10 Small Lies That Keep Us Overweight

Colin Christopher, a certified clinical hypnotherapist and author of Success Through Manipulation, says there are several lies (and excuses) we tell ourselves that prevent us from reaching our weight loss goals. Even if we’re exercising, eating healthy and avoiding junk food throughout the day, chances are we’re still binging on junk later in the evening.

Christopher says he began to notice these lies when his own patients, who jumped from diet to diet, were unable to lose weight. He didn’t realize how destructive some of them could be until he gained 30 pounds himself.

Lying about how it’s OK to reward yourself with a tasty dinner or dessert after a successful event or telling yourself you don’t look like other overweight people, are all tiny things that can prevent one from losing weight, he says.

And while we’re all familiar with other excuses like time, money and the love of food, there are ways to make exercise and healthy eating a priority. For example, if you don’t have time to work out, schedule out one day or give up one of your hobbies to hit the gym. If you can’t afford to eat healthy, write out a budget and spend less on eating out or on morning breakfasts, for example.

Here are 10 lies Christopher told himself that prevented him from losing weight. Which ones are you guilty of? Let us know in the comments below:

Lying To Yourself About Skipping Meals

“I’d skip meals to balance calorie load and it actually worked against me. The only thing it did was make me hungrier at night, and I started binge eating on chips and popcorn in the evening when I watched TV to satisfy that extra hunger,” says author Colin Christopher.

Lying To Yourself Eating Healthy To Balance Out Your Bad Meals

“Over the last year I was constantly on the road promoting my book, giving speeches and eating out… a lot. To balance out the junk I ate, I’d have a salad and eat my veggies, but eating healthy apps did not eliminate the main courses, the late night fast food binges, or the desserts servers suggested that I had to try.”

Lying To Yourself About How Easy It Was To Lose Weight

“Every Monday morning when I restarted my diet, I had the perception that weight loss is easy. The formula is actually pretty simple. Eat less. Move more. Because the diet formula is simple, it should be simple. What I didn’t count on were the outside variables: Friends wanting to eat out, networking events with buffet lunches and feeling hungry and having to cope with those feelings instead of giving in to them, fast food commercials with juicy and delicious food in high definition on the screen, rushing around and having a busy work day and family obligations that got in the way of exercise time.”

Lying To Yourself About Comparisons

“Many of my business associates are overweight. They know it, however, they don’t want to do anything about it. As I gained weight, I started comparing myself to them and I thought, ‘Well I’m nowhere near their sizes so it’s not that bad.’ I stopped comparing myself to the fit person I used to be and began comparing myself to obese individuals. I don’t know exactly when the measuring stick switched, but comparing the weight I gained to people that were more obese gave me a false sense of security.”

Lying To Yourself About The Reasons You’re Overweight

“When I first gained weight I kept blaming the fact that I was travelling constantly, and it was hard to eat right. I kept blaming the fact that I was too busy to go to the gym. I kept shirking the responsibility away from myself and blaming circumstances. In my mind the circumstances for my obesity were to blame and not me. I wouldn’t take responsibility for being fat.”

Lying To Yourself About Food Rewards

“After a successful show or speech I would reward myself with a really big meal. For the first couple of years, this was something that happened every two or three weeks. It wasn’t excessive enough to make me gain weight. But this last two years I had been celebrating two or three times a week to maintain the big meal reward tradition. I viewed the celebratory meals as one minimal occurrence.”

Using Exercise As An Excuse To Eat More

“I was a competitive swimmer for 10 years. At my peak, I was training four hours a day six days a week and burning a lot of calories. This allowed me to eat anything I wanted, as much as I wanted, whenever I wanted. Now I exercise on average 4 times a week for sixty minutes. Obviously, this amount of exercise does not need the fuel load competitive swimming required. If I ate garbage once in a while, exercise helped burn off the excess, but the sustained garbage I was putting into my body was building up.”

Lying To Yourself About Your Clothes

“I’ve always enjoyed my pants feeling a little loose. Somehow, even though I was 30 pounds heavier, I could still fit into my pants… sort of. The pants were so restrictive that I had to inhale tightly to put them on; I could no longer wear a belt and I couldn’t bend over to touch my toes. I thought, ‘Well, I can still fit into my pants, so I’m still ok.'”

Lying To Yourself About Your Schedule

“On the road, it was difficult to make healthy choices and easy to take the path of least resistance — grabbing a bag of chips and skipping a workout. I kept telling myself, ‘When I get home, I’m going to stop eating garbage, go to the gym and start fresh.’ I got home, started fresh, and two days later I was eating garbage again. I kept starting over instead of sticking with it while travelling or at home. The reality is it’s always difficult to make the healthy choice instead of taking the easy way out and eating that delicious pizza, fries and pecan pies.”

Lying To Yourself About How You Looked

“I stood in front of the mirror every day and sucked my stomach in and thought to myself, ‘Sure I’m a little heavier, but I still look good.’ I was lying to myself and looking at my body through rose coloured glasses and it was keeping me fat.”