Body Image: May 2007 Archives

While writing my book about normal eating, my copy-editor worked diligently at cleaning up all the minor glitches and colloquialisms I seemed to produce.

But then she flagged an interesting phrase. I had mentioned in several places this expression "lose the weight." I may have said something like, "You may still want to lose the weight..."

My copy-editor pointed out to me that the correct expression is "lose weight."

I didn't want to change it, as I felt it would change the meaning. But why? It got me thinking.

Imagine two overweight people. Go ahead. You know at least two overweight people. Imagine that each one will speak to you. We'll call them Alice and Amy.

What impression do you come away with from each individual? Do they have different characteristics?

I'll tell you my own impression of Alice and Amy, based solely on their use or omission of the word "the".

Alice is self-rejecting. Alice has never accepted her weight gain to begin with. She feels that her weight is in charge of her. She bases her view of herself on her current weight. She's perhaps been on many diets, maybe has developed an eating disorder along the way.

Amy views her weight as only part of her. She has good self-esteem, and accepts her weight and body image. She has many ambitions in life. She'd like to lose some weight because she knows she'll be healthier and more comfortable.

What is it about the word "the"?

When people say they want to lose the weight, they are detached from it, as if it's some kind of disease they've caught that's messing up their lives. They don't wish to accept their own bodies as they are now. They don't plan on being self-accepting until the weight is lost. In a sense, they've never found the weight to begin with.

In books about normal eating, we talk about self-acceptance before losing weight. Some folks seem to be able to lose weight before self-acceptance, but others never succeed. Instead, they pressure themselves again and again, losing the weight, then gaining, then losing, then gaining. They seem to sabotage their own efforts.

It may be too much pressure for them, and if you're reading this, it may be too much pressure for you, to have everything, including your own self-love, riding on your weight loss.

For you, accepting your body first may really help you, in the long run, to lose weight.

In Diet Survivors we learn that beneath all lifestyle changes, which I like to call technical changes, lie the adaptive changes. Adaptive changes are changes in the way we think.

Try today to change the way you think about your weight. It may sound ironic, but making it more a part of who you are, accepting your body size as it is, may help you in the long run.

Are you a person that says "I'd like to lose the weight"?

Practice saying this "When the time is right, I'd like to lose weight." Leave off the the. See how it feels.

Click on the book cover for more information