I know for me personally, the big change this time was, I had to learn to love myself first. Or, more specifically, I had to pretend to love myself, pretend that I was important and lovely and that I mattered, and pretend that I deserved to be happy and healthy, before I could start and succeed. And at first, it was a pretense. I had to look at pictures of myself weighing 370 lbs, and look in the mirror, and tell myself, DC, I love you more than I love food. You deserve to be healthy, and happy, and look good. That's the old fake-it-til-you-make-it school. And pretty soon, I wasn't faking it anymore.
Baby steps definitely work well for some. I have read many success stories on 3FC where people started out just drinking more water, or reducing sugar, or adding a little exercise, then they added more small changes which eventually resulted in big lifestyle changes, and big losses. I think that's fantastic, but it wouldn't have worked for me, because I'm naturally inconsistent. I, like Robin and some others, made all my changes in one fell swoop.
I can't have just one cookie, or whatever. I couldn't make small changes and succeed. I made all my changes at once, drastically. August 13, 2008. And making a huge radical change, all at once, and committing to it for life, is what has worked for me.
I was also one of those people who had always thought I was really sensitive, and rebellious, and would have had my feelings crushed if someone had told me to "just do it" or had tried to impose any kind of radical lifestyle change on me. I would have rebelled, and never lost a pound. Another change this time is that I had to realize the root of the problem was, I didn't really love myself...deep down. I thought I was less valuable than everyone else. Part of that manifested as extreme emotional sensitivity. Since I was worthless, I had to 'protect' myself from others.
This time, the difference is, again, I know I'm worth it. So I told myself - just do it. For me, it had to come from within.
I want to lose this weight more than ANYTHING else on earth. I deserve to be happy and healthy, to have no pain when I move, and to look FANTASTIC. I deserve this. So does the OP. So does everyone on this board--heck, everyone on earth. We all deserve it. So, with every kind intention and lots of love, really, just do it. But not because *I* said so. Do it because *you* say so.
I am late to this discussion but had a thought while reading the thread.
Quote:
Originally posted by McKenziesmomma Its like in the back of my mind I keep telling myself..."You know its never gonna happen right? You know your never gonna lose all the weight...right?" I don't know if thats it or what.....but I can be losing weight and doing good and then the weight loss slows a little....but it just slows it doesn't stop.....and I just give up.
This part of McKenziesmomma's posting reminded me of myself for 20 years. I simply did not believe that I could lose weight so I was destined to be morbidly obese the rest of my life. I believed that it was not possible. Like Lorie, I am thinking about one of my grandmother's sayings, "Can't never could." I think that my battle was won when I started thinking, "I can do this. I can lose weight."
Replace that negative voice in your head with a positive voice. Start telling yourself that You Can Do This!
It almost feels like the answers to those questions are impossible to find. Why do I eat things I know are bad, why do I skip the gym, why, why, why am I like this? Because .. you know what, I don't know.
I could blame a million people, including myself. I could blame my family, since I've been obese my entire life. I could blame the people around me for never telling me how out of control things were getting. I could just blame myself for being weak.
Or I could quit asking myself why I am the way I am, and start telling myself that I won't be that way anymore. It's all I can do for myself.
I'm not the type of person that "just do it" works with. In fact, just hearing that makes me feel weak and like a failure. I'm not criticizing anyone who says it or saying that it can't help, but it didn't work for me. I had to explore my feelings, motives, and physical propensities so that I could go into a change in lifestyle knowing where I was coming from and how I could go somewhere else.
I think that not dealing with the underlying issues that make you overweight not only makes it difficult to lose it, but increases the chances that you'll regain it. Each person's reasons for eating too much are different, but I'll tell you mine.
1. My father is an alcoholic. My mother was often depressed. I inherited the propensity to anesthetize myself with something to quash my pain. I'm a hyper-sensitive person (physiologically, my nervous system is more acute than others) and food is an effective force for numbing pain. If you preoccupy your body with something pleasurable and you stuff yourself to the point of redirecting your energy toward digestion, you distract yourself from your pain.
2. Parental conditioning and poverty primed me to overeat. I started gaining weight around age 12. My parents ran off to bars and the compensation for my sister and I while we were alone at home was junk food. My mother also overfed us at every meal and I was taught not to waste anything. This lead to a lifetime of cleaning my husband's plate when he left scraps of bread or whatever on his plate. To this day, I feel guilty for throwing food away, even if I don't like it particularly.
3. My body is fundamentally different from that of a thin person, and yours probably is, too. You have primed your body and brain to expect lots of food. You're also probably particularly responsive to receiving pleasure from food. Just as some people are more sensitive to taking pleasure in smoking or alcohol, some are more sensitive to food. You can couple this with a high likelihood of a delayed leptin response making you sluggish to feel sated.
4. I have been preoccupied with food as a means to alleviate boredom and to fill my time. Food was my "go to" interest. I conditioned myself to think I was hungry when I was bored (likely because my parents fed me rather than interact with me or pay attention to me).
There's more to it, but that's the framework. I've had to understand my feelings and motive as well as start on some behavior modification efforts. I started with systematically reducing portion sizes first and foremost. I didn't start drastically, but rather approached every meal with the idea of reducing the quantity of food by 80%, 70%, 60% and sometimes 50%. I'd eat whatever I wanted, but I'd eat a small amount of it. I gradually got my body used to eating far less so that there was less biological and psychological rebellion.
I followed this by starting to count calories once a week. This was easy to do because I could tell myself on that one day that anything I really wanted to eat, I could eat tomorrow if I still wanted it. I followed that with adding in another day of counting and then another. Now, I'm finding I actually prefer the structure of counting every day, but if I feel "penned in", I'll go back to counting 3 days a week. I never beat myself up for failing, nor do I put any foods off limits beyond staying within the confines of calories I want to eat for the day when I count.
So far, this has worked well for me. It's been gradual and I've lost about 40 lbs. in 4 months through this process. I expect that to be stepped up a bit as more discipline is coming more easily.
I don't think I would have come across this method if I hadn't understood my reasons for doing what I did. I think knowing that getting from point A (eating as much as I wanted whenever I wanted) to point Z (calorie counting, portion reduction, and limiting what and when I eat) involved easing myself along rather than a dramatic change really helped. It's far from over, but I'm pretty confident that I can carry on for years and for life now that I've started this process and found it far from oppressive due to the gradual and informed way in which I've implemented the changes.
