When people ask me how I'm losing the weight I wish I could explain to them what changed in my head. We all can be successfull losing the weight whether we are just eating healthy, SB, WW and so forth. I believe it is truly what changed in my head and what has changed in your heads that it is impossible to bottle and sell. I finally after 20 plus years of being obese finally get it. Food was not the enemy. My own thinking was. Now that has changed and I know the weight will come off. It is a great feeling. I don't care if it takes 6 months or 2 years it will happen. Of course 6 months would be terrific but it really doesn't matter.
How many of you get what I'm trying to say? Was there a specific moment?
I'm not as far along as you, Sharon, but I do feel that it is different this time for me, too. I think a lot of it has to do with getting all the support here, but it always seemed impossible to accomplish before, but now I know I can do it!
I fixed everything else that was not great in my life. So now, weight loss is not the "solution" I'm looking for. It is an endeavor to a healthier me. I've already achieved the "happier" part. I think that is what's the difference for me.
I, too, wish you could bottle and sell your wonderful new mindset - I would be the first to make a purchase! I've been reading up on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) as it relates to food, etc. and slowly applying things here and there. I recommitted for what seems like the millionth time, and am hoping for some kind of breakthrough similar to what you're describing. I am having trouble shaking off the need for instant gratification, both in regards to my eating choices and my weight loss. I weigh myself every morning (very necessary for me so that I keep my focus), and this week I have been trying hard not to be disappointed as the scale inches down - for my first week back on a weight loss plan, I was hoping for a big bang! I know that any loss is a good thing, but I'm still frustrated...
I know what you are talking about Sharon. That is why it all "clicks" now. It really isn't requiring a lot of effort or will power on my part to do this.....it all just WORKS. Making the good choices and not craving the junk....it is not a struggle for me this time. That is how I KNOW I will get to goal - my HEAD is in the right place for loosing the weight - the body has no choice but to follow!
What made me finally decide to quit putzing around and get back on my program after 5 weeks of ho-hum committment? I really wish I could convey this to those who are struggling, because I want everyone to feel the way I feel right now! I wish I could really get my brain around it myself. I don't really understand why I'm so committed and positive minded now. I dont know what clicked and changed for me. I really think it was the fact that I stuck around here throughout the weeks I was struggling. Seeing everyone else succeed made me want the same thing for myself.
Sharon, I think that a lot. I just wish I could bottle it up and give it away to everyone that's having a hard time. Sometimes, I just want to kick myself in the tush for the 20 years I spent agonizing over something that turned out to be, not that hard.
I was talking to a guy at work yesterday and the subject of Marine Land in Canada came up, he said he had a picture of his 5 yr old feeding the deer. I started laughing and said "these deer?" and showed him a pic of me circa 2003/200 lbs feeding the same deer at Marineland. He was like WHOA, that's you? And I was like yeah, 73 lbs ago.
He said he really wanted to lose some weight, asked me how I did it, I started with "well, I quit eating so much junk" and he kind of shut down saying he loves junk. I used to LOVE JUNK FOOD. Nachos, muffins, pizza, ice cream, M&Ms, I was a junk food junkie. If someone had told me 5 years ago, I would go 3 years without nachos, I would think they were crazy. Now, I don't crave it, I don't miss it, it's a non entity in my life completely.
What changed this time?? I still have no idea, but I still wish I could capture it and share it
Agreed. I've always known what to do. Sure I tweak it and change things up as I go along and learn more. But for the most part I've always known HOW to lose weight. I just wasn't READY to. I wasn't WILLING to. I didn't want it badly enough. And then when day I woke up from the nightmare, just snapped out of it - and boom. The food was no longer important. NOTHING was more important then losing the weight and trying to become as healthy as I could. It just all seemed so simple. And made so much sense. Too bad it took me 20 years to come to this revelation. Oh well.
I, too, wish you could bottle and sell your wonderful new mindset - I would be the first to make a purchase! I've been reading up on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) as it relates to food, etc. and slowly applying things here and there. I recommitted for what seems like the millionth time, and am hoping for some kind of breakthrough similar to what you're describing. I am having trouble shaking off the need for instant gratification, both in regards to my eating choices and my weight loss. I weigh myself every morning (very necessary for me so that I keep my focus), and this week I have been trying hard not to be disappointed as the scale inches down - for my first week back on a weight loss plan, I was hoping for a big bang! I know that any loss is a good thing, but I'm still frustrated...
I'd like to say to you it did not happen over night for me. It has evolved. I did want this very bad when I started in January but that was not enough. I can't explain it but it just clicked. My 4 y/o daughter had chocolate for Easter. I used to love chocolate. I never touched it. It is 99% in my head this time. I never had that before.
Glory we posted at the same time. It's very hard to explain to someone why junk food is no longer appealing to me. Why I would prefer a bowl of veggies over a bowl of ice cream (my absolute favorite back in the day). Why I would prefer a sliced apple with cinnamon over a slice of chocolate cake. People ask me all the time what I did to lose the weight. I know it sounds silly, but the truth of the matter is I simply made the DECISION to.
It is so strange when it happens, isn't it? For me, it's like: "Why on earth would I have eaten a whole, large pizza??" I just don't want to now... and that's hard to explain to people. At this point in my journey, I probably COULD eat a whole, large pizza (and feel awful, physically!), but I don't WANT to.
The strangest thing for me is how important it used to be for me to lose weight in a certain TIME FRAME... and then I'd lose hope and faith and willpower... now - bah! Who cares if it takes the rest of my life? It had better! That's the ONLY way forward.
I wish we could all bottle it - even to give it away for free.
Heather
There is a new book written by Judith Beck (daughter of the originator of CBT) about using CBT to help lose weight. It is called The Beck Diet Solution.
I haven't been committing myself to it properly, but I am going to give it another try very soon. You change one habit a day for six weeks.
Mrs. Quadcrew, you're inside my brain again! I could've written your post, it came straight from my head. I can't describe how easy this has been. Anyone who comments to me on my weight loss though says, "you're doing fabulous, I know how hard it is to lose weight." How bizzarre. I never really respond truthfully because I don't want to sound smug, but I want to say, no, it's been pretty easy. It's been easy, though, because my head is in the right spot. It just clicks. I too wish I could sell this!
Kelly, okay - YOU have just been inside of MY head. When people say to me that it's hard to lose weight, I feel kinda strange saying, "Well actually it wasn't all THAT difficult." Yup, I wanna sell it too. Really, really badly.
That is fascinating, I was considering starting a post about that very thought - IS it hard to lose weight?
I'm a corporate trainer and one of the things I never do is tell my audience that a particular exercise will be difficult (even if I know a particular exercise could be considered more complicated than another). The thinking is - if you tell someone something will be hard, they will expect it to be hard and that might influence their ability to complete the task (give up too easily in frustration, etc).
Do we sometimes sabotage ourselves by saying "oh, weight loss is so hard?"
This is tricky to say, because for 20 years weight loss WAS hard for me, so I do understand the struggle, but this time it wasn't hard at all for me. It's still not hard to maintain the weight. I wish someone had told me all I had to was stop eating muffins, stop eating Taco Bell, stop eating M&Ms and McDonald's french fries and pack my lunch for work every day. Not eating junk and having healthier options easily at my fingertips for my meals are my two big weight loss tricks - very simple.
So, apologies in advance if that doesn't sound right! I definitely don't mean to minimize anyone else's feeling that weight loss is difficult - because it definitely HAS been for me!!!
I wish I could sell the change inside my head.
