Losing Weight is Like Falling in Love

After my last blog post, my friend, Monica, emailed to share her weight-loss story. Monica had a similar three-step experience as that which was outlined in the post: a general contemplation of change, a negative a-ha moment that served as a catalyst (seeing her college graduation photo), and then a series of positive reinforcements. In looking back at her experience, she wrote:

I found that the negative experience is very random and uncontrollable. I had plenty of equally negative experiences before this one that did not influence me to change behavior. I believe you can't stimulate such an experience any more than you can make someone have chemistry and fall in love with another person. That spark is uncontrollable. You can lay the groundwork with an openness to the experience, an examination of what works and doesn't work for you, etc., but that spark in love is the best analogy that I have to offer to the spark that stimulates weight loss. Once you have that spark, there are things you can do to keep the flame of weight loss alive, just like keeping a relationship in the healthy and happy zone takes some work and attention as well.

I am definitely not relationship-expert extraordinaire Carrie Bradshaw, but Monica’s email made me think about my dating experiences prior to meeting my husband. (Earmuffs, honey.) I remember going out on this blind date. Our matchmaker introduced us because he was a PE teacher, I worked at a gym, and (probably the number one reason) we were both short. This guy, whose name I don’t remember, insisted on meeting at the ESPN Zone, arrived 20 minutes late, and then informed me that we didn’t have time to eat dinner because we were going to meet his friends at a basketball game. I really don’t like basketball and I find dinner to be a very important part of the day, but went along with this super-boring date anyway. At the end of the date, he said, “We should do this again.” I actually burst out laughing. As much as we looked good on paper, I doubt either one of us felt anything that resembled a spark and both of us knew that we wouldn’t be going out again.

What if, like a blind date with an arrogant little PE teacher, all of the time we spend trying to force weight loss is a colossal waste of time? Could dieting without this perfect storm of readiness, an a-ha moment, and a supportive environment do more harm than good?

If losing weight is like falling in love, dieting is like dating a guy with no job, seven kids from four different women, and a drinking problem. (If that’s not an SAT-worthy analogy, I don’t know what is.) Across the board, people who weight cycle (repeatedly gain and lose weight) weigh more and carry more fat in their abdominal area (Cereda, 2011). Diet books, magazines, and websites push us to seek out new magical low-fat, low-carb, cabbage soup, cave man, blood type, raw food, baby food, French, Mediterranean diets. Sadly, this miraculous diet doesn’t exist, and our diet-du-jour society is actually causing weight gain.

Like finding a mate, living healthy needs to feel good, be enjoyable most of the time, and come together easily. Try finding enjoyment in an activity, be it running, dancing, or eating broccoli. It also helps to start contemplating and planning for long-term weight loss by figuring out how to fit healthy eating habits and exercise into almost every day for the rest of your life. At some point when you’re ready, that a-ha moment will come. If you don’t feel that you are 100% on board and that eating healthy and exercising is a struggle, take a step back and reevaluate your plan. Like a good relationship, a healthy lifestyle shouldn’t feel like a great effort.

Cereda, E., et al. (2011). Weight cycling is associated with body weight excess and abdominal fat accumulation: A cross-sectional study. Clinical Nutrition. Epub ahead of print.