What is Your Payoff For Staying Overweight?

Are you someone who is overweight, wishing you could lose the extra pounds, but never being able to stick faithfully to a weight-loss plan that works?  Have you been overweight for a long time, or did the pounds come on at a certain point in your life, maybe after a major life change?  Consider the fact that perhaps having the extra weight is serving a purpose in your life.

People who carry extra pounds may benefit from sitting down and doing some serious thinking.  What is the reason the weight is not coming off?  What is the reason it came on in the first place?  It could just be as simple as "I lost control of my eating" or "food just tastes too good to resist".  Maybe you just hate to exercise or you have physical restrictions which keep you from being very active.

But maybe being overweight is serving a purpose in your life.  Consider the story of Ernie, a successful loser who tells his story in the book "Thin For Life" by Anne M. Fletcher, MS, RD.  One of his payoffs was that he could avoid certain tasks he didn't want to complete: "I didn't have to mow the lawn on a hot day," he recalls, "because I might have a heart attack".  Do you use your weight to get out of doing something you can't just say you don't want to do?

Some overweight people use their weight as an excuse not to be sociable at times.  They don't want to go out in the evening because they enjoy relaxing at home.  They use their weight as an excuse, "I just don't want to go out as long as I'm overweight--I'm not comfortable dressing up".  Is it possible you could be a healthy weight and tell your friends, "I prefer to relax at home in the evening"?

Women in positions of authority have been reported to carry extra weight in order to appear more imposing and directorial.  They presume that if they were small and feminine, they wouldn't be regarded with as much power.  Perhaps it is the person, not the way the person looks, that commands respect.

Attractive, flirtatious women have been known to put on weight after they marry: In their mind this reduces the chance they will attract another man and have to deal with putting off unwanted advances, or deal with the possibility of entertaining an affair.

And sometimes being overweight just allows us to continue to be inattentive to our diet, exercise, and health in general.  "I can eat whatever I want if I'm fat anyway".  Being too heavy to exercise certainly carries the benefit of having an excuse not to exercise!

How is your extra weight serving you?  Does it allow you to easily avoid social situations; prevent  intimate relationships with the opposite sex; keep your sister from being jealous of your gorgeous figure; or give you another reason to eat whatever you like?

Ernie suggests finding a "less neurotic way to get what you want.  If you don't want to mow the lawn. . . hire a kid to do it".