Just this morning I blogged about how discouraging weight loss can be because its seems to take forever. Of course its easier to just sit and stuff my face and gain weight but is that the life I want to live....definitely not. Noone ever said weight loss was going to be easy and yes I whine and complain about not being able to eat whatever I want and about having to exercise everyday but in the long run I know this is whats best for me.
I have had to overcome emotionally eating, from eating when I'm happy to celebrate to eating when I'm sad to make the pain go away. I use to run to food when someone made me mad, thinking in my twisted mind that I was somehow punishing them for hurting me when the only person I was really punishing was myself. Now when someone hurts me I use that hurt as my strength, I refuse to let that person win twice. I turn to exercise to get out my frustrations. I use to think of exercise as torture but now I see it as my time, time to meditate, calm down and think things out.
I use to think of food as a reward. If I had a hard day then I believed going out to dinner was a way of rewarding myself but not anymore. My reward now for a hard day is to get me time to exercise. I use to think of food as the center of my life, always thinking what my next meal was going to be. Now food is secondary in my life, its what I need to keep my body energized and healthy. I can do without the chocolate cake, cookies and ice cream, I don't need those things to survive and if I have a craving I can satisfy it with one bite not the whole cake, box of cookies or container of ice cream.
This time of the year is the worst for most people because of so many celebrations which usually include food. Yes I worry that I'm not going to have the willpower to resist all the goodies but so far I have been very successfully at events like this. The trick is to plan ahead and know that you don't have to eat to have fun. I went to my nephews birthday party last weekend and I knew what I was going to eat ahead of time and thats what I had. I also spent my time taking pictures, riding horses and other fun stuff going on at the party. Enjoy the people you are spending time with instead of focusing on the food. Tell yourself you can do it.
I don't have very much support from anyone around me so I'm pretty much in this weight loss journey by myself. Normally this would mean failure for me because I'm very codependent but not this time. Noone can lose this weight for me and I don't need anyone elses approval, I'm doing this for me. The people that are negative about my weight loss have no idea that their negativity is my greatest strength. I have found a way to turn their negativity around and use it as one of my greatest motivations.
If you tell yourself your going to fail then thats exactly what you are going to do. Change your negatives into positives and even if it doesn't seem to make any difference at first just keep telling yourself the same thing over and over again eventually you will change your thinking to. Everything we have learned is about habit. If you can learn the bad habit of overeating then you can relearn the good habit of healthy eating, it just takes time.
Great post Christina. It's inspiring that you have found a way to take any negativity and turn it around for you. Stay positive, I know you can succeed. I agree with your last statement about us needing to learn the good habit of healthy eating. It's a process and it takes time, the key is to keep studying and learning from and about all the choices we make.
ReplyDeleteYou're not alone. We're in this together.
No candy in my house. We don't get but maybe one trick-or-treater, usually none. This is the first year w/o candy and it will not be missed (that much).
Happy Halloween.
I wrote in my blog last week about a rough day I had and just wanted to eat a whole pack of Oreos by myself. Instead of giving into those negative thoughts I went and worked out after work. And felt much better than I would have if I would have eaten Oreos. This journey is all mental. You have to be in the right mentality in order to lose weight, otherwise, the lbs won't come off. Like PP said above, we're in this together. You've got a great support system in the blogging world! :-)
ReplyDeleteThanks Tammy, you are right it does take time and even if you can't change everything at one time just making one better choice each day can add up to alot of weight lost.
ReplyDeleteWhitney its definitely a mental battle and I've never felt as positive about succeeding as I have since I started blogging and I've gotten so much support from everyone on here.