Lies, Lies, and more Lies

For the last couple of days I have been pondering the lies we hear, the lies we believe, and the lies we tell ourselves.  They come at us from all sides.  From the time we get up in the morning to the time we go to sleep we seem to hear an endless stream of lies about fat people.  About how we are unappealing, or how we are lazy, or how we aren't worth anything because we are fat.  And if society's lies aren't enough the ones we tell ourselves are the most hurtful because there's nowhere to run and now way to block them out.  Have you heard this one "I'll never succeed at this; so this one choice won't matter."  My personal nemesis is what I call the silent lie - the one that just sits heavier on me than all of the fat.  The unhappiness I feel with who I am because I am fat.  The unhappiness that sucks all the joy out of life  kind of like J.K. Rowlings' dementors.  That lie - that we aren't worth anything because we struggle with our weight. 
So what do we do?  When the darkness and the lies get to us - what do we do?  There is only one thing to do - we shine the light of truth on them.  What is the truth?  That,  first and foremost, we are worth far, far more than what society says we are worth, we are worth far, far more that what we think we about ourselves.  We all have unique gifts and talents, we all have love to give, we all a  have a beauty that sometimes we never see. 
The truth is that fat is just fat.  It is nothing more than something that impacts our health.  It isn't who we are,  We can spend our lives focued only on our fat, allowing it's lies to twist our choices and beliefs, or we can focus on the truth.  We can do this, one choice at a time.  Like any facet of life, there are times we will fall and fail at the attempt to eat healthier but we have to shake it off and keep trying.  We are worth it.  Like every good thing in life or any great accomplishment we have to pick ourselves up remind ourselves of the truth and keep moving forward.  Because we are all worth far, far more than we think.

Holding Steady.....mostly

I have been going along for a while now, not really staying on the program but trying to eat healthier.  I notice my weight has been slowly creeping up.  I am committing to stay on track (under my calorie limits) at least through Friday.  Also, I commit to walking for at least 20 minutes today and tomorrow.  I can do two days. 

It's time to ask myself where I want to be by my birthday.  I want to have lost at least 6 more pounds.   That's my goal. 

One of the main reasons that I want to do this is to have vitality and energy - something which is lacking in my life right now.  So, that is what I want.  I'm going to make a plan to keep busy so I won't be a couch potato anymore either.

Negative Thoughts

I am noticing that as I change my eating habits - my thinking is changing as well.  Every pound that melts away reveals something about myself that I don't really want to face.  Memories that I want to stay buried, old hurts that I never really faced, poor choices I made,  mistakes that I can't (or won't) forgive myself for.  Not only do I need to deal with the straight up meal planning and eating choices I make on a daily basis I also need to deal with all of the self criticism, resentment, guilt, and pain that I dish out to myself on a daily basis.  I hate making mistakes - but why?  Everyone makes them.  There isn't a mistake that can't be fixed.  BUT here's what I do when I make a mistake - I beat myself up with words, with constant negative self talk, with words and thoughts that are meant to hurt.  If one of my friends treated me the way I treated myself I would end the friendship.  Sometimes,  I feel trapped in my body with an enemy and the enemy is me and there's no escape.  Up until now the escape has been food (or rather weight.)

See, when I focused on my weight and my eating I could bury the voice of the evil twin (I think I will name her Drusilla.)  I could worry about my weight - not about my mistakes.  But when I eat right I have no cushion against the voice.  I have nothing else to worry about.  I can't divert the message. So what is the answer?  I think I said it earlier - I just have to apply it.  There is no mistake so bad that it can't be fixed.  Now, I have to figure out how to apply that belief.  At the end of the day I need to just simply own the mistake and move on.  I have to start to realize that there is no need for punishment and it's counter productive. 

I think I'm going to be having to face a lot of stuff in the near future.

Spring.

I've really been struggling lately.  In fact, I gained 4 pounds since last February.  That means I only lost 7 since last September.   I was feeling pretty depressed about it and hopeless about it too.  Yesterday, I was out in the afternoon and all of a sudden I felt great.  Excited about getting back on the program and eating healthy and fired up about losing weight again.  Why?  How did this happen?  Will I be able to make it happen again?  It would be really nice to know because I could get things turned around a whole lot faster if I could consciously do this when I needed to. 

I have 5 more months until I hit the one year mark and I have been thinking about my goal.  Since I got back on the plan I started to dream about what I can do before September and I really have to stop this dreaming.  Because when I dream like this the focus of my life shifts to weight loss. 

I need to keep practicing taking the focus of my life off my weight.  My spiritual life, my career, my writing, my family, those are the things that I want to be the focus of my life. 

It's not about feelings.

As someone who regularly eats her feelings I'm looking at a tough day.  Lack of sleep combined with a minor weight gain has put me in a foul mood.  The dog woke me up at 3 am and kept me awake the rest of the night. I left my fitbit on my slacks yesterday and it went through the washer and dryer and now is won't work.  Whatever happened to yesterday's fun?  I'm expecting a terrible day today.

I guess what I need to do is to figure out what would make it a good day and work like crazy to make it happen.  Despite how I feel.  What would make today a good day?

• If I could stay on my eating plan despite how I feel.
• If I could think of something to have for lunch.
• If I fake being happy until I actually become happy.
• If I can stay alert at work and do my work well.
• If I get my exercise today.

 I guess these are my goals today.   First order of business:  caffeine.  Second, breakfast.  Third, caffeine.  Fourth: make some lunch and snacks for work.  Fifth:  caffeine.  Once I tackle this list I'll be ready to face the day.

"Fun"

Lately, as I've struggled with staying on my eating plan I haven't had much success or fun with the weight loss journey.  the original title of this post today was going to be "It's All About Me" but as I wrote that first sentence I realize that "Fun" is what I want to think about.

Whenever I start a diet I'm full of resolve and a heady excitement - a passion to finally lose all this weight and be thin forever.  Some people might be able to sustain that excitement --I'm not one of them.  So I have struggled for the last 2 months - struggled to stay on the plan, given myself pep talks, and failed repeatedly.  Whenever I fail I mentally beat myself up and get frustrated and weigh myself everyday and feel bad.  Which brings me to fun.  How is any of this fun?  It isn't.

But this weight loss journey should be fun.  I want it to be about new adventures, new ways of thinking, new ways of reacting to problems, new recipes to make, new meals to try, in short, fun.  I want to focus on what I can eat; not what I can't.   I want to focus on what I have accomplished - not how far I have to go.  I want to enjoy myself on this journey.  So, from now on - it's all about fun. 

New Day

I noticed something interesting yesterday but I have to back up a bit to share it.  I have been struggling with my healthy eating since Mid-January.  At first my weight remained the same, but slowly it began to creep up.  When I had gained one pound I thought to myself, "oh, I'll just wait until Monday to weigh myself, because I can be a pound down by then." So I didn't record my weight.  When Monday rolled around I was not back down a pound so I though, "oh, I'll just weigh myself on Friday because the extra pound will be off by then" but by Friday, I had gained another pound.  Now I was up 2 pounds and in addition to the 2 pounds I was carrying the frustration that I would need to lose 2 pounds before I could record my weight.

The burden of carrying extra weight is heavy enough - but if you add to it the emotional weight of: 1) hiding the truth from myself, 2) mentally carrying the burden of having the extra pounds to get rid of before a weigh-in, and 3) trying to deal with the anger at myself for gaining weight, the stress became unmanageable.  The emotional weight of this kind of burden drove me to take refuge in some unhealthy habits (most notably, reading and snacking) that I use to avoid stress.  Which increased the weight.  It was a vicious circle. 

Fast forward to yesterday.  I weighed myself and recorded my weight.  A total of 3 pounds gained since mid January.  The little badge on My Fitness Pal reads 8 pounds lost (in 165 days.)  You would think this would be depressing.  Instead, a wonderful thing happened.  I looked at the little 8 pounds lost badge and instead of feeling depressed I felt empowered.  I felt ready to buckle down and stick to my eating program, I felt ready to take on the world.  The emotional burden was gone; I was free.  As I ponder this, I have come to the conclusion that the emotional weight is far, far heavier than the physical weight.

I'm resolving to be more upfront and honest with myself, recording the "bad" weights along with the good ones.  In fact, I might go so far as to say that I'm ditching the whole idea of "bad" weights.  Because by labeling a part of myself as "bad" I'm condemning myself. And when I condemn myself I become overly critical of everything around me, and that drives me to snack.  I will have to start thinking in terms of "good" and "better".

As of yesterday, it's all good.