Self-Compassion Aids Weight Loss Efforts

Fit pros may want to encourage kindness combined with accountability when hearing a client beating themselves up for a lapse in eating or exercise behaviors. New research suggests that self-compassion, or treating oneself with the same kindness offered to loved ones, increases a person’s self-control over exercise and eating behaviors, after a setback. Self-kindness helps by reducing feelings of demoralization and failure. Drexel University researchers in Philadelphia studied 140 participants in a group-based lifestyle modification program.

“Practicing self-compassion helps people cope with self-defeating thoughts and feelings in response to setbacks, so that they are less debilitated by them,” says lead study author Charlotte Hagerman, PhD, assistant research professor, Drexel University. “In turn, they can more quickly resume pursuing their goals…It can be easy for the message of self-compassion to get muddied, such that people practice total self-forgiveness and dismiss the goals they set for themselves. But we’ve shown that self-compassion and accountability can work together.”

The study is available in Appetite (2023; doi: 10/1016.j.appet.2023.1007009).

See also: How to Develop Compassionate Coaching