It’s summertime and for many, that means bikini season. One age-old question we ask ourselves is why do we lose weight for the summer, only to gain it all back in the fall? The answer may surprise you.
For those of us who like spending summer at the beach or by the pool, there’s a lot of pressure to look perfect. In this age of social media we’re more self-conscious than ever and even more reluctant to be photographed if we’re not in the best possible shape.
It’s a common pattern to start dieting in the early spring, in order to get ready for bikini season. We work hard at losing those few extra pounds so that we can fit into our bathing suit feeling as confident as possible. Then, once the summer is over, the weight starts piling back on and by the time the next spring rolls around we have to start the process all over again.
If this is you, you know what I’m talking about. It’s a cycle that keeps repeating. Every spring you start losing the weight and every fall, you start gaining it back. You might be feeling frustrated with yourself. Maybe you think that you lack self-discipline. But if that were true, you wouldn’t have been able to lose the weight each year, right in time for bikini season.
The truth is that there’s a psychological reason behind the repeating pattern of spring weight loss and autumn weight re-gain.
When we find ourselves caught up in see-saw dieting it doesn’t mean that we lack will-power. It means that we find it difficult not to return to our old habits of overeating.
We can impose a temporary food restriction plan on ourselves and tolerate it for a few months in order to be bikini ready for the summer, but once the pressure of looking perfect has passed, we resort back to our previous habits.
This applies to anyone who regularly overeats. Forcing ourselves to drop 5 or 10 or more pounds is almost always a short-term fix that can’t be sustained over the long run.
The reason for this is that when we diet, whether it’s to fit into a bikini, an old suit or a new wedding gown, we’re not looking at the most important issue: why we’ve been overeating in the first place.
People don’t overeat because they’re weak-willed and unable to resist their food cravings. They overeat because they’re unconsciously trying to soothe themselves or comfort themselves or fill themselves up emotionally. Deep within the psyche, the urge to overeat is really an urge to meet emotional needs for nurturing and/or healing.
And the reason that come the fall, we start regaining all the weight that we lost in time for bikini season is that we aren’t dealing directly with these emotional needs. If overeating, whether a little bit or a lot, is our only way of trying to meet these needs, how are we ever going to be able to give it up? The answer is that we won’t.
We have to get in touch with the real needs deep down inside that overeating is supposed to compensate for. If we can understand that what we crave isn’t actually food, and if we can directly give ourselves what we really need, we’ll lose the urge to overeat and we’ll be able to stop the yo-yo dieting, once and for all.
It won’t matter whether it’s wedding season, bikini season, holiday season or any season – we’ll be able to maintain a stable weight that we’re happy with, all year round. All we have to do is understand our true needs and give ourselves the emotional nurturing, fulfillment or soothing we’ve been craving all along.
If you’re interested to learn more about how to effectively deal with the feelings and needs at the root of your overeating, you can check out my books: Emotional Overeating: Know the Triggers, Heal Your Mind and Never Diet Again, or Loving Heart, Quiet Mind, Healthy Body: Affirmations for Transforming Your Body and Your Life.
Sign up here for my free biweekly wellness newsletter that brings you fresh, thought-provoking content.
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel to watch my series Moving into Autumn with Good Self-Care, where you’ll learn simple tips for taking the best care of yourself and your loved ones this fall season.
Tune in to my Ruthless Compassion Podcast where I go in-depth about topics like mental health, trauma, and loneliness.
