Where did you find that self belief?

[u/scoobedeth]

I'll try make this short!

Struggled with weight my entire life. Had some success about ten years ago only to regain it all and some. Ive lost count of the attempts to lose weight since and subsequently failed. I'm now 31 with a 50+ bmi, super uncomfortable and every aspect of my life negatively impacted. I have no choice now but address this but I simply have no belief in myself that I can do it.

I'm so frustrated, there's so much information and advice out there regarding diet and exercise. I know how to create a calorie deficit. It's the mental stuff I need help with. How can I trust myself to be consistent? How do you change an entire life of these habits? How else am I suppose to self soothe? What do I do when I feel sad, low energy and just want to binge eat?

I guess I'm just wanting to hear from people who needed to lose as much weight as I do, have been successful and how they approached it mentally? This feels impossible.

[u/Perssepoliss]

Don't underestimate the power of self loathing at times to get you going, it's not all rainbows and lolly pops

[u/justclove → u/Perssepoliss]

Honestly, this is why I started losing weight and what powered me through the first few difficult weeks. Spite. I hated myself, I hated my body, and I was entirely at ease with the idea that if anything was going to change it was going to have to suffer for it. I figured I deserved it and weight loss felt like the ultimate FU to my fat ass. I'm still working on it all, and though I'm rather happier with my body now, it's mostly because it's doing rather more to prove itself lovable. I don't believe in loving myself unconditionally, and though it might not be the most positive of messages, it's absolutely what I found worked.

[u/Cr8z13]

Keep it simple, weight loss is just basic math. Burn more calories than you consume. I’ve lost over a hundred pounds in each of the last three decades and it’s easier than ever now. Lose It app, a food scale, and my walking shoes were my faithful companions this last go-round and I tried to get at least 100g of protein in per day. The journey wasn’t easy but I wasn’t miserable either. Play to your food tastes but keep an open mind to new things. Develop a routine you can tolerate long term, this will look different from person to person. You deserve to live in a healthy body and it’s worth fighting for.

[u/loseit_throwit]

The single most motivating thing to me is the idea that the worst I can really do is not try. Nothing wrong with trying and struggling. The time will pass anyway, so why not make something of it?

[u/Strategic_Sage]

I didn't get to over 50 BMI, but I've spent decades over 40 and was nearly 43 BMI until last July when I decided not to be. I chose to make long-term fitness and health my 'second job' until such time as a I reach as high a level as I reasonably can in both, and not to accept failure as an option until I reached those goals. I still have a long way to go, but I've moved significantly in that direction.

I would suggest a few points:

- Feels impossible and is impossible are two different things. Don't trust what it feels like. You are capable of more than you think you are.

- Don't concern yourself with trusting yourself to be consistent. Concern yourself with today at most, and sometimes just the next five minutes. Even if tomorrow is horrible, you will still be healthier and better off than if you made bad decisions now. There is no version of you that isn't better off for making healthy choices right now, this minute, as compared to not doing that.

"How else am I suppose to self soothe? What do I do when I feel sad, low energy and just want to binge eat?"

Embrace The Suck. I'm not joking. Lean into the pain. Accept it. One of my weak points used to be this kind of thing, I would buy junk food when feeling down, I told myself I 'deserved' it after a tough day at work, etc. What a crock of unmitigated hogwash that was. I didn't deserve, ever, to temporarily make myself feel better at the cost of sabotaging my future health and wasting money. That was never a reward. It was always a self-sabotage, a punishment directed at future me.

There are times when I was almost in tears over wanting to eat crap. It is hard at first. It also can be done - not because I've done it, but because neurologically we all have the capability to discipline ourselves. We do not *have* to do what feels good immediately. We *can* make changes.

The thing is, we have trained ourselves to behave this way. We have told our body that if it whines we will give it what it wants. What it needs in those moments is not to be soothed. It needs to be told 'this is what you are getting because it is what you really need, and you can whine and cry all you want but I'm not going to change my mind about this and give in'. When we do that regularly, the complaining diminishes.

[u/Is_cuma_liom77]

I used my disgust with myself to keep myself going. I was so tired of being disgusted with what I saw in the mirror every morning that I told myself "This ends now. I'm going to lose this weight and get back in shape no matter how slow the progress is because I can't continue to look at myself in this shape every morning and doing nothing about it."

It has been three years and progress was slow, but I'm glad I stuck with my plan and feel so much better about myself. I also keep in mind that I cannot get careless because my hard work can be undone and that weight can come back.

[u/SockofBadKarma]

Well, you don't exactly have much choice otherwise. Believing in others won't do anything, nor can anyone else's belief in you affect anything. You either believe in yourself, or you suffer and die. You're already suffering, and the death stats are pretty literally morbid for someone of your size.

So what's worse: believing in yourself to overcome a seemingly impossible task (by the way, only seemingly so), or waiting for death? Those are your only two avenues. I for one would be clawing with bloody fingers to avoid Door No. 2, no matter how many times I had to keep clawing.

Others have done it. So can you. So must you. You're the only one who can. So look at the information on the sidebar, set a plan, and stick to it. Of course you can do it.

---

Edit: To address this second point of "self soothing," I'm going to copy something I wrote a few days ago that applies here.

Fundamentally, you need to drill this simple maxim into your head: Binging is not enjoying.

You are not enjoying these foodstuffs. You're compulsively consuming them because you've told yourself that you must. Reckless overindulgence of anything is not enjoyment. It's obsession.

I assume you like a particular movie or TV series. Doesn't really matter what it is. Just picture it for a moment. Think of why you like it. Think how happy it makes/made you when you would see it.

Now ask yourself: "Would I like this show if I pulled my eyes open with super glue, latched myself into a chair in front of a television set, and watched the show on endless repeat every waking hour for a year as a feeding tube kept me alive, like some grotesque imitation of A Clockwork Orange?"

That is obsession. And I will bet my own life that neither you, nor any other person on the planet, would ever walk out of that experience with anything more than utter loathing for something they once enjoyed.

So why are you doing the equivalent with food? Why are you taking something that's supposed to be enjoyable, and engorging yourself to the point of physical deformation? You can enjoy a cookie without eating a hundred more. You can eat a slice of cake and not grab the rest with your hands and shove it into your mouth crying like Matilda's Bruce Bogtrotter. Indeed, I would consider it a prerequisite to enjoyment to not do such things. The dose makes the poison, and you're poisoning yourself.

Consider the torment you're putting your body through (and your body is you, btw) to "comfort yourself." Consider the torment you've been inflicting upon yourself for decades. Forcefeeding people is one of the world's oldest forms of torture. You are literally torturing yourself for a moment of fleeting, obsessive gratification from a sugar high. It is no different from a drug addiction or self-mutilation. You are not enjoying yourself any more than a meth addict or a cutter. You ask what else you can do to self-soothe? Literally anything else. Smacking yourself repeatedly in the face would be more self-respectful than what you're inflicting upon yourself. The food is not your friend. It is a tool for survival, and you're abusing that tool to twist your own flesh into endless agony. Stop torturing yourself.

[u/Yachiru5490]

I started at the beginning of the year at about BMI 45, so not quite the same as you but we'll call it close enough?

I had different problems than you and that's not surprising as we are all unique individuals. I was eating too large of meals but wasn't one to snack much. I would have multiple coffees in a day + Starbucks a few times a week + sugared iced tea + weekend alcohol. And I was extremely sedentary.

So for me - I cut down my breakfast and lunch to little bits but kept my larger dinner (similar to when I was in college and only overweight). I went to 2 homemade coffees a day, went back to unsweetened tea (which I like anyways) and the occasional extremely lightly sweetened liquid death, Starbucks only once a week with less caloric choices, and tightened up the alcohol drinking.

I changed my psych meds to ones that helped me more, helped my depression so much more. Meds that didn't make me sick at least once a week so I wouldn't have to keep ginger ale at my bedside every night in case I threw up. Ones that gave me more energy and bandwidth to handle this. I also started losing weight when my life wasn't too tumultuous and my husband and I were in a good place. (Didn't hurt that he was ready to lose weight too)

I started, then stopped, tried to restart, stopped again, and now am trying one more time to be more active. Currently that means physical therapy to help my chronic pain (trying to do it daily, see them every few weeks) and walking in the pool (trying for twice a week). I also get weekly massages to try and help my pain. I try to find more reasons to leave my house in a week. I got an old Apple Watch so I'm reminded to get up and move every hour - the watch isn't very smart but it does get me up.

I hate failing at things. I'm stubborn and I'm someone who finishes what I start. So I use that to propel me forward. My health and my therapist combine to convince me to take breaks sometimes (like this December!) but I refuse to have any real regain. So I track through all of my breaks. Worst I've done is maybe 5lbs up and at least some of that was water?

I lean on my husband, my parents, my friends, my therapist for support. I bitch and complain a lot. I try to remember to ask for things I need instead of punishing myself - so I ask for a foot rub instead of just wallowing. I have a weighted blanket that is stupid in how much it works in lowering anxiety from panic levels. And I plan out special days where we go out to dinner or whatever so I can still enjoy food and the talking/processing time around it. If I need to shove food in my face, I try to do it mindfully, if that makes sense. I make the conscious decision to eat more to soothe. I don't do this everyday or even every week, but it's still a tool in the tool belt. I just started adding other tools to use as well.

[u/AnotherRandoCanadian]

I think a lot of it involves reframing one's thinking. Inevitably, there are times when someone trying to lose weight will overeat. One thing that made a big difference for me was going from "Ah! I overate. I may as well stop counting calories." to "I overate -- it's OK, it happens sometimes. It doesn't undo all of my progress. I'm going to stop now and get back on track."

Also... popcorn with seasoning in the evening as a substitute for potato chips was tremendously helpful for me. It was a very useful hack.

But yeah... it's doable, but it's not easy.

[u/motormouth08]

I just tell myself that I only have to believe in myself for this moment. If I start to think too far down the road, it gets overwhelming. But if I string enough "just right now" moments together, I'll definitely get some momentum going.