Most women blame themselves because they have gotten overweight. They tell  themselves: they binged, over-ate, stopped exercising, or find fault with something they did or didn’t do.

But what if, blaming yourself, negative self-talk and the harsh self-judgments that you tell yourself may be one of the things that caused your weight gain in the first place? Your mindset , both conscious and unconscious thoughts are responsible for your weight challenge.

First of all, there are factors totally beyond your control that may be responsible for your weight. You inherited other physical characteristics from your parents. Weight can be one of those things that you “got” from your parents. In fact, twin studies show that these siblings raised apart have nearly identical weight and body shape when their statistics are studied.

If you were born by C-section and if your were bottle fed, instead of breast fed, these factors can also have an effect on your body weight later in life. Your bacterial flora properly digests your food, and helps your thyroid function also take place in your intestines.  But it may not function optimally because of consequences that took place at the time of your birth.  And what if your doctor didn’t use the right test to see if your thyroid gland is actually working properly? Trying to lose weight with hypothyroid is like trying to win a speedboat race in a row boat! Should you blame your body for that?

But inherited characteristics aside; it’s been estimated that 80{5b8e831512cf0c284f7edae7fc403e9a09e5b1736c5b1d60e4451a29dc064ebe} of overweight people report that an incident in their lives precipitated their weight gain. And NO, it wasn’t a chocolate brownie.

Stress, alienation, isolation, bullying, abuse, poverty; all of these factors in your childhood, and present life, have a physical reaction in your body! Those events can lead to a low self-esteem, hating your body; a feeling that you are not good enough; or even that you are not safe. NOTHING effects your weight more than “safety” issues.

Your body’s Number One priority it to keep you alive; and when it perceives that you are not safe, those stressful feelings change every function in your body. Digestion, and metabolism are high on the list of body functions that become inhibited from stress. Stress makes your body store fat on your belly.

And dieting is stressful. It sends a signal to your body that there’s a lack of food. In order to keep you alive and prevent your from starving, your body slows down your metabolism. And once you start dieting, it’s all uphill from there. 95{5b8e831512cf0c284f7edae7fc403e9a09e5b1736c5b1d60e4451a29dc064ebe} of all diets result in weight loss in the beginning, and then the weight is regained in a few months to a couple of years.

But the Diet Industry is happy to have you blame yourself, instead of the flawed diet. That way they have you are their returning paying customer.

Don’t fall for it. Weight gain is a symptom, NOT the cause of your overweight. Stop blaming yourself, and deal with your stress as a beginning step. Use your meals as a time to relax, and nurture yourself. You’ll not only see your stress level go down, but you’ll notice you may stop using food as a drug to stuff your feelings instead of addressing your unhappy emotions in a better way.

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binging, body image


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