Can Perfectionism Lead To Overweight?

At first glance, it may not make sense to be both overweight and a perfectionist, but the two are connected.
Logically, we know that there is no such thing as perfect. But does the emotional drive to be perfect affect you and your weight? A lot of people stay at a heavier-than-healthy weights simply because they are rebelling against the idea of perfect.

Being thin might make life too good. Often, when life is good, we cling to the "blemish" of excess weight, as if having an obvious flaw keeps us human. As much as we say we want a "perfect" life and strive for it, the prospect of actually achieving it is somehow frightening.

Then, what would I do? Conversely, weight is often the ultimate excuse for not achieving certain goals or objectives in life. We ask ourselves "What if I lose weight and I'm still not happy?" or "What if I lose weight and I still don't meet the partner of my dreams?" Living with excess weight means choosing the more convenient and familiar excuse of "I am fat," rather than actually taking action and facing the unknown or possible disappointment.

Procrastination is perfectionism. If diet and exercise can't be done perfectly, the perfectionist will put off doing it at all or sabotage good efforts. We may eat in a healthy manner for breakfast and lunch but, when an afternoon "cheat" or "slip" occurs, we throw away the rest of the day. Forgetting that there are 1,440 minutes in a day, we let 3 minutes ruin our efforts entirely! Perfectionism is a convenient and ever-ready excuse to blow the healthy eating effort.

Perfectionism leads to some interesting thought patterns and it can be either self-oriented or other-oriented.

Self-oriented perfection occurs when we measure ourselves harshly against a high bar of achievement. When perfection is not reached, we might punish ourselves with excessive eating or mental torture.

Often, knowing we are not perfect, we focus heavily on the other things in life that are not perfect, slipping into other-oriented perfectionism where we become critical of others, especially thin people or people who effectively control their weight.

Another way perfectionism shows up is when we lose weight, but don't reach a desired goal weight or appearance. Many overweight people want to become runway model thin, and anything less is a source of frustration. The subsequent dissatisfaction then leads to a regain of the lost weight.

After all, if we measure our lives by perfection, we’re unable to see every day successes, even the small ones.

If you measure others by perfection, we’ll find it hard to love and appreciate the people in our lives.

And if we measure our weight by perfection, we deprive ourselves of being satisfied and happy with our bodies. Being content with our physical bodies is a basic human right and a natural way of existing. After all, we were satisfied with our bodies at some point in life, before our conditioning through media, society and others taught us we should be physically different than our natural shape and size.

The choice to be happy with a healthy weight, even if it isn't model-thin, is a necessary choice in order to be successful long-term. And that means leaving perfectionism behind with the extra pounds.