Sunday, April 20th, 2008...7:45 am
What’s Your Story?
If you want to lose weight and keep it off you need to have a mindset that supports your efforts. I call this your Weight Mindset and it is simply a reflection of the story you tell yourself. Your story is very important because it literally has the power to impact your weight loss success or failure.
I created a client story below to show you an example of a destructive Weight Mindset.
“I really feel like I need to lose weight, I am just uncomfortable in my clothes and that makes me feel really bad about myself when I am out with friends or anywhere in public. I am always afraid that people are looking at me and judging me for being so fat.
I have tried every diet out there but they just don’t work for me. I don’t really have any support at home, my husband eats every night in front of me, he doesn’t make any effort to hide his snacking even though he knows it tempts me, he doesn’t seem to care at all that I am trying to lose weight.”
This story is common and I do understand the frustration that comes with it, when you are in this place you feel like there is no solution. But what is often overlooked is that all solutions start on the inside – and I don’t mean you have to crack the whip and diet better, I mean you have to start thinking better.
Here we have a woman who feels judged by the world, feels like a dieting failure and feels like she has no support at home. And while it might be sad and disappointing that these things make up her reality, she still gets to choose how to handle them – her best bet will be to simply accept a few things.
The first thing she must do is accept her body as it is right now. This is where I usually start losing people but hang in there with me. Your body is exactly the way it is supposed to be because it is a direct result of your past actions. Your body has responded in the best way it knows how with the foods you have feed it and the care you have given it. It is a perfect reflection of what you have created it to be – so love it for being there for you along the way! Now this doesn’t mean you have to give up any desire to change it. In fact if you learn to truly love your body now you will want to do better things for it such as feed it vegetables and lean protein and exercise it and an added benefit is that you will feel less judged by others when you are living in harmony with your body. Look, everyone is judged in life, the blondes judge the brunettes the body builders judge the metro-sexual males – it happens, it doesn’t mean that one is better than the other and this judging won’t bother you one bit if you truly like who you are.
The second thing that she needs to accept is that she is 100% responsible for making this change. This sounds harsh but actually when she accepts that her weight issue is not because diets don’t work or that her husband eats snacks in front of her - she will find a new freedom that she never knew existed. The plain fact is that you and you alone control how much food and what type of food goes in your mouth, so you are in control when all is said and done.
What could you change about your story? It would be a good exercise to sit down and think about the weight loss story you tell yourself then ask yourself if there is anything in that story that indicates that you are either not accepting your body as it is now or that you are blaming something or someone else for your problem. It takes a bit of courage to face your story but if you do I guarantee you will find a lower number the next time you step on a scale.
1 Comment
April 20th, 2008 at 9:17 am
Very good points. It is important to accept one’s body as it is and to take stock of how one got “there”.
A huge mistake I made was to drastically adjust my calorie intake. I’d go from eating 2200-2500 calories or more a day, to 1200 a day. That is hard to do and sustain long term.
I found that a less drastic reduction allowed me to still lose, albeit slowly, and was much easier to stick with. And as the weight loss comes to a stand still I can continue to adjust down, which allows me to gradually get used to eating less food.
Most people aren’t willing to do this because they want to lose weight fast so they can get back to being “normal”…but normal for them/me was to be fat—to regain the lost weight.
Taking it slower allows one to lose weight and gives him the time to make some real changes in his eating habits that can last for life instead of being “on plan” or “on program” which means at some point he will be “off “.
There seems to be a trend of late that “diets don’t work”…even Weight Watchers is using that slogan.
And it is the truth…diets don’t work. Eating right does.
My desire for junk food has diminished as I’ve incorporated more fruits and vegetables into my diet and switched from processed foods to “whole” foods. Most of my shopping now takes place in the outer aisles of the grocery store.
I spend a lot of time in the produce section where the bulk of my food comes from. I do use some frozen fruit and veg too due to price and seasonal considerations. And I’m eating more beans which are high in fiber and very filling.
When one’s meal consists of mainly non-processed very filling foods, not only does one feel fuller on fewer calories, one digests more slowly and is kept satiated longer.
Fruits and veg coupled with good fat and good protein are a winning combination.
I will hasten to say though, there are no forbidden foods in my life anymore. If I want it I will eat it–restrictions and rigidity only serve to make me desire a thing more.
And when I eat the previously forbidden food I enjoy it to the fullest, and I don’t think of myself as a failure. It’s one event or one meal. I no longer see those as “slips” but choices…which eliminates any angst I might feel, which would only serve to create a hindrance to my efforts. I treat those choices as speed bumps…they may slow my progress a bit, but they don’t halt it unless I allow it.
Getting to the point I’m at has taken well over a year…the first nine months of my change in thinking I didn’t lose a single pound…but I was doing the work to get me where I am today. I’ve lost 10 pounds to date and am working toward losing another 10, at which point I’ll take stock.
Only in the past month, over a year since I started, have I added exercise into the equation. And I actually for the first time in my life, ever, look forward to the exercise—because I do it, not to lose weight—but because I’ve changed my thinking, and it is now a choice.
I’ve said all this because I concur that your points are not only valid, but significant . Being in a hurry, failing to do as you recommend, will short circuit the process resulting in short term success but long term failure.
Leave a Reply