4 Reasons Why You Self-Sabotage Your Good Intentions

You know what you should be doing, right? But WHY do you keep self-sabotaging your good intentions again...and again...and again?!

Many stressed-out, burned-out mums come to us stuck in this vicious cycle of seeking momentary pleasure, followed by periods of guilt, shame, and pain.

It might look like:

• Trying to eat healthily, but feeling so deprived, that you chow down a tub of ice cream after the kids go to bed.
• Knowing you feel better when you're in bed by 10 pm, but you keep getting sucked into that show on Netflix (because heck, it’s the only time you get ‘me time’).
• Trying to carve out more time for exercise, but you continue getting caught up with work, pushing exercise back to tomorrow…and then tomorrow…and then tomorrow.

People who continually self-sabotage don't just self-sabotage for no reason. You may be reaching out for sweet stuff because there is little sweetness in your life. You may lose yourself on Netflix because you are trying to escape from your exhausting health issues. Or putting off the movement, because your values and priorities are out of whack. 

Self-sabotaging often elicits momentary pleasure. These moments of pleasure are dopamine enhancing. The more you indulge, the more dopamine is produced, and over time these sabotaging tendencies can literally become addictions. As much as you want to stop, and you want to be and do better, they have a strong fist over you.

How does this behaviour affect the body?

Here are four predominant areas that get a hit when you’re constantly self-sabotaging your good intentions - and four reasons why you continue to have this issue.

NEUROTRANSMITTER DEPLETION: Well, as hinted above, addictive behaviours can literally burn your neurotransmitter dopamine out. This is often seen in people with alcohol or drug addictions. But time and time again we have seen this in clients who also have food addictions and repetitive behaviours or thought patterns. What came first, the behaviour/addiction or the low dopamine? 

VITAMIN B DEFICIENCIES: Talking about imbalances that can cause addictions, we always think about vitamin B deficiency. For example, vitamin B6 is very important for brain health - when this is depleted, it can absolutely cause things like emotional eating, food addiction, alcohol addiction, negative repetitive thoughts and poor motivation. How the heck can you overcome self-sabotaging if/when vitamin B's are deficient?!

DETOXIFICATION ISSUES: people who are stuck in self-sabotaging often develop detoxification issues. For example, binging out on processed foods will put a strain on the liver, as many preservatives and additives and refined foods are toxic to the body. Drinking wine overnight when the kids go to bed? That's absolutely going to burn out the liver.

CANDIDA OVERGROWTH: This is a yeast microbe that is part of the normal flora, but it can overgrow with a vengeance when there is too much sugar, gluten, processed carbs, and alcohol in the diet. While self-sabotaging can cause candida to overgrow, once candida has overgrown, it can constantly send signals to your brain to feed it with sugar/carbs/alcohol. In the end, it might be Candida causing you to behave the way that you do. Scary, but true! 

If you've read this far and you're thinking that you're doomed - please do not despair, there is a way out of the vicious pleasure/guilt/shame cycle! Our Ending Body Burnout method uses testing to identify imbalances that are causing your addiction or poor motivation. While these imbalances are being addressed with therapeutic supplements, we also work with you to build a strong mindset, a healthy environment, and new lifestyle habits, so that you can have control over your life and finally untangle yourself from energy, mood, and/or gut issues.

p.s. I’ve created an Ending Body Burnout Assessment (a nifty little quiz) which identifies the main contributors causing your body burnout. You’ll get a super insightful report at the end of the assessment, giving you practical steps to address your body burnout. You can do this test here.

Filipa Bellette is Co-Founder of Chris & Filly Functional Medicine. She is an accredited Clinical Nutritionist & Functional Medicine Practitioner. She is also a Ph.D. thought-leader, award-winning writer, and regularly published as a guest blogger & in the media. Together with her husband Chris Bellette, Filipa has worked with over 2,000+ busy, burnout clients in the last 10+ years, and specialises in producing healthy, balanced, and happy Mums & Dads...or as she calls it, a Power Parent! Filipa’s own passion for producing high-performance Power Parents came from her own personal experience of Mummy Burnout, after having babies and juggling the demands of business, family, and her failing health.