The Real Benefits of Weight Loss Goals and Unrealistic Expectations

Benefits of achieving your weight loss goals

Regardless of your reasons for dieting, you're filled with hope and anticipation for the improvements your life will experience once you succeed. Let's look at those expectations. How would your life be different if you could fit into that outfit or those pants? Most dieters expect significant changes in their daily lives once they reach their target weight. Look at the table of contents below and tick off when the expected benefits of reaching your weight goal match yours.

□1. The body is more attractive.

□2. They can wear smaller sizes of clothing, and have a wider variety of clothing to choose from.

□3. Improved health and physical condition.

□4. More opportunities to participate in sports and leisure activities.

□5. Increased employment opportunities.

□6. Improved social skills.

□7. Increased self-esteem and self-confidence.

□8. Improved personal relationships.

After checking off your expected weight loss benefits, go back to the table of contents and see how many benefits actually depend on weight loss. Clearly, point 2, wanting to wear smaller sizes, does require weight loss. Given society's preference for slimness, you might argue that weight loss is necessary to improve appearance (point 1), but that's only partially true. Similarly, the likelihood of improved health and physique after weight loss increases (point 3), but there may be some progress before the weight loss produces noticeable results.

Having an ideal physique is widely recognized as increasing attractiveness, career advancement, wealth, and happiness. If you checked off points 4-8, recognize that these are worthwhile goals, but they are not dependent on weight loss. For example, if you checked point 4, ask yourself if you absolutely must lose weight to participate in certain sports or other activities. Based on your current weight, you might not be able to play full-court basketball, but does that mean you can't play volleyball, bowling, or swimming?

While you might be reluctant to participate because you feel embarrassed about your body, you might still feel awkward even if you lose weight. Or, you can reduce your embarrassment even without losing weight. If you checked point 8, ask yourself if you know any overweight people with whom you have very good personal relationships, or slim people with poor interpersonal skills. When you examine these, you'll find that successful relationships have little to do with weight. If your weight is causing conflict, the underlying cause may still be some fundamental problems in your interpersonal relationships.

Julie is a 29-year-old saleswoman at a radio broadcasting company. Although she has had two long-term romantic relationships, she has never been married and remains single. She has struggled with her weight since high school, participating in numerous diets and weight loss programs, all of which failed. She describes her weight loss goals and the expected benefits upon finally achieving them:

If I could get down to 140 pounds (she currently weighs around 160 pounds), I wouldn't be so embarrassed. When I go out with my girlfriend, I can't dance because I'm worried I'll look disgusting on the dance floor. If I were 140 pounds, I'd have the confidence to dance and maybe even meet a nice guy. At 140 pounds, I could wear nice clothes and go swimming in the summer. Besides, if I were thinner, I think I'd get a better response when trying to sell to a new client.

Julie has high expectations for losing weight. Many aspects of her life often seem to be under her control. She waits until she reaches her goals before she can dance, swim, buy new clothes, or try anything new.

How many activities did you postpone before reaching a certain weight? Write down in your notebook the activities you wanted to do but felt you could only do after reaching your target weight.

Disadvantages of postponing events

The idea of ​​postponing enjoyable activities until you reach a conscious weight goal is frustrating. And the reasons you think this way are often absurd. If Julie loses 15 pounds, she still hasn't reached her goal, so she'll still be embarrassed to dance. But if she loses 20 pounds, will the embarrassment magically disappear? No one else will care or even notice if she's gained or lost 5 pounds. What makes sense is to stop worrying about a conscious goal and instead change your feelings of unease about dancing in public (feelings that don't stem from your weight).

Research suggests that, similar to Julie, overweight college students engage in fewer enjoyable activities in their lives compared to those of normal weight. Because weight control requires effort, this phenomenon has the opposite effect. One study found that enjoyable experiences can restore the motivation needed to maintain self-control, which is essential when tempted by delicious treats like cookies and chocolate. Happiness increases the motivation and drive needed for this effort; once Julie overcame her shyness, she discovered that even without reaching her weight goals, she could still participate in swimming and dancing and enjoy them.

Take a look at your list of postponed events and ask yourself if what's preventing you from attending is your weight or how you feel about it. If you're honest with yourself, you'll find that most of the time it's your feelings about your weight that's holding you back from attending events.

High expectations vs. smart expectations

Unrealistic expectations can dampen motivation for weight loss, but many diets still make absurd and impossible promises. For example, an advertisement for the South Beach Diet Online completely ignores the role of genetics in determining weight, claiming, "We will help you reach your goal, whatever it is." When I browsed the website and stated my goal was to lose 400 pounds, I was still encouraged to sign up.

According to Drs. Janet Polivy and Peter Herman (two of the most creative diet researchers), the reason most dieters fail is:

...They want to do more than they can actually do, and even those who go to great lengths to achieve their goals (whether temporarily or permanently) do not experience the broad improvement in personality and social skills that they expect or hope for.

Some of Julie's unsuccessful diets resulted in weight loss, but not at her goals. She became frustrated as many of the expected gains didn't magically materialize as her dieting tendency test scores dropped. For example, she lost 12 pounds using one diet and was getting closer to her goal, but she still felt embarrassed when dancing or wearing a swimsuit. One reason she gave up on the diet was the failure to achieve the expected weight loss. If her expectations had been more realistic, she would have been happy with losing 12 pounds and focused on improving her confidence to maintain the results, rather than giving up and regaining the weight loss.

It's important to clarify what your expectations are, thus distinguishing between goals that require weight loss and goals that can be achieved without changing your weight. Review your list of postponed activities and consider whether each of them truly requires weight loss. Now, regardless of your weight, try one of these activities. Start with the least difficult activity and see what happens.