Positive Emotional Effects You’ll Get From Lasting Weight Loss
When you can lose weight for good, it has tremendous benefits on your health, which includes not only your physical body but also your mental and emotional well-being, too. Being overweight can cause harm to your emotional state in many ways, including leading to low self-esteem, problems with depression, your ability to recognize your own health needs, and body shame. When you’re finally able to lose weight and keep it off, you’ll be able to enjoy many payoffs for your emotional well-being that you probably haven’t considered before.
What’s The Connection Between Weight and Emotions
When you lose weight, especially large amounts or after being heavy for a long time, your body enjoys many advantages. A healthier weight lowers your risk for many chronic diseases, like heart disease, diabetes, and neurodegenerative disorders like Alzheimer’s. You even improve your chances for avoiding cancer. But the psychological benefits of losing and keeping off excess weight shouldn’t be overlooked.
When you lose weight, your mental state undergoes positive changes. And the key to actually maintaining weight loss over the long haul is in these psychological changes. If you want to keep your healthy new life and keep your thinner physique, your brain must want it more than your physical self. So, what happens to your emotional and mental well-being when you lose weight? Let’s take a look.
Your Self-Esteem Improves
When you successfully change your attitude and mindset about eating and food (as opposed to losing weight quickly on a certain “diet” or through surgery, you are more likely to support these new patterns of behavior over time. And when you’ve put in the hard work to reach your new goals, you feel more confident in yourself and your abilities. This increases your self-esteem.
You’re Less Likely to Feel Depressed
Whether depression causes or is caused by weight gain, is not fully understood. We do know that people who successfully lose weight are less likely to suffer from depressive symptoms, even if they have clinical depression. While this result may not be seen upon immediate weight loss, over time, depression symptoms improve and are reduced in severity and frequency. These new healthy habits often include other patterns of behavior besides eating that benefit your mental health (think sleep, connection to others, being more active, etc.).
Your Quality of Life Improves
When you lose weight and adopt healthier habits all-around, you’re more likely to feel more confident in your longevity. You’re able to enjoy activities more and to have a better outlook about your overall quality of life. Losing weight doesn’t just affect the numbers on the scale. It improves nearly all bodily functions, which leads to less disease and more energy. Weighing less gives you more vitality, which allows you to get more from life and feel better about yourself, your future, and the world in general.
You’ll Learn to Handle Your Emotions Better
One of the reasons we gain weight and adopt poor eating habits is because we have an unhealthy relationship with food. We use it to help us feel better emotionally rather than as nutrients to feed our cells. When you adopt healthier mindsets and attitudes about food, which is really the only way to lose weight and keep it off successfully, you must learn better ways of dealing with your emotions besides eating.
Final Thoughts
The emotional and psychological changes that you’ll experience with permanent weight loss are tremendous. Becoming more satisfied with your body, your health, and your life leads to more enjoyment and satisfaction, less depression, and a happier life.