What Being Overweight Means

So one thing I know at age 44, is that my body does not burn calories like it did when I was 24. When I was 24, I simply could not put on any weight. I was always around 8 percent body fat, and I hovered around 140lbs, standing 5’8. 

I’m not saying this to boast. In fact, I was teased for how skinny I was. To save my soul, I could not put on fat or muscle until I turned 26. I was the skinny kid that everyone made fun of. Skinny isn't very attractive, and it can be associated with being a weakling, something every male fears growing up.

So being on the other end of the weight issue, I can empathize with people who are overweight, and the judgment they feel about it. Yet as I write this, I am about 15 lbs over weight of where I would feel confident about my body. I can tell you I've received a lot more respect from people being confident about my body when I was in really good shape, than when I was skinny.

So here are some things I consider about weight issues:

           Weight is a result, not a judgment.

Your present weight is simply a result of what your body has been processing. This includes nutrition, exercise, stress, hormones, thyroid, diseases, perspective, mental health and many more factors.

For the most part, I don’t think people judge others for being overweight. After owning a recruiting firm for 20 years, and seeing the hiring process from companies, I can tell you people judge overweight people for the lack of control people have over their bodies. Therefore, it’s the factors which contribute to weight gain which draws the judgment, not the result. The judgment is often mistaken for being overweight, which is false.

 If you wanted that ideal body, you would have that ideal body.

As with anything, if the desire is strong enough, you will find a way. For example, when I would interview a Mother, I would ask her the following question. “If you had no absolutely no money and your children needed to eat, what would you do?” You had to hear what these Women wouldn’t stop at to feed their kids. Like nothing! They would do what they needed to do to feed their kids, because their desire was higher than their circumstance. There really was no excuse in what they couldn’t come up with to make sure they were good mothers. Similarly, if they valued their own lives like their children, there would be no excuse for treating their bodies in the manner which produced their weight issue. So if you have struggled with weight issues for extended periods of time, I would suggest your way isn't going to work. If you find a coach, or another approach from your way of thinking, you will change your results.

 The weight isn’t the confronting issue, the behavioural pattern is.

The weight is a direct result of the choices your body is inputted with. Since you are in control of the choices in which you input, your behavioural patterns are a reflection of the result. Some choices are unconscious habits, and some are coping mechanisms. That being said, people do things for 2 reasons:

1) To get their desires met 

2)  To escape the pain they are in

In other words, when you discover the issues which trigger your negative behavioural patterns, your need to escape the pain you are in won’t require the coping mechanism which then creates the emotionally charged poor choices.

 Blame

Blaming is the easiest way to not confront the real issue, and it gives away all of your power as a human being. For example, it’s easy to blame others for the stress which may cause you to eat. But it’s more challenging to confront how you take stress on in the first place, how to process it effectively instead of eating your way through the problem in order to find happiness or safety. Happiness is never found at the bottom of a bag of chips, or an ice cream carton.

 Shame

Shame is the lowest resonating human emotion. One level better is humiliation. The difference being that both emotions can feel humiliated, but the difference is shame believes it was deserved. When your own belief system believes the humiliation was deserved, emotions can get caught in a downward spiral in an unrecoverable spin requiring therapy and/or counselling. An authentic belief system of worthiness is vital to avoid shame.

Where you carry your weight indicates what you need to release

The body has muscle memory. Ask any person who has lost weight, and gained it back. The weight comes back in the same place. Where you carry your weight is indicative of what you need to release in your life. When you freely release the mindset of why the body thinks it needs the extra weight, good nutrition and exercise will attack the cells in that particular part of the body to release it.  For example, for Women carrying weight on their mid section, the mindset is a lack of vulnerability. It’s a fear of being attacked. Masculine energy stores the weight in that place because the individual believes they need it so they won't be bullied. Remove the belief system, and you remove the issue.

 You want to release weight, not lose weight.

Whatever you lose, you will search for and find again. You don’t want to lose weight only to find it again. Therefore, if you release the pattern, you will release the weight, and it won’t come back. Losing weight and not releasing the patterns, means the struggle with weight issues will become overwhelming, exhausting, and never ending.

Weight has nothing to do with the weight.

Weight has everything to do with affirmations and belief systems which work for you, not against you. Shifting the view of weight, its judgments, excuses, and being defensive about it shifts your energy to positive cells working inside of you in order to combat the negative cells. If you feel good, you are likely to make good choices. Conversely, if you feel badly, you are likely to make poor choices.

Don’t kid yourself, you are NOT happier being heavier.

People who say they are happier being heavy simply don’t want to look in the hard to reach areas of their lives to do the work to be healthy. Your body is the only vessel you have on this time around to carry you through life. If you feel happy about operating the only vehicle you have in an abusive manner to the optimum operating style of that vehicle, you are being self-destructive. That behaviour won’t ensure a healthy life, and it will cause diseases and illnesses down the road. Sure you might feel happier in the moment for eating that piece of cake, but it doesn’t help you in the long run, and the coping mechanism will ensure it wins again. When the coping mechanism wins, you lose.

Be Happy.

Being authentically happy is a choice. Happy people make better choices than unhappy people. Unhappy people need to regain their energy, so they resort to their learned coping mechanisms and familiar patterns to get the results they have always gotten. Happy people create energy with other people and their surroundings, which creates a feeling of happiness and support. No need for coping mechanisms in this scenario, which makes for better choices and healthier living.

I’m quite sure there were people who stopped reading this article long ago because it was too confronting for them. That’s certainly not my intention to shame or discourage anyone in their personal battles. My intention is to use my experiences, sharing the insights I have learned in the past 20 years interviewing people, and writing books.

If you would like to speak to me more about your weight issues, or other issues holding you back, you can email me at: chuckbastie@gmail.com and I will do my very best to get back to you.