Giving Up or Gaining?

March 29, 2010 By

The other day Vickie asked:

Do you feel that all you have done is give up things? I have read many a blogger that feels like ‘thing’ (food) after thing has been taken away from them in their weight loss process. I personally feel as if I am moving toward things (healthy food) rather than away from things.

I’ve been asked variations on this question a lot – as I’m sure many of who have lost weight and changed your lifestyles have. It’s a common question and one that I thought would be interesting to talk about.

It’s true that when we are in the process of:

  1. losing weight
  2. changing our relationships to food
  3. improving our fitness
  4. learning healthy eating

That there seems to be a tendency towards taking away things. For me personally, I did give up a lot of unhealthy habits. Most of those habits were related to food choices I made, such as: visiting drive-thru restaurants all the time, eating sweets all day long, relying on high fat snacks to get me through the day, eating huge portions at every meal, secretly hiding food, and much more. So when I look at the bad habits I gave up – Yes, I did give up some things that I previously held dear.

I gave up all the things I listed above and after the initial shock to my system I realized I didn’t feel like I gave up anything important. Rather I was able to see all the things I had gained and all the ways I was moving into a healthier and happier zone.

Of course it was initially difficult to wean myself off my daily dose of chocolate, but once I did I felt better physically than I had in years. And in addition to physically feeling better I also felt emotionally stronger because I wasn’t relying on a chocolate fix to get me through my day. Instead I dealt with emotions that came up and used the healthy tools I had learned to get me through hard times. Exercise, talking it over with friends, and eating healthy foods were all more positive ways to deal with stress than eating a pound of chocolate.

Looking back I see that even though my weight loss took but 14 months, the journey never really ends. To this day I still find myself reaching FOR the ultimate goal of eating right all the time and always doing the right kinds of exercises for my body. I don’t look back and think about all I gave up, but look forward to a healthier, longer life.

Where are you? Do you feel like you have given up too much, or can you see all that you have to gain?  Diane

Filed Under: Choices, emotions, Weight Loss Tagged With: ,

The Importance of Taking Time Out For You

February 9, 2010 By

spa

If you are anything like I am – you are busy. Sometimes I can’t believe how much I have to do on a daily and weekly basis. Running the children places, schooling, cleaning, exercising, negotiating arguments between little boys, keeping up with friends, checking in on family members, etc. It makes me tired just thinking and writing about it!!

Honestly, I find it hard to take some time out for myself. It’s difficult for me to step away from my family life for a minute or an hour and have some down time, but I try hard to do it on occasion.

My very favorite thing to do for myself right now is to sit down and have a cup of tea, read a book, and just be quiet for a little while. After those few minutes of “me” time I find it easier to deal with life’s little stresses. Are there true benefits to taking time out for yourself? And does taking some time for yourself make your weight loss journey easier and more productive?

I think it does.

Spending some time alone for reflection can help you focus on yourself in a positive way. It can reduce your stress level. It can help you appreciate your family and friends a little bit more when you are around them. All that oftentimes adds up to positive attitudes about ourselves – and positive attitudes definitely help us in weight loss.

It can be so easy to focus on all the details of trying to eat healthy, exercise correctly, record our food, keep up with grocery shopping, and make everyone happy that we get stressed out. Taking time for ourselves is important because it gives us a breath of fresh air and invigorates us.

And like we talked about last week, weight loss and the road to improving our health is definitely a long road. Even if there are only a few pounds left to lose, there is a lifetime of maintenance to look forward to and plan for. The times when I had the most struggle with my weight were those times when I was the most stressed out in other areas of my life. And when I remembered to take some time for me, the weight loss journey seemed a little bit easier.

Where are you today? Are  you in need of a few hours (or days) of down time? What’s your favorite thing to do just for you?  Diane

Two things! Don’t forget to enter the giveaway for a Gym In A Bag, and please forgive me if I don’t get around to visit your blogs today – hopefully the plane flight to New York got out amid the snow and I’m in New York now trying not to be too nervous!

Filed Under: emotions, Weight Loss Tagged With: , ,

Are You Suffering From Post-Holiday Letdown?

January 29, 2010 By

calendar

It’s finally over – the major holiday season is past us. For many of us – myself included, avoiding the post-holiday letdown is an important part of our continued success. The whole months of November and December were spent either planning how to avoid forbidden delights, or planning how to include a taste of those delights without going overboard and feeling like we were ruining our hard work. 

It can be stressful.

But now that is all past us and I thought it would be a great time to check in with you and see how you are feeling now – a month after the new year started.

I still remember “making it through” the holiday season WAAAY back in 1997 without a gain. I felt triumphant that I had seemingly conquered my never-ending desire for sugar cookies, cakes, and chocolate. But when January rolled around I almost felt a little bit of a let-down. Sure I was energized because it was the new year – but on the other hand I was a little bit tired of the continual need to watch what I ate and became weary of always “being good.” 

I remember I had a slight gain in January of a pound or two and I think it was because I had been good for so long that I almost let myself slip back into some old habits. Fortunately, the gain went away quickly and I continued on to reach my goal shortly after that time.

So as we continue with the dreary winter weather for those of us in the US, I want to encourage you to use these quiet months to reflect on how far you’ve come, affirm that you are doing the right things for yourself, and commit to yourselves that you can reach your goals. Because you can.

Here’s some ideas to get your started as you reflect how far you’ve come:

  ◊ What can you do now that you couldn’t do six months ago?

◊  If you graph out your weight loss over time is the line trending down?

◊  What are some Non-Scale-Victories (NSV) that you are particularly proud of?

◊   What foods have you discovered are tasty that you might have rejected before?

For me, taking the time to reflect on how far I had come was a great way for me to push through and keep going towards my goal. I realized that January long ago that I could do things like:

◊ Sit on the floor (and GET UP) without practically breaking the chair

◊ Walk 3 miles whereas before I couldn’t walk to my mailbox easily.

◊ Say no to things I previously would have said yes to in excess

◊ Walk into a room without feeling embarrassed by my appearance

◊ Talk with people who I would have previously considered “above me”

◊ Buy clothes in the regular sized departments

So as dreary January draws to a close and February comes into view – I’d encourage you to take stock of where you are and all you have accomplished. Refocus on your goals and commit to sticking with it for the long term.  So how about you? Have have you been feeling since we have closed the door on 2009?  Diane

Filed Under: Appearance, emotions, excuses, Weight Loss Tagged With: , ,

Staying Motivated When No One Notices

January 21, 2010 By

When I was at my highest weight of 305, I never completely gave up dieting. I’d be “content” for a while, but inevitably, I’d try some new eating plan in the hopes of losing weight once and for all. And the happy thing for me was that I could lose weight. I’d pretty easily drop 20 pounds but then I’d just as easily gain that 20 pounds back.

What made me quit so soon? Why wasn’t the scale moving motivation enough for me to keep going with my attempt at weight loss? I don’t have the definitive answer, but one little piece of the puzzle for me was that it was hard to do all that work of eating “better” and not have anyone notice.

Because, at 300 pounds, it took a lot more than 20 pounds lost for someone to notice the change. But I didn’t realize that at the time. Instead, I thought that people should just notice. The funny thing was that even I couldn’t tell a difference so I don’t know why I expected/hoped that my friends would be able to.

So, discouraged by my lack of stellar progress and saddened that all my hard work wasn’t being rewarded, I’d quit yet again. The 20 pounds would come back on and guess what? No one even noticed I had gained weight – not that they said anyway.

How do you feel when no one notices that you’ve lost weight? How do you stay motivated?

Obviously it took a long time for me to stay motivated without verbal acknowledgement from people I knew. I let that (and other things) stop me dead in my weight loss tracks.

The final time I lost weight I went into the whole experience with different eyes. Instead of losing weight and achieving a new level of fitness for praise and acknowledgement from other people, I embarked on my journey for me.

♥ I was the one who needed to get fit.

♥ I was the one making daily choices that would help or hurt my health.

♥ I was the one wearing sized 28 clothes.

♥ I was the one who could change my life and reap the benefits.

I have to be honest though – it was still hard to push through alone. 20 pounds down. No one noticed. 30 pounds. No one said anything.  It wasn’t until I had lost 50 pounds that the first person noticed I had lost some weight, and even then, they weren’t entirely sure. I still remember my good friend saying, “Diane, have you lost some weight?” She asked tentatively, as if she didn’t want to hurt my feelings if I hadn’t.

I wanted to grab her and jump up and down but I was afraid I’d hurt her so I just calmly said, “Yes, I’ve lost some weight.” I didn’t tell her how much and she didn’t ask. It was a still a good feeling to finally have her notice.

But her noticing didn’t increase my motivation to lose weight that last time because her reactions and the reactions of other people weren’t why I was finally lose weight. I was losing weight because I knew I needed to and was ready. I knew that no matter what other people thought – I needed to stay motivated for me.

Where are you on your journey? Do you have a hard time staying motivated if people don’t seem to notice your efforts?  Diane

Filed Under: Choices, emotions Tagged With: , ,

Psychological Costs

December 28, 2009 By

Unhappiness with our appearance

Stress related to unhappiness with our health

Anxiety over social situations

Depression

Someone emailed me recently and asked if I thought there were psychological costs to obesity.  I responded to them privately, but thought that the question was a very interesting one.  Are there psychological effects to obesity? And if so, how can we overcome those feelings. First off, let me say that I believe therapy is a great choice for many people who are dealing with depression, anxiety, or anything else that talking with a professional may help. I know from reading your blogs that quite a few of you have been through therapy for a variety of issues and many found it helpful. John and I went to see a Christian counselor during the third year of our marriage seeking help in dealing with an extended family relationship. That time taught us a lot of techniques to use in dealing with certain situations.

I do believe that there is a psychological cost to obesity. I’m no therapist, but I lived the obese life for a decade, and know that those years took an additional toll on my psyche due to my size. The times that I felt shunned by friends and acquaintances, overlooked by salespeople in the stores, and judged because of my size did bad things to my self esteem. I began taking on for my own other people’s perception of me. Perhaps I really was lazy. Maybe I was deficient in self-control. And perhaps I wasn’t as good as everyone else.

Lies all of these. But lies I grew to believe because I felt myself living up to them. I couldn’t seem to control my weight or my food intake. I didn’t get as much done as my thin friends, and maybe I was a little bit lazy.

I began to experience anxiety in situations I never had before. I dreaded meeting with new people and often times found myself feeling ill over the thought of having to introduce myself to a thinner person. I gave every excuse in the book to avoid parties and often succeeded in staying home. Anxiety became part of who I was. Before I gained 150 pounds I wasn’t an anxious person. I wasn’t the most extroverted person in the room but I didn’t “freak out” when I had to meet new people. So for me, obesity took a psychological toll.

The fatter I got the more unhappy, anxious, and borderline depressed I became. I tried to convince myself that I was the same Diane I always had been, but the mirror showed the truth. The psychological component to obesity is real, and the effects of obesity can be very difficult to overcome.

I still feel a little awkward walking into a room full of strangers. “Will they accept me?” I wonder. I sometimes have to tell myself to get a grip on myself, because there is no reason they wouldn’t. Unfortunately I know all too well that we are often initially judged on our appearance, good or bad.

So for me, the psychological cost of obesity was and is real. It was hard to be obese in a thin world, and my psyche took a hit during those ten years. Fortunately, not everyone who struggles with obesity feels the way I did. I always admire people who are at peace with their inner soul while still working on getting the outer body in better shape. I wish that had been me.

What do you think? Is there a real psychological effect associated with weight problems?  Diane

Filed Under: emotions, excuses, obesity, Weight Loss Tagged With: , ,

Return to Life

December 27, 2009 By

It’s interesting how Christmas and other major holidays thrown our lives out of whack. Regardless of how you celebrate the holidays, it seemss hard to stay focused on our life’s goals. I know it can be for me.

John, the kids and I had a great Christmas. I completely unplugged until this evening, and although I enjoyed the break I did have some curiosity about what everyone else was doing.

Our Christmas was just the nine of us, and the kids had a great time opening their presents. I got some clothes (that I picked out) some handmade jewelry, and some kitchen accessories. It was all fabulous.

As nice as the holiday celebration was, I was almost relieved to get up this morning and not have to think about wrapping, cooking special foods, and whether or not I had managed to mail all my Christmas cards. It was nice to get up and walk, hit some early bird specials with John, come home, and get the house straightened up.

Do you ever wish that the holidays weren’t so much about the food? Even after all these years of maintenance I still find myself thinking about the Christmas meals, the desserts, the cookie exchanges, etc. Wouldn’t it be easier if it were just about the giving of gifts and the time spent with family and friends? In my mind it would be easier, but then it probably wouldn’t feel like Christmas. The food just comes with it, but after the food, life returns.

I used to feel that if holidays didn’t happen my weight loss journey would be easier. After all, I almost always put off trying to begin yet another diet because of upcoming holiday, rather it was Valentine’s Day or Memorial Day! Holidays got in the way of my weight loss. But as I finally lost the 150 pounds I realized I was wrong. Holidays didn’t get in the way of my weight loss, because holidays were real life. They continually happen year after year after year. And I needed to learn to deal with them as part of real life.

Real life isn’t always August (with no holiday), instead real life includes all the many celebrations of life. As I lost my weight I carefully thought about each holiday and planned accordingly. I didn’t always lose a pound or two over the holiday, but I generally didn’t gain. I tried to keep doing what I had been doing, but allowed myself the special indulgence. That’s real life.

Now, 12 years later, although holidays may be easier without the food, real life includes the food. And I love it! Weight loss journeys are practice for real life. Wherever you are in your journey, don’t get discouraged over the past holiday, or upcoming holidays. Instead just think of it as a practice session for real life maintenance. Because after all, that’s what all this hard work is all about! Real life.  Are you looking forward to the rest of your “real life?”  Diane

Filed Under: emotions, Holidays, obesity Tagged With: , ,

Emotions Revisited

December 3, 2009 By

NewMe asked this question the other week:

Diane, your posts are incredibly honest and truthful, but I’d be interested in hearing more about how you overcame what was clearly a huge (pardon the pun) problem with emotional eating. What did you do from a psychological point of view to address your emotional need for food? It seems to me that without getting at the psychological reasons for your overeating, you wouldn’t have been able to repress your clearly disordered behaviour and get on a positive track food-wise.

I can definitely pardon the well placed pun for such an important question. NewMe brings up the most common question those who are on their own journey ask. “What about emotions?” She is 100% right. Until we have some sort of victory over the emotional aspects of our relationship with food it will be extremely difficult, if not impossible to lose weight and keep it off indefinitely.

We’ve all seen it happen. A friend or family members gets completely on board with a particular weight loss program and sticks with it. They reach their goal weight and are “over the moon.” But just as rapidly as the weight came off, it slowly begins to come back on. Often times he/she ends up gaining more than they lost in the first place. What happened?

I don’t know the answer in every case, but in many cases I believe it’s because they had not dealt adequately with the reasons they ended up overweight in the beginning. Obviously I’m excluding folks who have medical conditions, etc. from this scenario. But for the average person, there are some emotional issues with food.

For me, the emotions started with a controlling, domineering family. I ate to have something that was all mine. No one could stop me from putting food in my mouth when they weren’t around. In high school and college it wasn’t a tragedy to eat too much because I had a young metabolism and was fairly active. But later in my early adulthood the problem with eating spiraled out of control. And thus did my weight.

After trying everything under the sun to lose weight with no success, I reached the point where I was emotionally ready. I don’t think I did any prep work before that moment, but I certainly had a lot of emotional issues to deal with from that point on. Things like:

♦ Why did I eat in secret?

♦What drove me to binge?

♦Why did I have no control over my choices?

♦What void was I trying to fill?

It would take a book for me to answer those questions here, but suffice it to say that I dealt with each of those issues and more. One of the first things I did was keep an emotions journal. For several weeks after I began my journey I wrote down the emotions I was feeling whenever I ate, whether good emotions or bad. I realized that for me, there was an emotion almost every time. I rarely wanted to eat because I was truly hungry, but rather because I was sad, happy, bored, stressed, comfortable, content, upset, mad, excited, etc. This shouldn’t have been surprising to me, but it was.

Then, after realizing that the majority of my food was eaten based on emotion, I took some steps to separate the emotions out. I still felt the emotions, but instead of eating in response to every emotion I really tried to examine what I was feeling and what I could do to satisfy that feeling without eating. This was not easy. Not easy.

And it didn’t happen overnight. There were many, many times along that weight loss year where I fell off the wagon, but I quickly got back on track by reminding myself of some of those Life Goals I talked about yesterday.

I’d love to know how you are working through the emotional part of your journey. Have you found a strategy that keeps you from eating based solely on emotion? To this day, I still sometimes find myself standing in the pantry after an upsetting phone call. But now I tell myself, “Diane, get out of the stinkin’ pantry and deal with the problem.” Eating because of the phone call wouldn’t do anything except make me mad at myself.  Diane

Filed Under: Choices, emotions Tagged With: , , ,

Prepare Mentally

November 24, 2009 By

Yesterday I gave you a couple of lower fat/calorie recipes for the upcoming holiday. Whether or not you make and eat lower fat desserts for Thanksgiving, I want to encourage you to mentally prepare yourself for the upcoming holiday and beyond.  Mental preparation is so important in this journey towards better health and fitness, and now is not the time to slack off!

Speaking from personal experience, the holidays aren’t always completely full of gladness and joy. For many of us, there are events from our past that cause us to have some sad and painful memories during the holidays. I think it’s important to mentally prepare yourself for all the aspects of the upcoming events, from the food to the emotions. I failed to do this for many years, and instead, found myself feeling blue and on edge sometimes. (Not that I don’t get that way other times of the year as well!) But during the holiday season, I expected myself to be happy, be full of frivolity, and be upbeat! But sometimes I wasn’t and it made me mad. Then I’d turn to food for comfort.

Emotional issues were a part of my becoming obese, and learning how to handle some of those emotions that came my way during the holidays was an important part of my journey. I had to realize that I didn’t have to be Miss Merry Sunshine every minute, and that feeling some sadness over past hurts was okay, and even healthy! Furthermore I discovered that sharing those feelings with other people was healing, not hurtful.

I never blame my obesity on anything other than my own choices, but I know there were circumstances from my life that I allowed to affect my food choices. For some reason, the holidays bring back a lot of those memories, and I had to make a conscious effort to feel the memory, but not allow the memory to push me into eating out of control. It took some conscious efforts of telling myself, “No, I do not NEED chocolate chips right now. What I need is some time with John.” Each time I made a good choice and didn’t fall apart was a victory.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, for some people, the holidays are so full of joy and wonderful memories of  being surrounded by family and friends that they overeat from happiness! A dear lady in my recent weight loss class talked about this. She shared how her memories of the holidays were so positive that she ate too much because of the good feelings surrounding food and family. Several other ladies in my class seconded her observation, and I saw where those kinds of positive memories would be as important to prepare for as sad emotions.

We talk a lot in weight loss land about preparation of meals, scheduling our exercise, and planning ahead for social situations. I think it’s just as important to mentally prepare yourself for the emotions that may surface during the holiday season. After all, many of us who have fought the battle with weight have some emotional attachments to food that could be improved upon. How well prepared are you emotionally for the holiday season? Or do you not feel that this is a valid point? Either way, I’d love to hear your thoughts.  Diane

Filed Under: emotions, Holidays, Weight Loss Tagged With: , ,

The Hunger Excuse

November 19, 2009 By

cheezitsIf you had asked me how often I was hungry when I was an obese, 300 pound, size 28 woman I would have said, “ALL THE TIME!” Because I thought I felt hunger all day long. It seemed to me that from the time I woke in the morning to the time I went to bed at night all I could think about was food.

There were many a day where I started eating before breakfast with a little brownie or two, had some sort of sweet breakfast, ate a snack or two, or three; then had a McDonald’s Double Cheeseburger, large fries (or two) and a diet coke for lunch. A few more snacking episodes happened between 1:00 and 5:00 p.m. then I went off somewhere for dinner, and back home later to enjoy yet another healthy, filling snack of chips, cheese, and ice cream. Why did I eat so much? I was hungry.

Or so I said. But I wasn’t that hungry. I didn’t need 4000 calories a day to keep me healthy, nor did those 4000 calories sustain my health or move me anywhere near where I wanted to be.

I had fallen into the trap of false hunger. I was eating when I wasn’t really physically hungry, and did so by using the “hunger excuse.” Are you familiar with that excuse? I need these crackers because I’m starving. I “need” this extra biscuit because I’m hungry.  I “need” this King Sized Hershey bar because I’ve had a bad day. I did this all day long for years. I used the hunger excuse instead of really looking behind my excuse at the reason for my over-eating. For me, learning to disassociate myself from the excuses and work on the behind-the-scenes emotions was difficult. But as hard as it was, staying in the place where I had landed would have been harder.

Hunger is an important signal. It’s wise to learn the difference between the feeling of true physical hunger and the feeling of the hunger excuse. Here’s some things that I did when I was learning to eat because I truly needed food and how I learned to make a different choice when what I needed wasn’t food, but rather another type of comfort.

1.  Gave myself permission to “feel” the emotions of the moment. This may sound strange, but I found that I often turned to food when I was upset. So by telling myself, “Yes, that situation is bad, but you don’t need to eat through it.” I was able to learn to disassociate the hunger excuses I was trying to use with the emotion of the desire to eat.

2. Waited before I ate between meals. I literally ate all day long. If I started to graze mindlessly between meals I put the timer on for 15 minutes and made myself wait. I really thought about whether I was really hungry or not. If I was, then I had something healthy.

3. Carefully planned my food.  Before I started to get healthy, when the feeling of hunger struck I just ate. Anything. Instead of eating just anything, I began planning for snacks, meals, and even treats. It helped remind me to eat because I needed to eat, and not because I thought I should.

I pulled out the hunger excuse as a reason to fill any emotions I didn’t like with food. You may use the hunger excuse in a different way, or if you are lucky, this isn’t even a problem for you. But in my experience, most of us who are weight challenged often struggle with eating when we are not really hungry.

Do you relate to the “hunger excuse?” How have you overcome it?  Diane

Filed Under: Choices, cooking, emotions, excuses Tagged With: , , ,

Don’t Get Up

November 18, 2009 By

I tried never to get up. It was hard to move my 300 pound body from the comfy couch cushions. I had to brace myself against the arm of the chair, get my legs just right, and haul myself up. It wasn’t easy. And if I happened to be on the floor, well, just don’t try and watch me get up.

The bigger I got the less I moved. It’s such a shame that that’s what happens to many of us who struggle with our weight. I got bigger, my physical activity became smaller and could be measured in 100′s of steps a day rather than the 1000′s of steps I can measure it in now.

As I moved from average sized to morbidly obese I made real, concerted efforts to move less. In fact, I planned my day around moving less. Instead of embracing those rare moments where I had the opportunity to move, I avoided them. I remember one day, when my oldest was in Kindergarten, and her teacher asked me to supervise a field trip. (This was before we started homeschooling.) I declined, making up an excuse about a conflict. Okay, I didn’t just decline, I lied. Why? I didn’t want to go to the outdoor museum and walk around. I was worried I would be too tired so I stayed home and heard all about her trip when I picked her up from school. I still remember feeling sorry for myself that I couldn’t go.

Looking back I see that yes, I should have felt sorry. Not sorry for myself because I couldn’t physically go, but sorry that I didn’t try. I stopped trying to move around and stayed down as much as I could. And by doing so I missed out on some really wonderful opportunities to make memories with my family. I wish things had been different.

I remember sitting at a social event. And that’s all I did was sit. Other moms and dads were up and about, interacting with each other and their children, but I just sat. And I’m embarrassed to say it, but I often had a plate of food balanced on my lap. The girls would come running over, “Mommy, come watch me go down the slide.” I’d say, “I can see you from here.” I didn’t want to get up.

At home I carefully planned my morning chores. I did what needed to be done in the morning, so when the girls took their naps I could sit on the couch with some chocolate, chips, and crackers watching television shows. I loved my remote control and cordless phone. Two more easy to sit conveniences I embraced. From the time they napped to the time they woke up I only got up if I needed some more food or had to use the restroom. No extra energy expended.

I honestly thought that if I moved more I’d be more tired. Guess what? I was 100% wrong.

When I started down the healthy path I did start to exercise, get up off the couch, and move my body. And you know what happened? Even at a morbidly obese 275 pounds I had more energy. Sure I was tired, but I no longer experienced the kind of tiredness I had in the past. I had finally learned to get up and get moving. Even though I couldn’t move fast or far, just moving at all was a victory.

What got you up and moving? Was it a sudden realization that you were sitting too much, or was there a gradual change in your attitude? Oh, and if you are still sitting?! Try getting up – you’ll be surprised at how much better you feel!!  Diane

Filed Under: Choices, emotions, Exercise Tagged With: , , ,
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