The Secrets of Self-Sabotage

Each year, millions of people vow to make important life changes like losing weight, quitting smoking, starting an exercise program, learning a new skill for career advancement, or controlling their spending. Yet, many of them never realize their goals, despite their seemingly sincere desire for change.

People who find that losing weight causes them to move outside their comfort zone often sabotage their own weight loss efforts.

Friends and family members often assume these goal setters fell short of their mark because they lacked the willpower or motivation to succeed. But behaviorists have found that failure to reach a desired goal does not mean the person lacks willpower. Rather, it often indicates that an internal conflict of values caused the person to sabotage their own efforts; thus, they never achieve their stated goals. Some self-saboteurs are aware of their conflicting values, but most value conflicts exist at a subconscious or nearly subconscious level and so they take work to identify and resolve.

For example, people who try to move up the career ladder may fail to do so because deep inside they doubt their abilities or feel unworthy of success. People whose sense of unworthiness is stronger than their sense of confidence will find a way to undermine their chance to succeed.

Similarly, value conflicts can keep serial dieters from losing weight even if they are suffering physical and social consequences of obesity. People may be secretly reluctant to lose weight because they use food to manage their moods; others find that being heavy protects them from others as well as from their true selves.

Fat literally provides a wall between overweight individuals and other people’s physical advances and expectations.

Managing Mood with Food Undermines Success

It is fairly common for people to become overweight because they have not leaned more effective ways to deal with stress, anger, and/or depression. Such individuals literally manage their mood with food because it is an effective, although short-lived mood brightener. Much as these people want to lose weight, they value the mood-elevating effects of food more than they value thinness. They may take off weight now and then, but when life hits one of its inevitable speed bumps, they turn to food and the pounds quickly return.

Marilyn, a dangerously overweight mother of 3 young children, agreed with her doctor’s advice to lose weight if she wanted to be alive to see her children grow up. She enrolled in a medical weight loss program but struggled to lose more than 10 pounds. By working with the program’s behaviorist, Marilyn eventually recognized that food was her way of coping with anxiety, stress, and even anger. Instead of concentrating on dieting, Marilyn first had to learn stress management techniques. It took time, but eventually she used deep breathing and other skills whenever stresses made her feel like eating, and the weight began to come off.

Fat – A Deterrent to Abuse

Other people put on weight as a defense against physical or sexual abuse or to make themselves seem less threatening to others.

Dr. Vincent Filleti, Medical Director of the Kaiser Permanente Positive Choice Weight Loss Program in San Diego, California, participated in several CDC- sponsored, groundbreaking research studies over the years aimed at identifying the roots of chronic conditions such as obesity. He and his colleagues found that people often gain weight in response to an emotionally traumatic incident such as the death of a close family member, physical abuse, sexual abuse, even unfounded accusations of infidelity. In these situations, people start eating for comfort but soon find that being overweight has advantages. Other people expect less of them, are less likely to be sexually attracted to them, are less apt to accuse them of being unfaithful, and that others are less capable of hurting them physically. No matter how much the obese people in Dr. Filleti’s study claimed they wanted to lose weight, their dieting efforts failed because the underlying value they found in being overweight outweighed the value of weight loss.

Joseph had grown up with an ill-tempered stepfather who dished out physical punishment without warning. The beatings didn’t stop until Joseph was tall enough and wide enough to make a difficult target. At some level, Joseph equated his bulk with protection and continued to gain weight long after reaching adulthood. By his mid-thirties, weight-related health problems including diabetes, and arthritic knees motivated him to try a weight loss program. But every time people began to notice his weight loss, Joseph gorged on his favorite foods. Only after a therapist helped him recognize the connection between his excess weight and his sense of personal safety was he able to achieve weight loss success.

Fat: An All Purpose Excuse

Other weight loss experts have found some people sabotage their own diet efforts, not because they fear the behavior of others, but because they fear their own behavior.

Some unsuccessful dieters report they stay heavy to reduce the chance they will cheat on their partner or, if they are uncoupled, become promiscuous. As one female patient explained, “When I look good and an attractive man makes a pass at me, I am tempted to stray.”

Fear of failure is another common value conflict. Some people use being overweight as their excuse for not achieving life goals like dating, marriage, career advancement, or learning to swim or dance. These people fear failure, so being fat becomes a convenient excuse for not pursuing other objectives. After all, you can’t fail if you don’t try, and according to their lines of reasoning, they can’t try if they are fat.

On the flip side, researchers have found obese people who have succeeded in many areas of their lives but who become or remain heavy because they are not comfortable with their successes. For these individuals, being heavy helps balance out their achievements.

Victoria, a Mexican immigrant, took an English course to improve her job skills through an adult education program. She proved to have a knack for language and went on to get a degree in composition and a job in the college language lab. Her husband remained a day laborer. As her success grew, so did her weight.

Victoria dieted successfully at least 3 times, but, uncomfortable in her new skin, she always regained the weight, which tended to worsen her rheumatoid arthritis. During weight loss appointments with her doctor, Victoria unknowingly revealed the source of her value conflict. She often said the woman’s roles in her culture were to marry and raise children. She was not allowed to marry until she was able to iron a man’s dress shirt to perfection and make tender tortillas. Her new roles as an educated woman and co-bread winner were outside her comfort zone. Being very overweight kept her from looking too successful. Victoria punished herself in other ways as well. She refused to dance, an activity she greatly enjoyed, or wear shorts, no matter how hot the weather, because she was in her own words, “too fat and ugly.”

Recognizing conflicting values and working to resolve them can help people who have struggled to lose weight, drop pounds, and keep them off, but it can be a long, slow process. If you feel a value conflict may be at the root of your weight loss challenges, you may want to ask yourself, “What is my weight saying for me?”