than a source of nutrition. It begins to answer their emotional needs.

Think about it. If babies cry, it’s usually because they’re hungry. As a result, the response to their cries is usually to put a bottle in their mouth. However, if that baby is crying for a different reason and that need is not being met, the baby might take the bottle as a substitute. More importantly, though, is that in the future when that baby cries, he or she learns that the first thing they can expect when they have needs is to be fed. That’s great if the baby is actually hungry and merely displaying the feelings of that hunger. It’s not so great if the baby is repeatedly offered food before they feel hunger. They learn that emotional and physical needs can be met through food.

If a person of any age doesn’t experience satisfaction or hunger, he or she will never learn to be satisfied. They quit listening to the signals their body sends and use food as a substitute for all their needs. They might impulsively eat when they’re lonely, sad, bored, or worried. Then, they do what I did, and become even further stressed or confused after using food as a response to needs which aren’t related to hunger. Like me, they often find themselves caught in an endless cycle of feeling bad, eating, and feeling bad again.

Does this make any sense to you? Does it help you understand why you react the way you do to emotions and the want to eat? I’d love to hear your comments.

My plunge into brutal, naked honesty caused one astronomical change. For the first time, I took responsibility, total and complete responsibility, for my weight and the control that only I had over it. When I did, I suddenly and finally saw that change was really possible! Now, that revelation didn’t come to me very easily. It took a lot of soul searching and more than a little restraint to keep myself from falling back on the same old excuses to come to that conclusion. There was no one to blame for my weight or for my life, for that matter, except for one person: ME.

I started with the obvious. I was fat. That was a given and something I could and had readily admitted. Then came the next truth, which was probably more important—I was miserable being fat. Then the truths began to fly: I am lazy. I give up too soon. I set unrealistic, unattainable goals. I eat for the wrong reasons. I use food to interrupt my feelings. I use food to numb whatever I’m feeling. I used food to fix whatever is happening at that moment. I eat for comfort. I eat when I’m bored. The list goes on and on.

No revelation was too small or insignificant to write down. Each statement of truth fed right into another. It was like somebody popped a balloon and let it all out. I went through it all and discovered some amazing things about me and who I really was. Seeing myself for my truths was like a breath of fresh air. It was like being freed from the prison I’d trapped myself into so long ago! As a result, I felt what it was like to really accept myself more than I ever had at any point in my entire life. The truth really does set you free!

You can free yourself the same way. Being fat carries with it more than pounds. It burdens your life with limiting and sometimes degrading internal thoughts and beliefs that effect your actions, decisions, and attitude. It weighs you down in more ways than one. In order to free yourself from it, though, you have to internally assess what it is you’re feeling and why.

Start by writing down everything you struggle with. Don’t leave anything out. Full disclosure is very important. Don’t keep any nuggets hidden. After you’ve documented your struggles, move on. What do you dislike, or even think you might hate, about yourself, your life, and your body? Don’t limit it to weight issues, include all your self truths. Be honest to the core of your being. How do you truly feel about where you are in your life? How do you really feel about your body and your health? Do you like the things you do and the way you do things? Why or why not? How do you feel about the things you say to yourself? Do you like your inner voice? Dig deeper and delve into your values and beliefs. Leave no holes barred. Now is the time for you to expose the whole enchilada!

Okay, so that probably wasn’t the best phrase. After all, we’re trying to make food less important in your life. But right now, lighten up. This is the time to free yourself up, not beat yourself up! Make this exercise fun. It can be, you know. Believe me, being honest with yourself can be a very freeing experience. Think about how much your life is burdened by the past and the “stories” we’ve told ourselves that hold us back from becoming the person we truly want to be. Then think about how awesome it will be to release all of that! What a load that will take off!

Begin every sentence with “I feel”, “I am” or “I will no longer.” These are just a few examples. Use whatever works for you and let the pages flow as you document the truth about who you are, where you are, and why. You will always have the option of throwing away or destroying these pages at a later date if you feel it’s necessary, so give yourself carte blanche to let the feelings pour out of you onto the page.

I took my insecurities, as well as my weight, into adulthood, where I still struggled with the issues that had plagued my younger years. My life changed in some ways, yet, the burden of being overweight remained just as strong under the surface. Even when I started to be honest with myself and began to face my true feelings, I hadn’t quite found that one thing that would catapult real change in my life.

A number of years ago, I started my quest, searching for the way to solve my lifelong struggle with weight. That search led me to take an indepth look at the food I was eating. I had done that before in the various diets I’d started, but this time, I was looking at something different. I had previously starved on low-calorie diets and deprived myself of necessary nutrients on high-protein diets. I’d nibbled at the bait and followed the trends of low-fat and no-fat diets, as well as low-carb diets. None of them created a lifelong pattern of healthy eating, and sadly, any weight loss I enjoyed from them was temporary.

What was different this time? Rather than counting how many calories a particular food held, I evaluated different foods based on their nutritional value. Did it hold any value that would be an important element in contributing to my overall good health? In other words, I quit gauging food on how fattening it was, defining it instead by how good it was for me.

What I found was eye opening! Looking at food in a whole new way made a significant difference in my diet. I shied away from the low-fat, no-fat, and low-carb diet foods when I found out that they really didn’t contribute any nutritional value to my body. They had far too many chemicals and additives in them to be healthy. Those additives are necessary to process the foods, as well as to help reduce their fat and carbohydrate levels. So, what they were taking away from one side, they were adding to the other! In effect, they were taking away from the food’s nutritional value to make it more enticing to dieters.

This enlightenment was revealing, exposing the lack of nutritional value in processing agents and ingredients. To put it bluntly, processed foods are not good for the body. After learning this, I eliminated processed foods from my diet. They weren’t good for me, so I wasn’t going to eat them. Well, just about everything we buy at the grocery store is processed, so I was left with a very limited palate of foods from which to select.

My new viewpoint on evaluating food stayed with me, creating a change in my eating habits while also doing its part to make me a healthier person. But, it wasn’t until I became totally honest with myself about my weight issues and the damaging effect that they’d had on my life, that I was able to put in place the changes I needed to make.

How much do you think the processed foods in our lives contribute to our weight and health problems in the US and beyond?

I often watched as my friends would giggle and excitedly make the preparations for special events. They’d fret over the perfect dress, whether they should wear their hair up or down, and get their nails done. It seemed like every day brought another shopping trip, and when they weren’t in the stores, they were on the phone finding out who was going with who and what they were going to wear. The weeks building up to the event were a whirlwind of activity, with the crescendo being the oh-so-anticipated day they’d so impatiently been waiting for.

But not me. When the day of the special events (as well as the not-so-special events) came around, I felt more dread than excitement. It was a familiar feeling. Knowing that I hadn’t lost any weight and nothing had changed, I didn’t anticipate that this time would be any different than the last. My clothes would be too tight. I’d look terrible and feel uncomfortable the whole time. I knew I’d be self conscious the whole time, so I’d dread going. My answer? I’d feign sickness so I couldn’t go. Sometimes, I wouldn’t even go that far, choosing simply to turn down invitations when friends invited me to join them.

I chose to keep myself in seclusion, living behind a wall of fat. Behind my overweight exterior, I became a recluse where I was saved from the shame and the envy I often felt when I was around my friends. I so wanted to live a carefree life where I could enjoy the same things they did as much as they did, but for me, it was impossible. So, I protected myself by avoiding my friends and so many of the events that teenagers normally enjoy. It actually hurt less to stay home than it did to subject myself to the feelings of jealousy and inadequacy which prevented me from having any fun.

A lot of people think overweight people keep to themselves. We do. We wall ourselves into our own private hell, staying secluded in our own homes, so we don’t have to deal with the embarrassment of going out in public. Yes, we’re embarrassed. Don’t think for one second that fat people don’t know what they look like compared to the rest of the world. We’re painfully aware of the contrast. While we might be outgoing on the inside, we choose to become recluses to keep from calling attention to ourselves.

People who have weight issues try to avoid or even eliminate situations that will make them feel bad about themselves. They feel bad enough. It’s not hard to understand that they wouldn’t want to self inflict themselves with even more feelings of mediocrity. But, in the process of doing so, they develop a pattern of seclusion. Decline invitations often enough and people will stop asking.

Was that what I wanted? Of course, not. I wanted the opposite—to be popular and have a very active social life. But it didn’t happen because I was embarrassed to be around people. I was afraid of what they thought about me. Often, I thought people were staring at me. So, I chose to stay home whenever I was invited to join friends and classmates. The more I said no or backed out at the last minute, claiming I didn’t feel good, the less they asked. After time, my life had dwindled down to a mere existence. People eventually stopped inviting me to go places and do things. My life had become one of solitude, rather than one rich with fun, excitement, and new experiences, people, and memories. The only person to blame was me.

Has this ever happened to you? Have you ever just found it better to stay alone than to face the pain of how you felt when you were with other people? Share your story.

The one good thing about diets is that there’s always a reason to start one. There’s a never-ending buffet of reasons to lose weight. I want to lose weight before the first day of school. I’m going to lose weight before so-and-so’s birthday party. I really want to lose weight before my cousin’s wedding—everyone will be so surprised to see the new me. Sometimes, the biggest motivation to drop a few dress sizes is one very important special event.

Then, you dream. Prom is coming up. Here’s my chance! I’m going to lose a lot of weight and show everybody how amazing I look. They’re all going to be so impressed. I can hear it now. “Lisa, oh my goodness. You look fabulous!” “Where did you get that dress? It does absolute wonders for your new figure.” Or how about every fat girls dream, when the hottest guy in school walks up and says, “Hey, Lisa. You look great. Do you want to dance?”

You imagine trying on dresses of every color, shape, and style. It doesn’t matter—after all, you’re going to look gorgeous in every single one of them. You envision yourself in clothes that fit like a glove, and for a change, you like what you see. Gone is the old you, as well as your fat clothes. This will be your time to shine!

Special events, like dances, sent me into fantasyland. This time it would be different. This time I really would lose the weight and people would recognize me and lavish me with attention. All I had to do was lose 50 pounds in 2 months; then, I’d be the best looking girl in the whole school and the boys and girls would suddenly swam around me.

Aside from the fact that losing 50 pounds in 2 months is totally unrealistic, this made up play-by-play is also unrealistic. Go back and take a look at the things we say to ourselves. Wow, who is this inner voice? If your friend said something like that to you, would they be your friend? NO!! Then, why do we allow that voice to exist within ourselves, setting us up for a fall each and every time? Like a rerun, this scene plays itself over and over every time something special comes along. We get excited and build ourselves up, setting impossible goals and standards, only to be disillusioned and completely disappointed when reality once again drags us back down.

The event that was supposed to be so special and transform our life often becomes one of the most miserable ones in our memory bank. When we see ourselves as something we aren’t, and maybe will never be, we escalate our feelings of inadequacy over the person we are. Sure, there is room for improvement, but by letting our imagination run wild, we failed to allow ourselves to consider anything less. When we set high standards, like losing a ton of weight for a special event, we don’t give ourselves the option of making less progress toward our goal. Oh, no. In our minds, it’s all or nothing. Unfortunately, this way of thinking leaves us on the nothing side more often than the alternative.

Usually, the inner voice that emcees the magical moment when I would reveal the newer, thinner, and more beautiful me became my worst enemy when I failed to lose a single pound. It would start out so optimistic and sure of itself, but as a week went by without losing any weight, it would convince me that I could still do it. I still had time. Then, it would let me down big time the week of the dance, when I still didn’t have a date, a dress, or a different body to take myself to the dance in.

That inner voice is not our friend. We allow it to judge us, often cruelly, and hurt us before we let it go on a tangent, releasing wild and unreasonable expectations for us to live up to. Why do we give it permission to do that? Why do we give ourselves permission to do that? After all, that inner voice is no stranger. It’s reared its ugly head over and over again, and each time, we fall for it. Each time, we give it the benefit of the doubt that this time won’t be like the last time. This time, it will be different. After all, this time is special! But, weren’t they all special?

What special events did your inner voice get you all excited about? Did any of them pan out the way you thought they would, or were you like me, and all too often left with the disappointment of failing to live up to your own expectations? Before I could stifle my inner voice and keep it from hurting me yet another time, I had to figure out just why I allowed myself to treat myself so poorly. Answering that million dollar question was necessary before I could even begin to see the truth in my actions. Only then, would I be able to change them.

The word ‘diet’ starts with the word ‘die.’ Diets are a killer. I think I’ve tried every single diet or weight loss trend conjured up to man. While there were some which brought temporary success, none of them produced the resounding results depicted on TV or in the before and after photos of the women I wanted so much to mimic. When I did stick to a diet and actually saw results, they didn’t last. With each pound taken off, I’d regain two more.

Diet after diet, I’d lose some weight, then gain it back. Sometimes, I even added on a few extra pounds for good measure. I call that the yo-yo syndrome. Up and down, up and down, it was a cycle that would have Jenny Craig spinning. Getting inspired to lose weight, I’d start out great, watching every morsel that went into my mouth. But, it wouldn’t last. One slip up was fatal, and I’d fall right back into my old eating habits. I’d revisit all of the sweets and starches I craved and satisfy my hand-to-mouth habit. Grabbing a handful of potato chips, I’d repeatedly feed them into my mouth in much the same way a smoker has a desire to raise a cigarette to their lips. It was a habit I was rarely aware of, but continually exercised.

When I fell off my weight loss plan, I’d feel the all-too-familiar shame of failure. I was harsh with myself as I internally harped on what I should, and should not, be eating. Constantly second guessing or questioning my food choices and amounts made every meal or snack an inward struggle. Should I eat this? Should I eat that? Is this too much? My weight went up and down, and each time it did, my level of confusion and obsession with food increased.

Because I questioned everything I ate, I had a very difficult time eating in front of other people. As my own worst judge, I was sure that everyone around me was also judging me based on the foods I chose to eat and the amount I did eat. As a result, I literally dreaded something most people truly enjoy—eating with my friends. Going out for pizza made me feel ashamed. If I had a piece, would they frown on that? I couldn’t eat a French fry without wondering if they were secretly thinking that I was making a bad choice. Forget about going out for ice cream or buying buttered popcorn at the movies. I knew how it looked to me, so I was certain my friends were in total agreement. I was so self conscious of my weight around my friends, that I’d often say I wasn’t hungry and nibble like a bird, barely touching what was on my plate. I was sure they were thinking things like, “She shouldn’t be eating that” or “how did she get so big, she eats like a bird?” or even worse, “Lisa is fat. She really needs to lose weight”. Ironic, isn’t it, that the last statement is the one closest to the one when I finally realized it myself. It is the one I’d hidden from for years. The one thing I was most afraid of…The Truth!

When the yo-yo dropped, my typical response would be, “Oh, well, I’ve blown it anyway, so it doesn’t really matter.” Then, I could justify doing what I really wanted to do—eat.

After all, there was always tomorrow. There was always Monday. I could fall off my diet and convince myself that I’d start all over again and be good tomorrow. Or, I’d tell myself that it was okay if I took a break from my diet over the weekend. As you probably know, Monday is the day of the week when most people choose to start a diet. The problem with that justification is that I’d eat too much when I went off a diet. I’d eat the wrong things to the point that I’d undo not only any weight loss I’d accomplished, but also the determination I’d built up to lose that weight.

The yo-yo and the cycles didn’t end. They were eternal, like infinity, if that was possible. Every time I went off a diet, I’d eat too much. Then, I’d beat myself up about it, punishing myself by feeling miserable for what I’d done, and then assuage myself with more food to counter my misery. Another handful of chips, a sandwich, or a cookie would surely help. At this point, I surmised, it surely wouldn’t hurt. But, unfailingly, it did.

I found that diets left me with a sense of deprivation. I was depriving myself of the one constant in my life! When I deprived myself of the one thing that I truly believed I needed, I had nothing to replace it with. Like a magnet, I’d pull myself right back to where I was. That’s where I’d choose to stay until the next round. Monday was always another day.

Going on diets definitely made my eating habits worse. It made food, or the lack of it, the major focal point of my day. As my life revolved around it, I allowed it to play a role in everything I did, including spending time with my friends and participating in things that girls my age enjoyed doing. I was being held prisoner, and my captor was of my own doing.

I’m sure I wasn’t alone. I’ve found that the feelings of inadequacy I faced are common among people who are overweight. Others have dealt with the same struggles of pleasing themselves while striving so desperately for the approval of the people around us. It’s one of the many bonds that overweight people can associate with.

Does this resonate with you? How do you react when you cheat on a diet—even just a little? Do you fall off completely and gain all of your weight back? Or, do you give yourself a break and start all over again on Monday? Do you fall victim to “Oh, well. It’s too late now. I’ve blown my diet, so I might as well eat what I want”?