My fault – I should have chosen to be skinny.

Which is heavier: the extra pounds that nearly every adult (and now children) carry or the burden of missed opportunities and the regret of paths not taken?

These missed opportunities or poor decisions always appear, in hindsight, to be simple decisions of not choosing to be skinny. “If I really wanted it, I would have chosen it”.

The stage is now set for self-blame and a long list of “if only’s”:

If only I: exercised more, ate healthier, had been more this or been more that.

The key term here is regret. Regret has no role in weight loss, but those struggling to lose weight carry regret everywhere they go.

“Unlike other negative emotions—anger, sadness, disappointment, even grief—what is so difficult about regret is the feeling that the regrettable state of affairs could have been avoided and that it could have been avoided by you, if only you had chosen differently.” –  Barry Schwartz in The Paradox of Choice

The misconception that the human body is infinitely malleable suggests that poor decisions are the cause of a ‘poor’ body shape. Ultimately, this increases the gap between where you are and where you think you ‘should’ be.

There is a two fold solution that  I have adapted from Schwartz to apply to weight loss:

First, recognize that your body is not silly putty. It is affected by age, your genes and most importantly, your own concept of it’s image. In hindsight, it always seems like you had free will to eat better or exercise more but at the time, you were likely doing the best you could under the circumstances. Simply do your best under the circumstances; then you won’t need to question your decisions.

Secondly,  appreciate the body, health and life that you have. Comparing with perfection or your notion of ‘ideal’ body shape, eating patterns and exercise regime leads to unhappiness and lowered self-esteem.

As Schwartz suggests, grateful people are happier, healthier and more optimistic than people who are not. The body you have and the decisions you have made are here to stay. Why not embrace them?

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More:

Attack on the fat: Weight Bias

You can literally choose any body you want…

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