Why diets do not allow you to keep your figure for a long time and even after the most wonderful course of weight loss, excess weight returns? Because first of all we are trying to correct the consequence — to lose weight, and not to eliminate the reason why we will soon begin to gain it again, psychoanalytic therapist Ilya Suslov is convinced. What kind of heartache hide extra pounds and how to lose weight once and for all?
“When they start to fight overweight, as a rule, they torture themselves with diets. And often they achieve a noticeable and quick, but, alas, temporary result, states psychotherapist Ilya Suslov. — Despite the fact that the diet in Greek means a way of life, which means that it cannot be temporary by definition!
In our country, the very fact of a world-famous disease, obesity, is not recognized. Many camouflage the unpleasant wording behind the words «fullness» or jokes and euphemisms «a woman in the body», «Kustodian beauty», «appetizing forms», «a man of respectable size». And they are usually treated not for obesity, but for its consequences: gastrointestinal problems, high blood pressure and cardiovascular diseases, diabetes mellitus, disorders of the respiratory and musculoskeletal systems, reproductive failure.
“The very diagnosis of obesity is rarely found in medical records. Neither doctors nor patients want to admit that it was overweight that provoked many health problems, Ilya Suslov complains. “But almost no one, except psychologists, looks deeper. Moreover, few doctors generally believe that the cause of excess weight is almost always lurking somewhere in the depths of the soul.
Food «alcoholism»
However, obesity has a completely official definition — it is a systemic chronic relapsing disease. “Systemic” means that all organ systems of the body are involved, “recurrent” means repetitive, “chronic” means lifelong.
“It can be put on a par with alcoholism in the sense that, just as there are no former alcoholics, chronic obesity can go into remission, but get rid of it forever, without making efforts for almost a lifetime and without studying unconscious causes with a psychotherapist, it is impossible. Therefore, no temporary diet, not supported by work on a deep awareness of one’s actions, in principle, can not solve the problem of obesity, ”Ilya Suslov is convinced. The only difference is that with alcoholism, a person drowns out feelings and needs with a pile, and in the case of food addiction, he resorts to excess food.
But what about, for example, weight gain during pregnancy and after childbirth? Or in cases where a person suddenly gains a dozen or more extra pounds after stressful events?
If we are stuck at some stage of mourning and have not turned to a psychologist, temporary fullness can turn into a long-term problem.
“As for the fullness after childbirth and during the feeding of the child, this is a normal consequence of changes in the hormonal background, which levels off after the cessation of lactation,” explains the psychologist. — It happens that a person gains weight sharply due to a particularly stressful event — the death or illness of a loved one, job loss, breakup of a relationship, the birth of a sick child, emergencies. This is a powerful loss — a dear person or a former way of life. It starts the process of mourning, which in turn can provoke hormonal failure, change metabolism, eating habits.
Such events may be one-time, temporary, and the state may even out. But sometimes, if a person is stuck at one of the stages of mourning and does not seek help from a psychologist, temporary fullness can imperceptibly turn into a long-term problem — overweight and obesity.
“A friend of mine gained 20 kg after giving birth to a terminally ill child,” recalls Ilya Suslov. — More than six years have passed since the birth: during this time, in a normal situation, with proper nutrition, the weight should have returned to normal, but her postpartum fullness turned into chronic. Instead of trying to solve the problem at the first alarming signals by contacting a psychotherapist, she deeply hid her feelings of hopelessness, fear, guilt and reached the point where diets stopped helping.
Is food always to blame?
Of course, sometimes our dimensions are the result of immunological, endocrine diseases, disorders of the digestive processes as a result of pathologies in the gastrointestinal tract. For example, with hypothyroidism (lack of thyroid hormones), severe swelling can occur, causing increased weight. But if we talk about the psychological aspect of obesity, is overweight always associated with overeating?
In most cases, yes. Our body receives an excess amount of food that exceeds what we need to compensate for energy costs: we lead a sedentary lifestyle, but we eat as if we were running a forty-kilometer marathon every day. And we often notice that we are uncomfortable in this weight, but we can’t help ourselves.
“Overeating is of three types. The first is compulsive or psychogenic, when a wave suddenly rolls in from time to time, and a person can eat a lot of tasty things at a time — usually fatty, smoked, fast food or sweet, the psychotherapist explains. — The second type is bulimia: a person overeats on normal food, which he then immediately spits out, artificially inducing vomiting, because he is obsessed with the desire to be thin. A patient with bulimia can eat a full pot of soup or a whole chicken at a time, cook porridge or pasta, open canned food, a pack of cookies or a box of chocolates and eat it all indiscriminately. And the third type is when a person regularly eats more than necessary. And often this is junk food — something that is tasty, but in such quantities is clearly unhealthy. In this case, a person sees off-scale figures on the scales, but cannot do anything and continues his usual food pattern.
For a baby, the process of feeding is an act of all-consuming love. And when we lose this feeling, we start looking for a replacement
Often, even realizing that excess weight interferes with him, a person is not able to change his diet himself — until he finds the root cause of his craving for food. It may be an unlived grief, or an abortion, or a reward for hard work. In his practice, Ilya Suslov met about two dozen psychological benefits from obesity.
“When we analyze the situation with the client and find the root cause of excess weight, after some time the extra pounds begin to go away by themselves,” says the psychotherapist. “Food is a substitute for love. The baby sucks the mother’s breast, feels the taste of milk, her warmth, sees her body, eyes, smile, hears her voice, feels her heartbeat. For him, the process of feeding is an act of all-consuming love and security. And when we lose this feeling, we begin to look for a replacement for it. The most affordable is food. If we learn to give ourselves love in a different way, if we realize our real need and can satisfy it directly, then we won’t have to fight overweight — it simply won’t exist. ”