Lies We Believe: Weight Loss Fixes Everything [Podcast Transcript]

Title: Lies We Believe: Weight Loss Fixes Everything

Podcast Date: September 2, 2022

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Description 

Today we start a new series for the month of September called "Lies We Believe." The first lie we tackle is the myth that if you just lose weight or get your body to the size you want it to be, you won't stress over body image any more. This is the lie sold to us through every before and after photo in every weight loss ad. This is the lie that most permeates the marketing of diets. And it's one we want to believe because it feels like it would be SO nice to just drop the pounds and have everything in life get easier. Yet, there is solid scientific evidence proving that weight loss doesn't solve everything. In fact, there's science that shows once a woman loses weight, she may actually start obsessing over her body even more! In other words, it's just not true that weight loss fixes everything. It could lead you to more issues, especially in the arena of body image!

Are you ready to let go of the myth that weight loss fixes everything? 

Then today's show is for you.

Outline

00:00 Introduction: The First Lie We Believe

04:24 Imprisoned by Weight Loss Compulsion

07:20 False Hope From a False Gospel

15:42 Changing Your Size Won’t Fix Body Image Issues

Introduction: The First Lie We Believe

[00:00:00]:

Hey, friend. Thanks for listening to the Compare To Who Show today. I'm Heather Creekmore, your host. I'm glad you're listening today. We are starting a brand new series this month called Lies We Believe. So every episode this month, we are going to tackle some of these thoughts, belief systems we've had in our heads for a long time. These lies that we believe that drive us towards certain behaviors, certain habits, because we think that they will set us free from our body image issues. And so today, we're gonna start with a big lie, which is weight loss will solve it all.

[00:00:44]:

Oh, some of y'all are like, no. I'm really sure this one's true. It can't be a lie. So I'm sorry that I'm gonna have to shatter any dreams in that arena today. But we're gonna go there. Put your seat belt on. It might be a tough ride, but I hope we'll make it fun and grace filled as always. But all month long, we're gonna be talking about these lies we believe.

[00:01:08]:

So I hope that you will continue to listen. And what I think would be even more amazing is if you shared this show with another friend. Okay. Statistically speaking, like, 9 out of every 10 women you know are struggling with their body image in some way. Now, I'm gonna say, like, 5 of those 9 aren't really aware that they're struggling because they just think that they lead a healthy lifestyle and that their compulsion to exercise all the time and count their calories and all those things are just part of health and not actually driven by any body image issues. But the other 4 out of those 9, they know. They know they're struggling. So figure out who that is in your circle, Share the show with her.

[00:01:56]:

Start talking about the show and boom, you suddenly have your own encouragement and accountability group. Doesn't that sound awesome? But seriously, it is lonely to try to tackle these issues by ourselves. So share the show, wrangle in a friend or 2, and start talking about them together so you can have community around these areas where we all struggle. Is there a lie you've been believing? Maybe it's today's, maybe it's one that we'll tackle later this month. If you have an idea for a show, hey, drop me a message, [email protected] and I would love to see if maybe we can work it into this month's schedule. Are you ready to get going? Let's hit it. Welcome to Compare To Who, the podcast to help you make peace with your body so you can savor God's rest and feel his love.

[00:02:54]:

If you're tired of fighting body image the world's way, Compare To Who is the show for you. You've likely heard lots of talk about loving your body, but my goal is different. Striving to fall in love with stretch marks and cellulite is a little silly to me. Instead, I want to encourage you and remind you with the truth of scripture that you are seen, you are known, and you are loved no matter what your size or shape. Here, the pressure is off. If you're looking for real talk, biblical encouragement, and regular reminders that God loves you and you're not alone, you've come to the right place. I hope you enjoy today's show, and, hey, tell a friend about it. So I recently posted a meme on Instagram and it said this, “weight loss freed me from thinking obsessively about my body and food.”

[00:03:45]:

And then I attributed the quote to no one ever. Now, friend, if you're not following me on Instagram or Facebook, go ahead and go there. Also, I have a Facebook group that I'm trying to grow. I'll put the link to that in the show notes. But go ahead and connect with me on Instagram so you can get some encouragement while you're scrolling. But that's an aside. So the reason I posted this was to kind of bring to light this myth that so many women who struggle with body image issues believe. And that is if they could just lose the weight, then the obsession would go away.

Imprisoned by Weight Loss Compulsion

[00:04:24]:

But this is so counter to all the science out there. That may sound like that doesn't connect at all but what I'm telling you is that once you start losing weight, it becomes an enjoyable - enjoyable might be a strong word - but it becomes a habitual activity to continue losing weight. Weight loss can become a compulsive activity. And then we have to layer this on with another reality, and there's lots of data about this too. I think I've shared data about it on the show before. But if 95% of diets fail now, of course, we all wanna be in that 5%. We all believe that we are the special unicorn for whom the diet will not fail. But if 95% of diets fail over 5 years, you go on a diet, you lose the weight.

[00:05:16]:

And then according to the statistics, you gain it back within 5 years. Then what do you have to do? You have to lose the weight. Again, it becomes this perpetual cycle. And not to sound cynical or anything, but I do think the 70 billion dollar diet industry probably knows what they're doing in that. No one's going broke there. Okay? But let me just go back to my main point today. This is a lie that weight loss will free us. It's just that.

[00:05:44]:

It's a lie. And in many cases, weight loss can put us in a bigger prison. In fact, I was just doing research for my forthcoming book on body image, and I read some data about how some women who never had any body image issues before report having various levels of body dysmorphia or other weight and body and food obsession things happen after they lose the weight. It actually becomes more of a problem for them once they get the body they thought would set them free. So my friend, if you are telling yourself today, once I lose weight, I won't have to think about this anymore. Once I lose weight, I'll be able to rest. Once I lose weight, I won't have to count and track and all those things. I'll be free.

[00:06:39]:

It's just not true. In fact, if you ask anyone who has sustained a big weight loss, they will tell you the reason they sustained it is because they keep going. They stay on maintenance. They stay on the diet. In some cases, they develop full blown eating disorder-like behaviors to do that, and that's probably another episode. But they stay focused, and that's how they stay in the range they wanna stay in weight wise. And that's how they, quote, unquote, “keep the weight off”. And I won't go into whether or not that's healthy.

False Hope From a False Gospel

[00:07:20]:

That's kind of a subjective thing. But the point is, you don't get to a certain weight and then just get to sit on the couch and eat Cheetos and be free and never have to think about it again. It's just not the way it works. It's kind of the same as saying I wanna get in shape, going to the gym for, I don't know, let's say, 6 months, getting into great shape, and then saying, yay. I have the body I want now. Now I'm free. I'll just not work out anymore. Well, are you gonna stay in shape? No.

[00:07:52]:

You're not. And so, if your value and worth were coming from your new fit body, the only way you're gonna keep your new fit body is by continuing to go to the gym. Similarly, if you are controlling your body size through what you eat, then weight loss will only continue to reinforce what I would say are not great habits, but, you know, that's subjective too. But it will reinforce that the most important thing for you to do is to focus on food and your body. My friend, my main point here is that it doesn't set you free. And that that might feel like devastating news for someone today because a lot of us put our hope in, once I just reach that number on the scale, then I'll be able to exhale. Then I will be free.

[00:08:50]:

Finally, I'll be done with all this stuff in my head. I just have the number I want on the scale. I’ll have the body that's more like the body I want. For some of you, you're using words like health. I'll have the health I want. The health will suddenly come back once I lose the weight is your belief system, which, that could be a whole other show there too because that's not actually guaranteed. In some cases, our health can decline because we lose weight. Right? If your weight loss program is making you lose your hair or sex drive, it's not a good weight loss program.

[00:09:25]:

But my point, my friend, is that hope placed in weight loss is misplaced hope. Weight loss will never set us free. Weight loss does not have the power to unlock that prison door and let you out. Jesus is the only one who does. Jesus is the only one with the power to save us. Now this is an illustration I've been using for years. So some of you have probably heard it many times, but it's the biggest loser illustration. In fact, I write about it in my book, Compared to Who? So this is a picture that's shown to us over and over again in culture.

[00:10:05]:

And I thought the television show, it's not on anymore, but the television show, The Biggest Loser, did a really good job of showing us this false gospel. Right? This lie that once you lose weight, you are free. But what's interesting is if you follow those former contestants from The Big Loser now, most of them have gained back their weight or gained back their weight plus, right? Most of them are not free. There may be 2 or 3 that snuck by, but for the most part, there's been all kinds of studies looking at what actually happened with Biggest Loser contestants and many of them just gained it right back within the first couple years of going off the show. Right? But the picture that The Biggest Loser Show gives us is a picture of being in hell when you're in an overweight body. Meeting a personal trainer who tells you how to change your body, who can transform your body. And then at the end of the season, the contestants are in heaven. They can run marathons and wear cute clothes.

[00:11:09]:

I like to say, the American dream, the American definition of heaven. Right? And so we see this picture of salvation. They've gone from hell. They met a savior, a trainer who transformed them. And at the end of the season, they are in heaven. But that is a false gospel. It's a horrible place to look for salvation because, like I said already, like, it didn't work. It wasn't a lasting salvation even for the Biggest Loser contestants who met arguably the best trainers in the world.

[00:11:42]:

Right? It wasn't enough for them. They couldn't keep it. But it's also not an authentic salvation. Right? The authentic salvation we really long for is the kind that Jesus offers, the kind that gives us eternal security, the kind that tells us we are already approved of because of the work Jesus did for us on the cross. And the good news is you don't have to wait to lose weight before you can feel that kind of affirmation, that kind of approval, that kind of salvation. And I think, my friend, if you are one who is looking for weight loss to solve all your problems or if you believe that weight loss will just transform your life in a way that will make everything so much better… my encouragement for you is this, please hear me when I'm saying your desire to lose weight is not a bad desire. There's nothing wrong with you or un-Christian about you because you want to lose weight.

[00:12:46]:

But what I'm saying is this, if you put your hope in Jesus and pray and ask him every day, God, how can I lose weight in a way that honors you? God, help me to keep you first while I pursue these health goals. Help me not to make losing weight an idol. God, let me continue to serve you and put my worship into you and not into weight loss. I think that's a much healthier position for you to pursue weight loss from, if that's indeed what you want to do. 

Changing Your Size Won’t Fix Body Image Issues

[00:15:42]:

Okay. Final point for you today. I wanna be gentle here, friends, because if your hope has been in weight loss, this is a hard truth to hear. This is a really difficult lie to not believe that weight loss would just fix everything. But I have to tell you, my friend, believing this is key to being free from your body image issues. Because you cannot be free from body image issues if you continue to believe that a smaller size body will fix the problem. Now I've talked about this in my books, and I've talked about this on other shows too. At some level intellectually, if we can believe that models or actresses or women in all different size bodies have body image issues, then we should know that just losing weight or changing sizes won't solve it.

[00:16:40]:

But the truth, it's so hard to swallow. So my final tip for you today, my friend, is don't confuse your body image issues with any perceived health issues or perceived weight issues. And I'm being really careful about the way I say that too because I think there's a lot of misinformation about BMI and weight and how, quote, unquote, “dangerous” extra weight is. It's all scalable, and there's different science depending on who you're reading and what you're following. Right? So leaving that mess aside, there's a difference between body image issues and these health weight issues. And my bet is if you work on the body image issues first, the health and weight issues can come along second. But if you put the health and weight issues first, my friend, the body image issues won't solve themselves, and they certainly won't be solved if you change the body. Most of the women I work with have experienced at least one significant body change.

[00:17:49]:

Sometimes, they've gained and lost a hundred pounds multiple times. This is a familiar story. So friends, today, can you believe your body image isn't connected to the way your body looks? And if not, what are you gonna do about it? It's time to change that, because it's the truth. I'm telling you the truth, my friend. I'm not lying to you. Body image is not connected to the size or the weight of your body. What are you gonna do to change that? I can put you on a course. We can do coaching.

[00:18:22]:

My group coaching starts, like, today, But there may be a spot left. So if you're listening to this in real time on the day it releases, go ahead and drop me an email quick, and we'll see if we can get you in a coaching group. I also do individual coaching, and that'll resume again in October, for new clients that is. Have you read my books? Read Compare To Who? Read The Burden of Better? Those things will help too, but don't stay stuck there. Don't stay stuck chasing weight loss believing that that will fix it because it just won't. And I mean that really as encouragement to you because that means you don't have to drop a pound in order to feel better about your body. You don't have to go on another diet in order to feel like you have something valuable to contribute to your community, to your workplace, to your family. You do not have to do a single thing to change your body to be valuable to Jesus, and that's what's most important.

[00:19:21]:

Well, all month long, friend, we're gonna be tackling lies that we've believed. I hope we did a sufficient job tackling this one today. I know it's a tough one to swallow. I don't know why I started with the hardest one, but I hope something I have spoken today has stirred your heart, maybe encouraged your heart to move to a place where you can find true confidence and worth in Jesus and be free from the readout of that scale or the opinion of the mirror or the opinion of the size tag, all those things. And just find your worth in him And ask him why he created your body that way and what he created it for. I think that's a good question because I know he created you on purpose for a purpose. You are not the wrong size. You are not too big or too small or too short or too tall for him to use you in magnificent ways for his kingdom.

[00:20:24]:

Be encouraged with that today. Well, thanks for listening, my friend. I hope something has helped you stop comparing and start living. Bye bye. Oh, hey there. Before you go, if something from today's show blessed you, may I ask a huge favor? Leave a review on your favorite platform. Seeing your 5 star reviews is a huge encouragement to me.