Angee's Health and Wellness CoachingSelf-sabotage is when your actions or thoughts get in the way of what you want to achieve. It’s like setting up a goal but then doing things that make it harder to reach that goal, even if you don’t mean to. You might know some ways you do this, like overeating or not sticking to your plans, but there could be other ways you sabotage yourself without even realizing it.
What causes self-sabotage?
Self-sabotage in weight loss can be caused by various factors, both conscious and unconscious. Here are some common reasons:
- Negative Self-Image: If you don’t believe in your ability to lose weight or maintain a healthy lifestyle, you might engage in self-sabotaging behaviours to fulfil that negative self-image.
- Fear of Change: Losing weight often involves making significant changes to your lifestyle, which can be intimidating. Fear of the unknown or fear of failure can lead to self-sabotage.
- Comfort Zone: Even if you’re unhappy with your current weight, it’s familiar, and stepping out of that comfort zone can be scary. Self-sabotage might be a way to stay within what feels safe and familiar.
- Emotional Eating: Using food as a coping mechanism for stress, sadness, or other emotions can lead to self-sabotage by overeating or making unhealthy food choices.
- Lack of Self-Compassion: Being overly critical of yourself for minor setbacks can lead to a cycle of self-sabotage. It’s important to practice self-compassion and forgive yourself for mistakes.
- Unrealistic Expectations: Setting goals that are too ambitious or expecting quick results can set you up for disappointment. This can lead to self-sabotage as you feel discouraged and revert to old habits.
- Lack of Planning: Not having a clear plan or strategy for your weight loss goals can make it easier to fall back into old habits.
- Social Influences: Peer pressure or the influence of friends and family who are not supportive of your weight loss goals can lead to self-sabotage.
Identifying these underlying causes can help you recognize when you’re engaging in self-sabotaging behaviours and take steps to address them.
When you’re feeling down on yourself, doubting your worth or thinking you don’t deserve success, negative self-talk can creep in unnoticed.
When you struggle with feelings of worthlessness, self-dislike, or a belief that you don’t deserve anything good, negative self-talk can be detrimental without you realizing it. These are some of the things you may say to yourself:
- “I’ll never be able to do this.”
- “I’m just going to fail anyway.”
- I’ve never been good at this .”
- “I’m just not made for this.”
- “What’s the point in trying?”
- “I don’t think I have what it takes.”
- “It’s too hard for me.”
These thoughts focus on your uncertainties and can lead you to hold back or give up entirely. This negative self-talk also increases your fears, which is another reason why you might sabotage yourself.
Fear of change.
Fear of failure is a common experience when pursuing a goal. It can be daunting to step into the unknown or face the possibility of not succeeding. Rather than concentrating on the potential positive outcomes or what we could accomplish, many of us tend to dwell on the negatives. This fear can hold us back and lead to self-sabotage.
Love and Acceptance.
We all crave love and acceptance, which often leads us to do whatever it takes to fit in. This can mean putting ourselves last or hiding our true selves to gain approval.
However, when it comes to losing weight and maintaining it, we need to prioritize ourselves. This means putting our goals and actions first, even if it means not always pleasing everyone else. It’s natural to worry about what others think, but focusing on our well-being and success is key.
These are some of the things you may say when contemplating approval:
- Will my friends think I’m boring now?
- Will they stop inviting me out?
- What will people say when they see me in my workout gear?
- Will people make fun of me because I’m not in shape?
- Will my family be disappointed if I don’t join them for dessert every evening?
- Will everyone judge me if I don’t succeed?
For Example
Let’s consider the case of Tanya, who has always struggled with body image and self-worth. At her workplace, there’s a colleague named Tatenda who is successful and fit. Tatenda not only is good-looking but also seems to be effortlessly doing well in her career and social life. She is well-liked by everyone, seems so confident, and balances her professional and personal life.
Seeing Tatenda often makes Tanya feel inadequate and triggers her insecurities. In an attempt to emulate Tatenda’s success and fitness, Tanya starts a rigorous workout routine and a strict diet. However, Tanya’s approach is unsustainable because it comes from a place of low self-esteem rather than self-care. This strict schedule quickly leads to burnout, and feeling overwhelmed. Over time Tanya starts skipping her training sessions only to end up binge-watching TV and eating junk food for comfort.
This behaviour repeats itself and the next morning, filled with guilt and self-disgust, Tanya commits to double her gym time and cut her calorie intake even more drastically. This pattern of extreme restriction followed by excessive indulgence becomes a cycle. The more she binges, the worse she feels about herself and to cope with these negative feelings, she restricts his eating even more harshly, which only sets her up for another binge.
This vicious cycle further isolates Tanya. She starts avoiding social gatherings and stops responding to any wellness checks from her fitness coach. Believing she a failure, she cuts off communication, thinking that if she disappears, no one will know how much she’s struggling. This avoidance only deepens her cycle of binge eating and self-isolation, perpetuating her feelings of unworthiness and failure.
Are you a Dieter? Dieters often fall into a cycle of restricting their food intake, which feels like taking control, but then swinging back to binge eating, which can feel chaotic and out of control. This cycle can repeat itself: the more you restrict, the more you end up bingeing. And each binge leads to more restriction, keeping you stuck in a frustrating loop of self-sabotage.
How you can stop.
- Increase Your Awareness:
- Identifying triggers for food restriction and binge eating is the first step.
- Work with a coach and keep a record of your behaviours to spot patterns and habits.
- Change Your Habit Loop:
- Understand your habits and how they form loops.
- Alter your response to triggers. For example, if seeing someone successful triggers unhealthy dieting, try switching to healthier habits like meal prepping or walking to maintain control without falling into a binge-restriction cycle.
- Work With a Coach:
- A coach can provide emotional detachment and practical steps to help you change self-sabotaging behaviours.
- A coach helps you implement strategies that are based on logic rather than emotion.
- Stay Accountable:
- Regular accountability to a coach is crucial.
This helps you make decisions based on rational thought rather than emotional impulses, breaking the cycle of self-sabotage
How I work with you.
I am a Health and Wellness coach specialising in building habits, mindset, and holistic weight loss. I love helping people come up with solutions that work for them for long-term weight loss.
I help you develop lifetime habits and mindsets that will help you lose weight for good and keep it off.
My Coaching Programs are a complete all-in-one habits, mindset and holistic weight loss personal coaching program that gives you everything you need to transform your life.
- knowledge
- systems
- tools
- skills
- structure
- accountability
and support to help you lose weight for good so you can reclaim your freedom, vitality, and quality of life.
All you need to do is take the first step in your transformation
