Losing weight is something that most people try at least once in their life. The reasons for dieting (often accompanied with exercising), though, need to be carefully considered. I invite any reader to become familiar with the Health at Every Size (HAES) movement, which advocates for equality of treatment and respect for all people regardless of their body shape.

Author and advocate Lindo (formerly Linda) Bacon wrote books with extensive research that shows how calorie counting, exercising and dieting do not seem to reach their goal. Bacon (2014) states that we are so used to “blaming” obesity for our issues, that we believe it to be the true cause of many of our problems, and invites us to question why we endeavour to lose weight.

From an IFS perspective, we can think that the idea of losing weight could be a burden that our parts have taken on. We are talking of a cultural and social burden that we carry implicitly and, therefore, I invite the reader to examine this possibility with an IFS professional to understand how the idea of losing weight has impacted their system through life. The HAES movement advocates for what is called “intuitive eating” and this is something that can be achieved through IFS.

If you still believe that losing weight is what needs to happen in the best interest of all your part, I am going to explain, in simple language, why we do not lose weight.

Psychological reason for not losing weight #1:

One, or more, parts of you do not want to lose weight

For some reason though, despite all the efforts initially put into this venture, weight loss does not happen because we simply do not do what we know will lead to weight loss. This means that, inside of us, there are one or more parts that do not want us to achieve that weight loss. When this happens, we are split inside. All our parts are not in harmony and, therefore, our efforts do not go anywhere.

Technically speaking, there are some parts of you that have imposed a weight-loss regime without consent from all other parts, who might have very good reasons for not losing weight. This means that you are relying on the willpower of these parts that want the weight loss, which is not sustainable.

In order to lose weight, it is important that you resolve your inner conflicts between the parts that want to lose weight, and the parts that do not want to. Our bodies are designed to be healthy, and the body knows its optimal weight and shape, despite what society thinks. It might be that, through IFS, you discover that the reason to lose weight comes from a harsh inner critic and not from what is optimal for your body.

Psychological reason for not losing weight #2:

Fear and Shame of failure at losing weight

One of the biggest reasons for not even starting to lose weight, is the fear of failure. This usually happens if you have tried to lose weight various times, but it did not go well.

We live in a culture where failure goes hand in hand with shame.

If you saw someone else trying to accomplish something without success, you would probably feel warmth towards them. You’d understand how tough it is to try and not get to the finishing line… but with yourself it’s a different story. Failing is just not allowed. Forget appreciation of efforts and empathy for the failure; our medicine (or, more accurately, poison) is shame.

We secretly try to lose weight; we always keep an eye on what we eat and other people eat. We are so ashamed of the fact that we haven’t been able to lose weight like others have, that we bury our head under the sand, and we pretend that we do not think of our weight.

Again, I invite the reader to take fear of failure seriously and to look at it from a wider perspective. One of the main objective of the HAES movement is to raise awareness of the shame associated to body image and the impact this has on people’s lives. What is we lived in a world that did not tell us to lose weight all the time and where it was accepted as “normal” that each body has its shape and weight? Would we still set ourselves the goal of losing weight, and would we feel ashamed for not achieving it?

Psychological reason for not losing weight #3:

Fear of exposure if you lose weight

This is almost the opposite of the previous one. In this case, a part of us might be scared of what would happen if we lost weight.

Body image, which includes body weight and shape, is, in our culture, seen as the main reason for success in sexual and romantic settings. Almost all marketing campaigns use models with attractive bodies to sell products, and, in a nutshell, if anybody is lucky enough to have the body that cultural norms consider “beautiful and attractive”, they will receive attention. This attention is given regardless of whether the person wants that attention or not.

Because having a slim body is regarded as a symbol of beauty, in Western culture it stands out. We think that telling someone “Oh, you’ve lost weight!” is a compliment, and that the other person likes and wants to be at the receiving end of that comment. As always, there might be parts that are flattered by the comment, and parts that are not.

There are cases, for example for the survivors of sexual abuse, in which “standing out” and being attractive is seen as a threat by protective parts. As a matter of fact, if the system has been traumatised by excessive attention given to the body (from name-calling, to abuse and assault), then it is almost certain that the system has got parts that want anything but being noticed.

If these parts exist in the system, they will oppose any weight loss. They might even oppose any change that can draw attention to appearance. This can have an impact on the choice of clothing and on the general care taken of one’s appearance. As these parts exist as a result of trauma, they need psychotherapeutic intervention.

Psychological reason for not losing weight #4:

Holding grudges against slim people

As I said earlier, our culture gives disproportionate importance to appearance and, in particular, to the way our body looks. We are all affected by cultural bias about what we consider beautiful these days, and that bias can become our way of classifying people.

Is someone else’s weight the first thing you notice? Do you go around and envy how slim other people are? If this is the case, you have probably lived a big part of your life by judging people based on their body shape. In your eyes, slim people have a lot of privileges and advantages. You have probably disliked slim people for so long, that a part of you does not want to be associated with being slim. Therefore, this part does not want you to be one of the slim people and will oppose your attempts at losing weight.

The psychological intervention here should aim at treating the traumas (and resulting beliefs) around cultural burdens that I have named various times in this article. It is necessary to find a way to move away from such a way of seeing the world. For example, if you have a belief that says, "only slim people are attractive", psychotherapy can help you reshape that belief into a more functional view of reality like "attractiveness is a subjective matter. Everyone can be attractive to some, and not to others". Again, the HAES movement could be a good starting point to be exposed to new views about body image and weight.

Psychological reason for not losing weight #5:

Self-hate

Self-hate is, unfortunately, something that we have created in our distorted society. When I look at animals and nature, I cannot see any trace of self-hate. I remember listening to a podcast in which they described how the Dalai Lama could not understand what self-hate was, and the concept did not even have an easy translation into his language.

I wish we had a reaction of surprise when we hear the expression “self-hate”, but, unfortunately, we have probably hated ourselves for something. Self-hate is a totally self-inflicted form of suffering. I am going to use another example that comes from Buddhism, which I have learnt through Tara Brach. She talks about the “Second arrow” and the idea is that, if you have been shot by an arrow (which is a symbol of the unpredictability of life and that we all are, at some point, hit by painful events), you can cause yourself even more harm if you shoot yourself with a second arrow.

Self-hate is a second arrow. Not only, for whatever reason, your body does not look good to some part of you, but other parts of you hate you because of it. You can certainly see how self-hate does not solve any problem, does not make life easier, and certainly does not help you lose weight. If self-hate exists and persists in your system, it means that it has a “function” for you, and you need to find out what this function is before you can let go of it.

Psychological reason for not losing weight #6:

Disconnection from the body and what the body tells you

Last, but not least, I am going to talk about disconnection from our body. We are so disconnected from our body and what the body tells us, that we are progressively living a life that takes very little account of the signals that come from our body. If you want to have an idea of how connected (or disconnected) you are to your body, answer the following questions (notice what first comes to your mind, we don’t want to get into thinking too much)

• How do you feel about your body?

• Do you ever take time to listen to what your body is telling you?

• Can you feel, here and now, your body? What is your body telling you?

If answering the above questions was easy, then you are well connected to your body. You might be wondering what this has got to do with losing weight, and I am going to tell you now.

I believe that, if we could listen to your body and trust the signals that come from it, our body would tell us exactly what we need to have a healthy life including (and not limited to) what and how much we need to eat. In other words, there is no better dietician than our body. Our body is an incredibly complex organism that knows exactly what it needs from the outside world at any given moment.

Therefore, the fact that we need a dietician to tell us what to eat, a personal trainer to tell us how to exercise, and a psychologist or psychotherapist to tell us how to heal our emotional wounds means that we are disconnected from our body in more than one way. Our body uses “hunger” to tell us that we need food. Through craving one food over another, our body points at what we need to eat in that moment. With the sensation of fullness, our body tells us that we have eaten enough. If we eat anything that is not good for us, our body will reject it, etc.

We have a perfectly functioning system that tells us constantly what we need to be in good health, but we have learnt to not trust it and to not listen to it. I believe it is time to reconnect to our bodies even if it is much easier said than done.

Conclusion

I hope this article has given you one or more thinking points to understand the complexities around weight loss. From reconnecting to your body, to discovering if there are any underlying psychological issues rooted in trauma, it is a worthwhile journey to take either on your own, or with the help of a specialist. If there are any other reasons that you think should be included, please write them in the comment section.

Please note that, due to mild dyslexia, there might be typos. If you spot any, please be kind enough to email to me to let me know. If you want to share some of this content, please quote this webpage. Thank you!