Nice Guys Finish Fat

This post is by By Dr. Matthew Anderson

Let’s look at how too much niceness can make you fat.

Nice is like grease. A little grease in a car makes it run smoothly.

A little grease in the pan keeps the food from sticking.

Imagine what would occur if you poured a gallon of grease all over the engine of your car.

Or if you tried to saut«± your vegetables with a pound instead of an ounce.

The car would smoke and burn and your food would make you sick. This is what happens with too much nice.

Too much nice makes you phony.

Too much nice makes you insincere.

Too much nice makes you slippery, slidey and oily.

Worst of all, too much nice can make you unaware of how you really feel, what you really think and who you truly are. That is both dangerous to your psychological well-being and fattening.

Now let’s focus on the fattening part. I am convinced that 90 percent of all weight-challenged persons use comfort food to avoid their uncomfortable emotions.

My personal and professional exploration into the causes of weight gain bears this out. What does this have to do with nice? Everything.

Individuals who are overweight and habitually nice are people who are afraid of their not-nice emotions thoughts and behaviors.

A too-nice person will not allow themselves to express anger, be assertive or aggressive, be demanding, or say what they really mean if they think it might not appear nice.

Thus, a too-nice person must constantly avoid deny or repress significant aspects of their personality that do not fit into what I like to call their nice-box.

The favorite tool for this among weight-challenged people is food. Comfort food will temporarily mask an entire host of not-nice personality attributes.

Simply put it works like this:

You believe that being nice is an extremely important personality trait.

You believe that being not-nice is a very unacceptable personality trait.

To you, not-nice equals emotions/attitudes like anger, selfishness, aggression, outspokenness, bluntness¡Ä You get the point.

Because you are a human being you feel and think quite a few not-nice emotions and thoughts every day. You cannot avoid them, but you try… because you want to be nice.

Instead of questioning your too-nice value system and learning to deal with your uncomfortable emotions and thoughts in a healthy way, you eat.

You eat comfort food to disappear whatever seems not-nice. Then you get fat.

Now for the good news.

You do not have to be nice all the time. You can learn to be nice when it is appropriate.

You can also learn to be authentic, fully human and a person who has legitimate feelings, thoughts and behaviors that you heretofore defined as not-nice and unacceptable.

You can learn to be a whole person. A too-nice person is a partial person. Being whole is healthier and in truth, is a lot more fun.

As you learn to accept and manage those not-so-nice thoughts and feelings you will discover you need far less comfort food to help you hide from your wholeness.

You will also discover that your self-esteem, personal power, creativity increase.

And the most surprising discovery might be that many people like you a heck of a lot better since you dropped the too-nice mask.

I am no longer a nice person. I am leaner, meaner (just a little) and far more real than the nice guy I used to hide behind.

For more from Dr. Matthew Anderson, please visit www.DrAusa.com

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posted in Attraction