Progress Is Made When. . .

June 15, 2010 By

No matter where you are in your journey, you have already made progress. If you have been working on getting healthier for just one week you have made some progress. You may not have lost any weight yet, but you’ve made progress just by taking the first step towards working on your health.

I worked with a woman once who needed to lose over 200 pounds. She turned to me because her doctor kept recommending gastric bypass surgery for her and that wasn’t a choice she wanted to make. So she and I met on a regular basis and we worked on her eating and lifestyle habits one at a time. I still remember when she lost her first 50 pounds. She was thrilled beyond words, but she couldn’t tell she had lost any weight, and quite honestly, neither could I.

To keep her from getting frustrated we sat down at made a list of all the progress she had made that other people could not see. I think it’s important to think of our progress not solely in terms of the number on the scale, but in relation to where we used to be. On my own personal journey to go from weight loss failure to weight loss success, I often wrote down all the different areas in which I had progressed. I could see that I was losing weight, but I also knew in my heart that I was changing from the inside out.

Here are three things I vividly remember from my weight loss days:

1. I knew I was making progress when I was able to say no to a dessert at a friend’s house and not feel sad afterwards.

2. I knew I was making progress when I could fit in a chair and get out without bringing the chair up still attached to my behind.

3. I knew I was making progress when I could walk around my neighborhood streets without feeling like I needed to call 911 to get home.

I want to encourage you to look for all those ways that you are making progress. It doesn’t matter if you are at the beginning, middle or end of your journey. We are always changing, evolving and growing. How do you finish this sentence?

I know I’m making progress when. . .         Diane

Filed Under: goal setting, obesity, Weight Loss Tagged With: ,

Today Would You Please Thank A Friend?

April 19, 2010 By

I’ve talked before about friends who aren’t supportive of weight loss efforts, and how relationships can change for the worst after one person in the relationship makes a change in their appearance and lifestyle.

I realized that although that can be reality, there is another type of friend that I wanted to applaud, and that’s the friend who stays true to the relationship even in the midst of turmoil.

I had a friend like that during my time of obesity. I had a friend who stuck with me through weight gain, pregnancy, more weight gain, and finally weight loss. She saw me on both sides of my weight journey and her attitude and opinion of me never wavered. Her name is Joy. (She is on the far right in case you were wondering. I seemed to always put bows on my head when I was heavy. I don’t know why.)

I appreciated her support and friendship more than she will ever know. She never made me feel bad when I needed to sit down at the mall. She never said anything about my homemade jumpers, and was just my friend.

When I started losing weight she was one of the biggest cheerleaders I had. She noticed every new item of clothing I wore and even complimented me on my new healthier food choices. When we went out to eat she never encouraged me to eat more than I wanted to eat, rather she and I ate similarly (for a change!)

It’s sometimes tempting for me to focus on the friends who weren’t nice and said mean things – or said nothing at all to the exclusion of applauding those friends who were consistently there and unchanging.

I think it’s so important to surround ourselves with people who are positive and life affirming. It’s easy to get sucked into the vortex of unhealthy living when all your friends are “doing it” too. Supportive people who genuinely care for you and don’t judge you regardless of your size are treasures.

Am I recommending you ditch your unsupportive friends? Not necessarily, although they may ditch themselves. But rather I would like to encourage you to use this day as:

That’s right – email, call, or mail a letter to a friend of yours who is supportive of you in your life journey. They will be glad you did, and so will you! 

Who is your most supportive friend? Will you tell them thanks?  Diane

By the way – I did email Joy and tell her thank you!

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

Healing the Past

April 6, 2010 By

Someone once asked me if weight loss was mainly a physical issue or an emotional issue. This is how I answered her question. I said:

In the ideal world, weight loss is mainly about taking in less calories than you burn. However, I’ve haven’t met too many people who don’t have a lot of emotional feelings surrounding food. So in my humble opinion, successful weight loss often requires us to conquer the emotions while at the same time working on improving what and how we eat.

Agree or disagree?

For many of us, the experiences we have had in the past influence our reactions to food. I know it has for me. Without going into too many details, there were some situations that happened during my childhood that were less than ideal. I learned at a young age that food didn’t talk back to me, didn’t judge me, and seemed to make me feel better. So I indulged whenever I could, and overindulged the older I got.

And I gained massive amounts of weight as a result. I gained 150 pounds in about 8 years.

Healing the past isn’t easy, and often requires the assistance of a professional, or perhaps a trusted confidante. A lot of people ask me if I sought counseling during my obese years to help me on the right path and I didn’t. Not that I think anything is wrong with counseling, (because I do NOT) but quite frankly, it wasn’t something we could afford at the time had I wanted to avail myself of it.

So how did I work through some of those complicated issues that helped me gain weight?

  1. I had to be 100% honest with myself that there were some issues in the first place, and worth through my feelings surround them.
  2. I had to allow myself experience the emotions that were associated with the emotions
  3. I learned that just because I knew what the emotions were, I still needed to learn not to eat based on those emotions.
  4. When I messed up I gave myself a break, and didn’t beat myself up.
  5. I finally understood it wasn’t a quick fix. Losing weight wasn’t going to change the past, but I could heal and move past the past while at the same time losing weight.

I wanted to say that I haven’t “healed” the past completely, but rather I’ve worked through it and been able to acknowledge it without allowing the past to rule my emotions and unduly influence my choices.

What do you think? Is healing and/or acknowledging past hurts a part of the weight loss journey for some people?  Diane

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

Are You Afraid to Succeed?

March 31, 2010 By

For better or worse, fear is a part of our emotional make-up. If someone tells you they are never afraid they may be stretching the truth.

I’ll raise my hand right now and admit to being a worrier by nature. I work hard not to worry about things I can’t control, but it does take work. I also have certain fears – mostly surrounding my children and their safety! And I work on handling those fears appropriately as well.

Weight loss seems pretty straight forward. You work hard at your eating, exercising regularly, and before long you start to see some success. And then sometimes an unexpected emotion pushes to the forefront of your psyche.

Fear.

And sometimes that fear is part of the reason why we stop trying to improve our health. Quite frankly, I experienced this several times during my obese years.

Over the years, there were several weight loss attempts I made where I actually lost a few pounds. But long before I reached my goal I quit trying and within all the complex emotions that led me to quit, part of the emotion I experienced was fear.

Fear of failure, and yes, fear of success.

I didn’t want to have to face my friends again trying to explain why I had failed at dieting again and that was fear of failure.

I was fearful of what my life would look like if I actually lost all my weight and changed my life, and that was fear of success. It seems ridiculous doesn’t it? Fear of success? But it’s what I felt.

I’m still not sure what I was afraid might happen if I lost 150 pounds. Was I afraid of the attention I might receive? Was I afraid that more might be expected from me? Or was I afraid I wouldn’t be able to maintain my weight loss? Looking back all these years later I realize it was a combination of the three, but probably the fear of failing in maintenance was strongest.

So instead of working through the fear I would quit.

I’d like to encourage you to not let the fear or failure or success stop you from continuing on your quest to get healthy. Putting my fears aside wasn’t easy, but it was an important step in my journey.

Have you ever felt afraid of success? How do you combat that fear and keep going? Diane

Filed Under: emotions, Weight Loss Tagged With:

Fallouts of Weight Loss

March 30, 2010 By

I talked yesterday (3/29) about the fact that I didn’t feel as though I was losing things while I went from 300 pounds to 146 pounds, rather I felt as though I was gaining health, fitness, and improving my self-esteem.

In the midst of all the good things that happened there were some unfortunate consequences, or “fall-out” from my weight loss success. There was the loss of my best friend of over 10 years. Our relationship didn’t survive my weight loss success. She said mean things to me so often that I finally believed she didn’t want to be my friend at all. There were times where I felt isolated in social situations where fattening food was all that was offered. When I refused to eat any goopy cake or store bought cookies my friends made fun of me.

Even my sweet husband was confused at first when I insisted on exercising every day. It took him some time to realize that I wasn’t taking any time away from the family, but rather was able to give more time and energy to the family because I felt so much better about myself.

Roy, at Contemplative Fitness wrote this in the comment section last week. He talks about sabotage in his comment, but at the end of his comment he made a statement that stopped me in my tracks.

Nearly all people I have helped lose 50+ ended up leaving their relationship within a year of the weight coming off.

It stopped me in my tracks because that wasn’t my personal experience. John and I came through my weight loss unscathed. But what of Roy’s experience in training and helping people get fit and healthy?

It made me want to explore this further, and who better to ask their experiences then you all.

I have known several people who have lost a substantial amount of weight. Some have had struggles in their relationships and some haven’t. I thought about some of the reasons why relationships may struggle when someone drastically changes their appearance and lifestyle. The two words that came into my mind were expectations and insecurity.

Expectations that a relationship will always continue in a certain manner, including appearance, habits, and life goals.

Insecurity that comes about after those expectations aren’t met.

As you travel this journey have you given any thought to your relationships? My hope for you is that your relationships, both friendships and more, will survive your journey to health unscathed and stronger. Any thoughts on how to help this happen, or is there nothing that can be done?  Diane

Filed Under: 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: , ,

Do You Have A Food Friend?

December 30, 2009 By

So do you? Have a food friend I mean? Is there someone in your life with whom you enjoy eating food? Or was there someone you enjoyed eating with before you started on your journey to get and stay healthy?

I had a food friend during my obese years. Actually I had several of them. The funny thing is – they weren’t weight challenged like I was. No – they were 100% average sized. But boy did they love to eat and cook!

I had one friend who loved to eat fast food at all times of the day and night. We might be out running errands together, and all it took was for one of us to suggest, “Hey, do you want to run through and get a sandwich?” And off we went. I wasn’t embarrassed to eat in front of her because she was doing it too. I felt so comfortable eating with her that I’d often order a milk shake and a dessert to go with my triple Cheeseburger, large fries, and diet coke.

She and I also enjoyed grabbing cookies and Cinnabon muffins at the mall and eating them at the food court tables. I felt accepted and affirmed. When we were shopping together I often felt as though she was encouraging me to eat, and if she was eating that kind of food then it was probably okay for me to eat it too. But unlike me, my food friend probably didn’t go home and eat a dozen cookies when no one was looking.

As I began losing weight, my friend still wanted to eat junk with me. But I didn’t want to eat that kind of food anymore. It became a little bit awkward. We’d be out somewhere and she’d suggest grabbing a half a dozen cookies from the cookie shop to split, and when I said that she could, but I was going to pass, she got a little miffed. She’d say, “One or two cookies isn’t going to make any difference Diane.” I’d say, “I know, but I just don’t want them right now.”

When we were at her house for dinner similar snide comments were made about the amount of food I was eating. Or sometimes I felt as though she purposefully prepared foods she knew I loved just to tempt me. She’d be relentless in offering me chocolate chocolate cookies and barely take no for an answer. But I did refuse her over and over again. It got to be a little bit amusing to me after a while. I was changing from the inside out and she was obviously uncomfortable with it.

I think she thought that if I wasn’t eating chocolate chocolate cookies anymore than perhaps she shouldn’t either. I never told her that, but that was most likely her thought process. In case you are wondering, this is a different friend than the one who made mean, snide comments to me as I was losing my weight. This particular friend really just had a really hard time with my change in eating habits. The funny thing is, I think that she was genuinely happy for me as I lost weight, but she missed the Diane who would eat with her at all times of the day and night. Kinda like her “drinking buddy” had gone cold turkey.

I never confronted her about it, but did make a few jokes now and then. They seemed to sail right over her head, although after I had gotten down to my goal weight she did stop offering me food and trying to get me to “fall off the wagon” at the mall! We stayed friends unlike my other girlfriend. I suppose she just needed time to readjust her expectations of who I was and who I was going to be from there on out.

Is there someone in your life who is a food friend? How are they handling the change in your food choices and attitude towards life?  Diane

Filed Under: Appearance, Choices, Weight Loss 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: , ,

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: , , ,
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