Weight regain and fear: Why looking more closely can feel so frightening

And each time we have expanded the boundary, another part of the picture comes into view.

We know that lack of food access and agency in childhood, for example, is a major factor in relief eating.

So today I'm gonna push that boundary further by asking a question that largely gets ignored, and that is why so many women in the first instance avoid investigating their weight problem more thoroughly.

I know it's not because they're resistant to change.

Quite the opposite.

Most women I meet are intelligent and inquisitive, and have tried many times to change their eating.

So today I'm gonna talk about some of the reasons why going beneath the surface of weight regain can make you anxious.

And the first thing to note is that fear doesn't always sound, feel, or look like fear.

Sometimes fear is obvious and we know exactly what we're afraid of, you know, like having a fear of heights.

But many fears are more subtle or nuanced than that.

We may not even call it fear.

However, it still affects how we act.

For example, fear can show up as procrastination or postponement, where we avoid doing whatever the thing is, but we tell ourselves we'll do it later.

Or then there's my preferred option, and that is I'll wait for the perfect time, which strangely enough, never seems to arrive.

So let me make the connection.

How does fear relate to unraveling weight regain? We know that women are not avoiding inquiry because they don't care.

From my experience, most women genuinely want to know how to stop their weight from coming back.

But there's something else that blocks the way, and I think that something else is the possibility that looking more closely might simply confirm what they have already come to believe about themselves: that they are wholly and solely to blame, and that deep inquiry would really confirm that they are weak, lazy, and lack discipline.

And of course, who wants to go there and hear that? So it's best to shut down any inquiry, or better still, never start one.

But I should say, I don't think women are necessarily afraid of the blame.