I have a better question for you.
Instead of asking Why can’t I lose weight, ask yourself Why do I want to lose weight?
I know, I know, it sounds a little hokey but stick with me.
Because if you do this right, the answer might surprise you.
For the vast majority of us, weight loss isn’t a health-related necessity.
It’s diet culture programming.
What if I told you that if you want to lose weight, focusing on losing weight is the worst possible approach?
We live in a world where we are taught that losing weight is what we all need to be striving for. Being as thin as possible is idealized. If you lose weight, you’re somehow physically, morally, and intellectually superior to others. You showcase discipline and conform to the societal standard of beauty.
Worse, as women, you’ve been put in your place. The place that our patriarchal society wants you in, that is.
How much energy do you put into stressing about losing weight? How much time? Emotion?
The so-called “fitness” industry is a machine that plants insecurities in us, nurtures those insecurities, then sells us solutions in the form of exercise challenges, supplements, treatments, diets, and endless launches of beauty products that promise to help us look a certain way.
And for years, sometimes even decades, we are caught up in it. And we never ask ourselves why we want any of it. The desire for it grew insidiously over years of exposure to diet culture and subliminal messages letting us know that we aren’t good enough as we are.
Well. I’m here to tell you that’s all wrong.
If you get brutally honest with yourself, and ask the question, Why do I want to lose weight? The majority of the time the root answer is going to be some variation of, Because someone told me I have to.
The immediate answer might be something like, Because I want to be skinny, or Because I want to fit into different clothes, or Because I want to be more attractive. But those answers are like the symptoms of an illness rather than the cause. You have to keep questioning into deeper layers to get to the root.
If you answer, Because I want to be skinny, follow up with, Why do I want to be skinny? Keep responding with the most honest, to-the-point answers you can come up with. Keep going until the answers start to sound repetitive, or you’ve reached what you know if you gut to be the truth. Then work your way back up and ask yourself the questions in reverse order once you’ve uncovered this new truth. It can be helpful to use a journal to do this.
If we complete this example line of inquiry, it might look something like this:
Why do I want to lose weight?
Because I want to be skinny.
Why do I want to be skinny?
Because I think I look better in clothes.
Why do I think I look better in clothes if I’m skinnier?
Because clothes online always look better on skinny girls.
Why do I think clothes look better on skinny girls than they do on me?
Because ads and social media have presented it to me that way my whole life.
So, acknowledging that to be true, do I actually think that clothes always look better on skinnier girls, or have I just been made to believe that they do?
I think clothes can look good on me, too, just as I am.
So, do I really believe clothes would look better on me if I was skinnier?
No.
Then why do I want to be skinny?
And here, a new answer might emerge. And you can repeat the process to get to the often illogical root of these beliefs we hold about ourselves that make us feel like we have to be on a journey to lose weight.
So many fitness influencers that we flock to are feeding into this narrative and selling you solutions that don’t really solve anything; they trap you further into the diet culture mentality that has you convinced you need to lose weight.
When the truth is you probably don’t need to lose weight. You might just need to get FIT.
Fitness is objectively measured by five things. Cardiorespiratory fitness (the body’s ability to uptake and utilize oxygen), musculoskeletal fitness (muscle strength, endurance, and power), Flexibility, Balance, and Speed. Optimizing these 5 things will look different on everyone, but will feel AMAZING on every body. Because these are the things your body was designed to do; engaging in movement and activity without pain or fatigue.
See how nothing in there says anything about losing weight or being skinny?
In my online workout space, The Diamond Mine™, members go from struggling with their bodies to achieving new levels of fitness, even if they’ve been spinning their wheels with different workouts for years.
Escape the spin cycle of endless diets and workout challenges and finally get FIT with a trainer who gets you. I share lots more about escaping diet culture and tips on how desk workers can achieve true fitness, even in their late thirties, by thinking less about losing weight and more about getting FIT over on IG @kellym.roach and on the Fixing Fitness with Kelly podcast. Check out our Members section and I’ll see you there.
