Today, ALL DAY, I've been going through all the *diet* info I already know (and have tried, to no real avail), only to come to the same conclusion I always seem to come to, but can never seem to remember:
Only I know what I need to be the healthiest version of me.
I can deprive myself of all the foods I love while forcing myself to eat foods I hate all I want (and cry like a wah wah baby about it, too!), but in the end, it just gets me back to square one.
I can let the fact that I'm "on a diet" be this huge stigma and make me feel left out because "Everyone else gets to eat what they want! ", or I can tell myself that mind, body, and spirit I am becoming a healthier person. My body is a temple, and I will not let my temple walls be torn down by a demolition team *I* hired. (if that makes sense).
I'll be honest. I am constantly telling people two things:
a)I don't have an addictive personality
b)I'm dieting
Now, if I really didn't have an addictive personality, why does it seem I am always dieting? *ponders*
In the end, each moment of your life is a choice. I'm human, and sometimes I will make the wrong choice. Instead of quitting or beating myself up, I just have to make the right choice the next time.
For me it was dropping the notion that losing weight had to include lots of rules and lots of things that I don't like. For example, I hate plain water. It makes me gag unless it's really cold and I don't have to drink a lot. But I can't tell you how many times I've read that drinking water is IMPERATIVE for weight loss. Well, it's not. Yes you need liquids to live, but there are other things that taste much better to me like iced tea, diet coke, diet lemonade, etc. that keep me hydrated. Another example is low calorie salads - they feel like punishment to me, so I don't eat them. There are lots of enjoyable ways for me to get veggies. So why would I eat something I don't care for?
The only rules I live by with regard to weight loss are eat near my calorie count, try to keep those foods nutritional and move around more during the day. And the simplicity of that is so freeing. All that other "do this, not that" stuff I think is meant to fill magazine pages and make people feel like there is some secret formula to losing weight, but there isn't.
I just want to give a HUGE AMEN to this. I couldn't agree more. This type of philosphy has worked for me too. I'll continue this way and reach my goal weight come **** or high water. Congrats to everybody for all our hard work, and Happy New Year!!!!
For me it is an echo of what many of you said. I had to let go of the idea to be successful, that I had to be perfect at it.
When it comes to dieting (and a lot of other areas of my life), I have always been an all or nothing kinda girl. But, I've had to get over that in order to be successful this time around. I can't convince myself that just because I ate a few of one of children's fries, that it is okay to throw away the rest of the day. There are no more "throw away" days (or weeks, months, or dare I say, years).
I had to let go of the idea that my eating was out of my control, that there was some quirk of my psychological make-up that made it "impossible" for me to control my eating...........
............I had to admit to myself that I was feeding myself crap as a kind of reward-- tired, stressed, bored, cranky, special occasion, whatever... I had ONE way that I was nice to myself-- by letting myself eat whatever I wanted whenever I wanted.... I had to start looking for other ways to be kind to myself, and also to realize that I don't always GET a reward. Sometimes I just have to suck it up.
Oh my goodness! It is crazy scary sometimes...the way your posts sound exactly like me! You're mini-me! You put into words the exact things I battle daily. Yet, I see that you're beating these things and that gives me hope. Thanks for posting.
I didn't reply to this when it was first posted. I read it yesterday and it has lingered on my mind. Reading all the posts reinforced my thoughts that we are all different. Some of us previously had too many rules while others of us had too few. I personally had to give myself some rules.
Here are some ideas that I had to let go of:
* That I would lose weight just by cutting back.
* That I did not need to write down what I ate.
* That I did not need to weigh or measure my food intake.
* That drinking water was not that important.
* That I could lose weight and then go back to the way I ate before losing.
* That what I ate in secret really didn't count.
* That exercise really was not that important.
* That I really did not care what I looked like.
* That I really did not care what people said.
* That I really had to have that chicken biscuit and hash rounds.
and finally
* That I was really quite happy with weighing almost 300 pounds with a 5'2" frame.
I guess the last thing is that I was KIDDING myself about attempting to lose weight by "eating healthy" and "making healthy choices" some of the time. I mean, one minute I was ordering the lean fish dish in a restaurant and then next minute I was scarfing M&Ms in my car. "Cutting back" in a haphazard fashion was a complete waste of time. I needed to pick a calorie count and stick to it.
OMG! This was so me. I've been a vegetarian four years now, and all of the food in my house has been extremely healthy for years... whole grain bread, only cereals without added sugars (not even the artificial kind), organic Greek yogurt, unsweetened almond milk, lots of fresh fruits and veggies, etc. etc..
However, every time I was at the grocery store without my husband I would buy a pack of M&Ms (the 2 serving size). I even convinced myself the M&Ms were healthy and wouldn't put me into binge mode, because I got the kind with peanuts.
If my husband was at the store with me, I would buy a container of Stoneyfield Farms After Dark Frozen Yogurt. Again, I would tell myself... it's only 400 calories in the entire container and NO fat! Well, until I added 2 tablespoons of all-natural Smuckers peanut butter to it, hid in my office, and scarfed the whole thing down while watching a show on Hulu (to also hide what I was doing from myself?).
I also conveniently forgot the fact that every time I had my period, I would buy and consume an entire bag of Doritos with a King size Snickers every time a doctor asked me, "what kind of food do you eat?" Anyways, craving fat and sugar during your period is normal, right? It's okay to give into that craving just once a month, right?
Or that, a few times a month, when I dropped my kids off at Jiu-Jitsu, I would use the drive-thru at Dunkin Donuts to order a "treat" of 2 cinnamon donughts and 2 Boston Creme donughts. I must have known how wrong this was, because I would throw away the bag in our big garbage cans outside, rather than throw them away inside, like I would have done other trash.
Oh, and there were also the Venti Skinny Vanilla Lattes on an almost daily basis. Skinny was in the name, so it must have been okay, right?
My husband used to weigh 400 pounds. He's lost more than 170 pounds so far. I watched in amazement as he slimmed down. I kept asking myself, "how is he doing it?" I asked him too. His response was always, "I decided."
I could not grasp what he was saying. It didn't make any sense to me. I had "decided" to lose weight many times before. Hadn't I? Each time I went on a diet, however, I would lose 10 or so pounds, slowly stop dieting and regain that 10, plus another 10.
After the birth of my youngest daughter, I weighed 130 pounds. 7 years later, I weighed 211. At 4'11", 211 pounds is HUGE! That's all there is to it.
For the next few years, I started eating healthier. I have lost about 25 pounds during these last 3 or 4 years, despite my little treats mentioned above. However, at 185 pounds, I'm still about 50% fat.
For the past year or so, I've been dealing with extreme tiredness everyday. I've tried anti-depressants, and while they've helped somewhat, I still struggle with tiredness throughout the day. After some discussions with my husband and doctor, it came to light that I probably have sleep apnea. I wouldn't know for sure unless I did a sleep study, however that's several thousand dollars that would probably result in somebody telling me I need to lose weight. Duh! I can't afford that kind of money for someone to tell me what I already know.
So, I talked with my dear hubby, who by now is a weight loss expert, and we discussed what I could do to start losing weight more consistently and a little faster than what I've been doing (8 pounds a year).
Coincidentally, after that discussion, we went to a local bank to open up a new bank account. We ended up being assisted by the branch manager, who, after seeing my husband's license photo (taken when he was 400 pounds), started raving about the weight loss center across the street from her bank that had helped her lose 24 pounds in less than 2 months.
Upon leaving the bank, I was pumped. Although I'd already been counting calories at that point for a few weeks, I was excited about the possibility of having support and accountably, other than my husband. Don't get me wrong, I adore my husband. I just don't want him analyzing everything I'm eating!
Sixteen days into the program, with 8 pounds lost, I'm beginning to realize what my sweet hubby means when he says he "decided". I have now also "decided" to lose weight.
I "decided" to not binge the night before starting the diet.
I "decided" to only put in my mouth what's on my plan. (I even declined the weight loss center's offer to taste samples of their new bar.)
I've "decided" that I can do anything for 6 months.
I had to let go that i have to have special often expensive foods to lose weight. I can do this even on a dried beans budget.
Also, i don't need to eat the whole month's worth of produce in a week, because it was 'healthy'. then at the end of the month i'm left with almost no fruit or veggies for healthy meals.
i try to ration the fruit especially now to make sure everyone can have some and it lasts longer. now i get frozen greens and dried or canned beans. i'm the only one who will even touch lentils and spinach, so it's always there, unless i ate it.
I had to let go of the idea of losing weight quickly. I "only" lost 35 pounds last year. I'm 25, in surprisingly good shape, I have a good amoutn of weight to lose, I "should" have lost a lot more than that. Except I had the busiest and possibly most stressful year anyone could have asked for. We had 5 weddings in the course of three months that involved officiating, coordinating, Maid of Honoring, and Best Maning. I lived apart from my DH for nearly the entire year, traveling 4 hours each way on the weekends to see him. We put in offers on over 30 houses, we waffled with moving to different places, we had a roommate from ****, etc. etc. No, I shouldn't have lost more weight. I had to choose to stop berating myself for "only", and start celebrating the fact that I did lose weight. I have lost almost 40 pounds no and I have never gained back more than 3 of them (temporary water weight). Most people I know can't say that, and I am proud to say I've reached that goal.
I had to let go of the idea that I can be only be proud of my weight loss when I get to goal. Yes, I might still be fat right now, but damn if I'm not makign progress!
I had to give up on the idea of everything in moderation. It works for some people, not for me. Some foods cause me to lose weight SLOWLLLLY. Some cause me to stop losing altogether. Some foods set off insane cravings. I can't have whatever I want in moderate portions. I'm okay with that now.
I had to let go of the idea of food as always havign to be something "Exciting". Sometimes I eat the same thign a few days in a row. Sometimes I eat something that I'm nto craving or excited to have. I don't eat things I don't like, but I don't need every meal to be some sort of amazing experience. Food isn't the only enjoyable aspect fo my life and I need to stop treating it like it is.
The hardest part for me was learning that weight loss isn't a "Tomorrow" kind of thing. You don't throw out an entire day worth of positive changes because you had a donut for breakfast. Once I learned that, things became infinitely easier because I wasn't expecting failure to be the end result.
The best thing I learned was that... all you have to do to lose weight is stick to a plan. I know a lot of people have problems motivating themselves so when I would think "Ugh, I don't want to do this workout today," or "I should have fries instead of a salad," I remember that I don't have to tell my cells how to use the energy I give it. Weight loss is EASY when you think of it that way. If I'm doing the right things my body won't defy the laws of physics, I WILL lose weight.
- food as a reward. That I'm so special that the laws of physics shouldn't apply to me LOL I should be able to eat all that i want and look like Heidi Klum!
- the thought that it's for "a while". Nope. This is my life. I eat this way now. I can't go backwards or I will be fat.
- the thought that I was powerless over food. That I was so addicted to food there was no help. I was not addicted, I used that as an awesome excuse to escape all blame and responsibility
- let go of the notion of a 'bikini body' of a 20 year old. I'm 43, I'll never have that. But i'll be alive, and better than i was
- the 'all or nothing' crap. A meal is a meal. If i screw up, I'm better for the next one. If i blow a day, i'm better on the next one. No letting it drift into weeks of gaining
- that i wasn't one of the 'lucky few' who got to be thin and lose weight permanently. I AM a lucky one! and there's no magic to it. It's absolutely as corny as everyone says - eat less, move more, repeat!
- the notion that any person can affect my eating but ME. No one can FORCE a 2nd helping on me, I'm immune to emotional blackmail. I have a voice, I have a sense of humour, and I use both to get my point across in a respectful manner. I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings, but I don't want to hurt MYSELF more!
- most of all, I let go of the crazy idea that just NOT having chocolate in my house was the cure. That avoiding things was the answer. I can't UNinvent chocolate, it's always going to be in the world -- I can only control MY reactions and responses to things. Food is not a scary demon to me anymore, it's just food.
I'm still working on letting go of the idea that this is "my fault," in that if only I'd eaten less and moved more I wouldn't be this obese. Being diagnosed pre-diabetic and measuring my blood glucose after meals has been eye-opening! More and more I am convinced that I ate so much because I was eating the wrong things and my cells were indeed starving because they couldn't get the fuel they needed. I was always hungry. So dieting and calorie-counting became semi-starvation, which is doomed to failure in most people.
Cutting out sugars and most starches has completely changed how I eat and how I lose weight. My blood sugars are constant and I am seldom hungry. I don't have the cravings I used to have. I can fairly easily say "no thanks" to things that used to trigger overeating for me.
I've had to let go of the idea that I can eat carbs/sugars so long as they are within my calorie-range. I can't say "I can eat 100 grams of carb/day" and eat it all in one meal. I CAN eat 30 grams with a protein-rich meal and not see much raise in blood sugar. That's a slice of fiber-rich bread and some veggies.
I've had to let go of the idea that I'm a glutton and have no self-discipline. it's not solely mental. It's physiological. I didn't become obese because I ate too much. I ate too much because my body was over-pushing fuel into my fat cells rather than using it for fuel. I have a disease. It's not easy, and it's not "fair", but once I've learned new tools for my toolbox the weight is slowly coming off.
I've also had to let go of the idea that I have to exercise to lose weight. Study after study seems to show that it's more about what you eat than about how much you move. I have had to embrace the idea that moderate exercise is EXTREMELY helpful for controlling my insulin resistance and blood glucose. But that's a different tool than exercise for weight loss. I exercise because I want to be healthy, not because I want to lose weight.
", or I can tell myself that mind, body, and spirit I am becoming a healthier person. My body is a temple, and I will not let my temple walls be torn down by a demolition team *I* hired. (if that makes sense).
You put into words the exact things I battle daily. Yet, I see that you're beating these things and that gives me hope. Thanks for posting.
