by Rita Black
Now you would think after two stunning wins like hitting your goal weight and being asked to the senior prom by one of the most popular guys in school would have you feeling on the top of the world, and I did…for a moment.
I walked home from school on cloud nine, my heart racing. My emotions were soaring so high that I couldn’t take them all in. When I got home, I went immediately to the kitchen and without even thinking began to eat everything. I pulled crackers and peanut butter out of the cupboard along with chocolate chip cookies and milk from the fridge. It seemed like I had a bottomless hole to fill. I tried to stop it, but any conscious-mind protests were run right over by my subconscious mind’s need to eat my way back to calmness and an emotional status quo.
Over the next few weeks before the prom, my emotions were all over the place, and so was my eating. I tried to get back to that magical spot on the Weight Watchers plan where I was before the prom invitation. I could be good for a few days, but then the dam would break, and I would binge away all the unfamiliar feelings. I was like a gazelle running from the lion of emotions swirling inside me.
I made my prom dress from a cool Vogue pattern four weeks before the prom. On the night of the prom, I discovered I couldn’t zip the dress all the way. I had tried it on the previous week and it fit. It was snug but it worked. Now that zipper wouldn’t close! I panicked and began to cry.
My wonderful mother thought fast on her feet and never once brought up what we both knew—I had gained weight. The stress eating had driven me out of my prom dress. Mom handed me a jacket that went pretty well with the dress and covered both the partly unzipped back of my dress and my humiliation.
Anyone who saw me that night at the prom would have seen a girl dancing and having fun. Inside, though, my heart was broken. I had proven yet again that my Weight Struggler beliefs were true. I was a failure. My bad habits hadn’t gone away; they were just temporarily dormant. Now they were back with a vengeance. There I was like Cinderella. The clock hadn’t struck midnight, but I was already turning back into a weight-struggling pumpkin.
WEIGHT STRUGGLE SUM UP: Stress and Emotions
When struggling with weight, mounting feelings create an internal fight-or-flight reaction that bypasses the conscious mind and its weight loss plans and sends us running to those old calming and comforting eating habits.
I’m fond of saying, “Life never lines up for us to do well on a diet forever.” There are always going to be major events in life, holidays, vacations, and ups and downs that create stress and emotions, both good and bad. We eat as a response to these emotions and get side-tracked off our diet and fall back into our old fat thinking habits and beliefs.
Now that you have been introduced to how our fat thinking circuitry of beliefs, habits, and emotions create powerful walls to hold us in a Weight Struggle Prison, I would like to introduce two parts of the unconscious mind that manage this prison and are responsible for keeping the on-again, off-again, diet cycle going—THE INNER CRITIC AND THE INNER REBEL.
CHAPTER 7
YOU BLEW IT, SO SCREW IT!
The Inner Critic And The Inner Rebel
“I think I may be crazy. I think that there is something definitely wrong with how my brain works. Can you help me?” clients often ask me. I always respond, “Tell me more.”
“I have had the same weight issues forever. It doesn’t make sense because I know what to do! I eat healthfully for a while, but then it’s like there is this other part of me that just gets, I don’t know, bored, frustrated, or stops doing what I am supposed to do. It feels like there is a part of me that always wants to be thin and healthy but another part of me that wants to be bad, to shut down, and eat. What is wrong with me?”
Have you ever felt like there might be something wrong with you? Like you had multiple personalities when it came to weight management? I know I did. Well, the good news is there is nothing wrong with you. Everyone has different aspects of themselves that influence their thinking and actions in life. Some of them are negative and some are positive.
The bad news is that right now there are two parts of your mind running the fat thinking beliefs, habits, and emotional responses that are leading your struggle with weight. I call these two parts the Inner Critic and the Inner Rebel.
The Inner Critic Says, “You Blew It.”
The idea of an Inner Critic as a negative voice is a commonly used term in psychology. For the Weight Struggler, the Inner Critic wants what is best, hates weight issues, and wants to be “normal.” The Inner Critic acts like the mean, never satisfied drill sergeant who sees that it’s his job to encourage survival by being strict and controlling. In the Weight Struggler’s mind, the Inner Critic formed as fat thinking evolved as a survival mechanism to help keep the Weight Struggler in control.
This fat thinking Inner Critic communicates in two essential ways: overwhelming expectations and negative self-talk.
Overwhelming expectations are distorted and impossible to follow through on. The Inner Critic will do anything and say anything to whip you into shape, such as:
“You must be perfect on this diet!”
“You cannot touch one bit of sugar this week—none!”
“You need to lose 20 pounds by the end of this month!”
Negative self-talk occurs when you don’t live up to the Inner Critic’s impossibly high expectations. The Inner Critic gets upset and says:
“Why did you eat that? You blew it!”
“You are so lazy, why didn’t you exercise?”
“You gained two pounds? Ugh, failed again! You are never going to lose weight.”
Pretty nice inner dialogue, huh? Our Inner Critic speaks more cruelly to us than anyone would dare to speak to a bitter enemy. The Inner Critic motivates with fear, and, therefore, is not a powerful force for change. In fact, the Inner Critic keeps the Weight Struggler small and thinking that the Weight Struggler is the problem. The Weight Struggler is deficient and needs to be controlled and fixed.
Let face it, the Inner Critic is exhausting and overwhelming, leading that wonderful survival-oriented unconscious mind to create another aspect of consciousness. This one—the Inner Rebel—helps you cope and escape from that tyrannical dictator, the Inner Critic.
The Inner Rebel says, “So Screw it!”
The Inner Rebel developed as an escape route from the harshness of the Inner Critic and it’s overwhelming expectations and negative self-talk. The Inner Rebel wants release from the tension of “being good” and to give in to impulses.
Some psychological terms for the rebel are the “addictive voice” or “inner child.” Whatever the title in the outer world, the Inner Rebel sees food as fun, survival, and comfort. Yes, the Inner Rebel just wants to shout, “Screw it! Be bad. Have fun. Live life!”
The Inner Rebel seduces you away from exercise and a healthy eating plan with negative self-communication:
“Everyone else gets to eat that and have fun, why can’t I?”
“I don’t want to get up and exercise. I want to stay in bed where it’s warm.”
“But eating chocolate is the only way I will feel better!”
“What the hell? You already ate one so you might as well eat the rest.”
“What a hard day! You deserve a reward.”
“Relax today. You can start again Monday and be perfect.”
The Inner Rebel isn’t bad per se, the Inner Rebel is just trying to get back to the status quo and offer protection from the stress of the Inner Critic’s restrictions and expectations. The problem, unfortunately, is that the Inner Rebel is going about it the wrong way. Sure, release from the Inner Critic’s dictates is a momentarily relief, but ultimately guilt and disappointment arise from eating too much.
The Inner Critic and Inner Rebel are constantly pushing and pulling this way and that. “Be good!” says one. “Come
on, be bad!” says the other. No wonder the Weight Struggler ends up feeling overwhelmed and a bit crazy!
The Cheat Summer
The summer after my freshman year at New York University, I returned to Seattle for the summer to work and attend my big brother’s wedding.
My first year away had been an adventure of being independent and away from home in the Big Apple. Even though I was homesick and lonely, I had the constant companionship of my two closest friends, my Inner Critic and my Inner Rebel. They were always with me wherever I went.
My weight continued to creep up as I began eating to cope with the pressure of studying and the stress of socializing. By spring I decided I better get serious. I went on a strict diet with my friend Kim who had been thin her whole life until she gained the well-known “freshman 15.”
We supported each other. We walked to our classes instead of taking the subway. We ate only salads during the week, and rewarded ourselves with a cheat day on Sunday.
Our diet was successful. Kim lost 15 pounds, and I lost almost 30. I wanted to lose five pounds more to look great for my brother’s wedding. I was slim, but I still didn’t like the way my body looked in the mirror. “You can do better,” my Inner Critic whispered in my ear.
I remember my Seattle homecoming and how happy I was to be back for a few months. My family was excited to see me and complimentary of my new trim, sophisticated New York persona. “You have wasted away to nothing,” my dad said. “Here,” my mom said, “I made all of your favorites for dinner!”
As I looked at the table full of lasagna, pork chops, and German chocolate cake, my Inner Rebel started the seduction. “Well, I know it’s only Saturday, but maybe since you are home and your mom made all this amazing food, you should make today your cheat day instead of tomorrow.”
I ate the homecoming feast and then some, feeling free to eat whatever I pleased, and on Sunday…well, I kept right on eating.
Monday I woke up, feeling gross and bloated. I was sure I had gained all the lost weight back, but I hadn’t. I was five pounds from where I was when the plane landed.
“See, now you have ten pounds to lose before your brother’s wedding, you big dummy,” my Inner Critic sneered. “Don’t you have any self-control? No breakfast for you, just start your day later with a salad. Pull it together!”
I sighed and began my salad week. I also started my new summer job behind the counter of an Italian delicatessen in Seattle’s Pike’s Place Market. Talking all day with customers about what amazing Italian dishes they were going to cook and being in the heart of an international food market didn’t help my wired brain shut off thoughts of food. I was good for a few days on my lettuce regime, but I was always hungry and thinking about delicious food.
My Inner Rebel whined, “Look at those cannoli! Why can’t we try just one?” My Inner Critic snapped back, “Because you’re fat, and those will make you even fatter. They aren’t on our plan so just suck it up and move on. Salads only, remember? Salads only!”
By Thursday my Inner Rebel was feeling stifled. “Come on! I am bored. I want to try some of these amazing foods. Let’s make today our cheat day, and we can try some of the amazing foods around the market.”
The trend is obvious, right? I started each week with good intentions about sticking with my Inner Critic’s restrictive regime. Somewhere toward the weekend, though, my Inner Rebel would find a way to escape and eat whatever I’d missed out on during the week.
This went on for weeks until one month before I returned to school I was 35 pounds heavier than I was at the beginning of summer. My family and friends at my brother’s wedding didn’t mention their dismay at my weight gain, but I could see it in their eyes.
Instead of giving up on my diet, I tried harder. “If you lose a pound a day before school begins, you will almost get back to where you were in June,” my Inner Critic pronounced.
What do you think happened? Did I lose a pound a day? No, of course, I didn’t. The stress from that pressure just made my Inner Rebel push back more and escape with food.
I can remember the horrifying feeling I had as I got out of the cab in front of my dorm in Greenwich Village. I was ready for my second year of college, but I was nowhere near ready for the looks I got from my dorm mates as they helped me get my luggage out of the cab. Unlike my parents and friends out west, these were New Yorkers who said what they were thinking. “What happened to you, Rita? Oh, my God!” they exclaimed as they looked me and my 40 extra pounds.
I sighed. “I don’t know. I went home. The food’s good there.” My dorm mate Cindy said, “If I were you, I would stay in New York next summer!”
WEIGHT STRUGGLE SUM UP: Inner Critic and Inner Rebel
About 80,000 thoughts whirl though the mind each day. For the Weight Struggler, many of these thoughts are negative and sabotage any move forward toward success.
The Inner Critic’s expectations are high, as the Inner Critic sees only an out-of-control beast that needs to be tamed and put on a diet.
The Inner Rebel just wants to let go, keep things the way they are, and indulge in whatever craving or enticing treat comes along, saying, “You deserve it, right?”
The harsher the Inner Critic is, the more the Inner Rebel pushes back, eating more and more to escape the oppression.
These two characters are the root of those “Being good, being bad” thoughts. Their constant pushing and pulling are what I call the Weight Struggle Cycle. And the back and forth between the Inner Critic and the Inner Rebel only reinforces the Weight Struggle Cycle’s power.
Now, there is one last piece of the Weight Struggle puzzle to orient you to—THE WEIGHT STRUGGLE CYCLE.
CHAPTER 8
ON OR OFF, ALL OR NOTHING, GOOD OR BAD
The Weight Struggle Cycle
How are you doing? I hope the Weight Struggle chapters have given you a better understanding of the elements that are creating your personal weight struggle. Now I would like to put all of those elements together and walk you through the Weight Struggle Cycle. This frustrating and self-sabotaging cycle embodies the circuitry of limiting beliefs, habits, and emotions and is run by the Inner Critic and Inner Rebel.
The Weight Struggle Cycle gives us that frustrating feeling of being trapped in this all-or-nothing, good-or-bad, on-or-off-a-diet cycle that makes us feel like we are in this never-ending un-merry-go-round with regards to weight.
Take a closer look at the cycle because soon you are going to learn to escape its prison. In order for you to escape, you need to know how the cycle works.
The Weight Struggle Cycle is broken into two phases:
The “Being Good” Phase
The “Being Bad” Phase
These phases can be broken down into a sequence of steps that get played out on a subconscious level.
the weight struggle cycle: The “Being Good” Phase
Here we are at the top of the Weight Struggle Cycle. It usually begins as the Weight Struggler emerges from a being bad phase of going off track and overeating.
Step 1: The Initial Impulse to Lose Weight.
The first step in the cycle is the habitual “I have to lose weight!” reaction to feeling a negative emotion. The trigger to that unpleasant feeling can be external or internal, such as:
The number on the scale.
Someone says something about your weight.
You have an indulgent weekend of overeating and drinking.
A doctor’s warning.
Realizing a wedding or reunion or the beach season is happening soon.
Step 2: Find Some Method to Lose Weight ASAP.
This next step involves finding a quick solution to get us out of the pain of feeling overweight or out of control and back in charge. This kind of thinking makes us vulnerable to extreme diets or other weight loss methods (fasts, cleanses, exercise regim
es, or pills) to get the weight off. Often, we never really stop to think if the method is sound from a health perspective or is reasonable for our lifestyle.
One client confided to me: “If you gave me a bucket of dirt and some water and said I would lose 20 pounds by just eating it, I would have done it to lose the weight and get out of that place of pain!”
Steps 3: Start a Diet and Feel in Control…For a While.
This step in the cycle may go on for hours, days, weeks, or even months if the Weight Struggler gets into a “being perfect” groove. There may even be a kind of diet high—that is, a feeling of being in control—on top of the world! Yippee!
As long as the diet and exercise regime goes smoothly, the Inner Critic is quiet and offers praises for the “good” behavior. And, as long as the scale keeps going down, all is well in the fat thinking world.
Step 4: Willpower Fades.
The next step in the cycle occurs when the will to maintain the diet or exercise plan weakens, as it does in situations like these:
The Weight Struggler feels deprived of old habits and gratification.
The Weight Struggler can’t eat what everyone else is eating.
The diet is too restrictive and hard to follow.
The scale stops going down, and the Weight Struggler doesn’t know why.
Stress and life commitments interfere.
Even short-term successes like these can challenge the Weight Struggler:
The Weight Struggler loses some weight and fits back into clothes.
Others say the Weight Struggler looks good.
The Weight Struggler reaches a more acceptable number on the scale.
In this case, the pain that drove the Weight Struggler to diet has faded. Therefore, his resolve to stay on the diet starts to diminish as well.