When someone experiences a weight loss stall, analyzing their food choices is the go-to strategy for most people.

Food choices absolutely matter. But they’re just one piece of the puzzle if you’re stalled.

Mindset actually plays a huge role in weight loss stalls IF you lack awareness that it’s going on.

One of the most common mindset-related causes of weight loss stalls has to do with trauma – specifically, a trauma you experienced the last time you weighed a certain amount.

Let’s say you weigh 250 pounds, and your goal is 145 pounds.

You do great all the way until you approach the 180s. At that point, your weight starts “stalling.”

You fluctuate between 194 and 191 for weeks. You tweak your meals. You visit the help desk and look for sleep tips. You’re sure you’re “doing everything right.”

Or, you’re fully aware you’re not doing everything right, but you can’t seem to “stay motivated.”

Turns out that the last time your weight was in the 180s, you went through a traumatic experience. Maybe you lost a parent (or a child). Maybe you got a divorce. Maybe someone abused you. Maybe you lost your job and had to go on welfare for a while.

Whatever it is, hitting the 180s is, for you, emotionally linked to that traumatic experience. So you “struggle with motivation,” when really you’re sabotaging yourself because hitting that set of numbers triggers that past trauma.

A related mindset-related cause of stalls is hitting a set of numbers you either haven’t seen in years, or you don’t recall ever seeing. This one’s common in people who’ve had a weight problem their entire lives.

Human beings do not enjoy getting outside our comfort zone, and a new set of numbers may freak you out for that reason alone.

So how do you handle it when fear of reliving a past trauma when you weighed a certain amount is contributing to self-sabotage?

It really depends on the person.

For some people, the awareness of what’s going on is enough for them to coax themselves into getting on track and losing the rest of their weight.

For other people, awareness is not enough. They try and work through it themselves, and maybe even get into or past that “trauma” number group, but the self-sabotage creeps back in and they return to that emotionally “safe” higher weight. In that case you might consider enlisting a counselor to help you work through it. I get that it feels vulnerable, but for you it may be a necessary step on your emotional healing.

If you find you’re stalled out no matter what you tweak with your foods, your food volume, your sleep, your meal timing, and so on, consider the possibility your “stall” is caused by one of these mindset conflicts. It may just be you need to make peace with past trauma; or that you’ve gotta be okay stepping outside your comfort zone to hit a new set of numbers.