When it comes to weight loss, most people focus on changing their body by focusing on what they eat, and how much they exercise.
But what will make the biggest difference is embracing your authentic self.
This concept is bound to be foreign to you, especially when the diet industry touts calorie counting and exercising as the only way to shrink your body.
But weight loss and body transformation is more about uncovering the real you, and less about dieting and exercising.
In this blog, we explain the importance of being your authentic self, how it will help you lose weight, and how you can embrace who you truly are.
What is your authentic self?
Your authentic self is who you truly are as a person — flaws and all. It’s an honest representation of you regardless of your job, how much you earn, your material possessions, who you know, and your relationship with other people. Your authentic self is who you are at your core.
Embracing your authentic self is about being true to the ‘deepest you’ through your thoughts, words and actions. It’s about acknowledging and embracing all parts of you, even the parts that you consider to be less than ideal.
Why we’re afraid to be our authentic self
Unfortunately, most of us are afraid to be our authentic selves because we’re so worried that showing our true selves will mean that others won’t love us. This fear of being judged, gossiped about, not loved, and not accepted causes us to hide who we truly are, in an attempt to control what others think of us.
Low self-esteem, low self-worth, and imposter syndrome all cause us to think that we’re ‘not good enough’ or worthy enough to be loved and accepted. So we create a fake persona or put on a mask to try to be what we think others want us to be, so they will like us.
In short, we hide who we truly are and put forward another version of ourselves that we believe is more ‘acceptable’ than who we really are.
What happens when we hide?
Unfortunately, you create a number of problems for yourself when you hide who you really are.
People pleasing
First of all, you become a people pleaser who tries to be all things to all people. This often means doing or saying things that are not in line with your own values or desires, or in direct conflict with other people, you’re trying to please. This causes an enormous amount of stress (which impacts your weight). It also prevents you from putting yourself first and doing what’s best for you and your weight loss. You can read more about people-pleasing and its impact on weight in our blog Are you too nice? Why people pleasing is making you overweight.
Poor relationships
Another problem that happens is you end up attracting the wrong kind of people. The people in your life are attracted by the mask you wear. Wearing a mask (or several masks – because we can end up wearing a few) is exhausting and no one can do it forever. Sooner or later, you’ll have to take it off. What happens then is that you’ll start to notice your relationships breaking down because they are not compatible with the real you. This can lead to toxic relationships, breakups, and an enormous amount of upheaval in your life, all of which will cause stress and distract you from doing the things you need to do to lose weight. You can read more about stress and how it affects your weight in our blog How stress and weight gain are linked.
Lower self-worth and imposter syndrome
Wearing a mask and hiding your true self gives you a sense of belonging. However, this feeling that you belong is actually fake, because it’s not the ‘real you’ who belongs. When you drop your mask and start to notice changes in your relationships, or that people in your life are no longer supportive of you, it can make you feel even worse about yourself. Your self-worth may take a beating, or you may feel like you’re a fraud. You can read more about how this impacts your weight loss in our blog How low self-worth affects your weight loss.
Self-sabotage your weight loss
The biggest impact hiding your authentic self has is that you will end up self-sabotaging your weight loss. For example, you won’t prioritise your sleep and get an early night because you don’t want people to think you’re boring. Or maybe you won’t have time for regular exercise or weekly meal prep because you’re too busy running around trying to please everyone else. The stress involved in worrying about what other people think, and trying to control what they think of you may also cause you to engage in emotional or binge eating, which of course leads you to gain even more weight.
How to be your authentic self
When it comes to weight loss, many people focus on losing the physical weight, when they should be focusing on losing the emotional baggage that they carry with them. This is because emotional weight weighs you down in so many ways, and actually prevents you from losing the physical weight you’re aiming to lose. We explain this in more detail in our blog Struggling to lose weight? The real weight you need to lose to change your body shape.
Despite how scary it may seem it is possible to be your authentic self.
But in order to do so, you need to confront your fears that you will be judged, gossiped about, rejected and not liked. You need to let go of the belief that you can control what others think about you, and learn to be vulnerable.
The secret to doing this is to build your self-worth.
Build your self-worth
Self-worth is the belief that you are valuable, worthy and loveable regardless of your traits or what’s happening to you. It’s the belief that you deserve love and positive things, despite your faults. It’s a belief based on your worthiness as a human being, rather than your personality traits, physical appearance, or list of achievements.
When you believe you are worthy, you’ll automatically drop your masks and let yourself be seen. You’ll stop the people-pleasing behaviors, you’ll put yourself and your needs first, and you’ll no longer put up with toxic relationships, or worry about what other people think of you. When your way of living is in true alignment with your core beliefs, you’ll no longer feel stressed or need to juggle different masks for different situations.
Work with a coach
Learning to be your authentic self and having the courage to shine can be hard because it involves facing your fears instead of running away from them.
We’ve seen firsthand how running away from fears leads to weight gain, misery, and the very common problem of people ‘not knowing who they are any more’ because they’ve spent so long trying to be what other people want them to be.
That’s why we created the Diet Antidote Transformation System (DATS™️ Program)— the Not-diet diet for people who are sick of diets and want more than a good body.
Through DATSTM we help you uncover and believe in the amazing, capable, awesome human you are, so you can build your self-worth and be your authentic self.
So if you’re ready to let the world see the real you, and lose weight for good, reach out to us, because we can help you.
