When I look back at my weight loss, and my current healthy way of living, I see that what I ate was much less important than what was going on in my head.
I was a fat thinker.
It didn’t matter if I wanted to lose weight; I was never going to succeed until I changed thinking fat into thinking thin.
One of the things I did was examine the equations in my head from a different perspective, and bust them if they led to overeating, destructive attitudes, or feeling bad about myself.
Here are some examples:
See “Unwanted” Number on Scale = EAT
Don’t Like What You See in the Mirror = EAT A LOT
Feel Difficult Feelings = EAT
Reward = EAT Food
Not Getting What I Want = EAT
Feeling Empty, UnfulFILLED = EAT until overFILLED
Vacation = EAT LIKE MAD
Birthdays, Celebrations (of anything) = EAT LIKE CRAZY!
The first one is key. I often hear my clients say they throw away their weight loss success, based on the number on the scale. This can happen daily, day after day, for years. After a while, it’s a mechanical, automatic response and the scale becomes a binge eating trigger.
If you really understand how the body works, you know the number of the scale doesn’t mean everything – in many situations it doesn’t mean ANYTHING! (If you’ve gotten most of your information about how the body works from dieting, fitness trainers and the internet, take my upcoming teleseminar “The Hard Cold Truth About Permanent Weight Loss – How I learned to stop fighting & love weight loss.” and arm yourself with powerful knowledge.)
Already a painful assumption (that you’ve gained bodyfat when it may not be true), it leads to more pain as we overeat in reaction to that assumption.
Remember, a different equation:
ASSUME = ASS of U + ME
Assumptions, especially when they lead to negative behavior, can have impact over and over. In time, that behavior becomes deeply engrained habit.
So, take a look. Examine the equations in your head. Haul them out of the cobwebs in your mind and write them down. The goal is to change eating behaviors, which eliminates the need for destructive diets and frees you from the feeling of deprivation and restriction. That’s a lifestyle change that’s easy to keep around until you’ve achieved permanent weight loss.
Which ones can you discard?
Which ones are untrue?
Which ones HELP you?
Which ones make your life HARDER?
Which one will you change NOW?
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I see your wisdom, experience and joy in helping others, Pat. Like your approach. I’m not an authority on any of this, just a gal keeping her body healthy and hopefully trim as I’m (r)aging. I find lifestyle changes are the key too – gently coaxing myself towards healthy, sustainable habits. I am writing on this from a humorous, zany angle in my blog – you may enjoy my article “Have a Body Like an Avatar Alien” … I will be posting a couple more food-slimming articles too, and I would like to include a couple of quotes from this blog and point a link to you – let me know if this is OK. Cheers From New Zealand – and as Arnold said, ‘I will be back’!
I love what you said about sustainable habits – the first and most important part of my Catalyst System for Permanent Weight Loss is “don’t do anything to lose weight that you can’t do forever.” That includes food changes, exercise etc. One of the most destructive things I did during my yo-yo years was to go on food binges, then go on an all out food-deprivation/lots-of-exercise bender for a couple weeks, thinking I’d erase the damage. NOT!
Now I know how damaging that approach is to the body, but also to the mental attitude. We cannot erase ANYTHING later – even weight. It takes a lot more work to rebalance later so your idea of staying healthy and slim is excellent. Glad it is one of your priorities. Thanks for commenting!
I love what you said about sustainable habits – the first and most important part of my Catalyst System for Permanent Weight Loss is “don’t do anything to lose weight that you can’t do forever.” That includes food changes, exercise etc. One of the most destructive things I did during my yo-yo years was to go on food binges, then go on an all out food-deprivation/lots-of-exercise bender for a couple weeks, thinking I’d erase the damage. NOT!
Now I know how damaging that approach is to the body, but also to the mental attitude. We cannot erase ANYTHING later – even weight. It takes a lot more work to rebalance later so your idea of staying healthy and slim is excellent. Glad it is one of your priorities. Thanks for commenting!