What’s Your Mantra?

December 7, 2009 By

When I teach my weight loss classes one of the exercises we work through is developing our own personal mantras. After I lost all my weight I realized that I had my own mantra: Never Go Back. Even after all these years, that mantra is always somewhere in my mind. Choices I make each day are often filtered through that saying of Never Go Back. Do I want that cookie? Maybe. But will it keep me on course and help me to never return to the obese life. Do I really want to sleep in or do I want to get up and exercise? Well, I may want to sleep in, but I want to “never go back” more, so nine times out of ten I get up and exercise. I’m never sorry when I do.

The other day when I was killing time waiting for my fourth child to finish his violin lesson I was on Twitter. If you aren’t on Twitter it is a lot of fun. I don’t do it much, but there are times when I get on there and watch/participate in the conversation. On this day I tweeted, “Do you have a personal mantra? Mine is “Never Go Back.”

I got a lot of really good responses! Here are some of them: (By the way, to follow these people on Twitter just type in www.twitter.com/**** , replacing the *** with their user name.) If you’d like to follow me it’s www.twitter.com/fittothefinish . (I would have linked them all myself, but it truly would have taken forever, so please forgive!)

healthyeveryday healthyeveryday  Make the Effort!   

Julianne Pohl Pubsgal  “Mongo only pawn in game of life.”

 Hilary tinyglow    My current mantra is pretty basic: “Don’t give up.”

Jack Sh*t JackSht  Always finish what you…

 Maria Sparks realfitmama Will doing this make my daughter’s proud?

  Samantha Kennedy sammiekennedy I can make anything I dream a reality! (and it works)

  stepfanie romine stepfanie  “Be brave. Take risks. Nothing can substitute experience.”

Booty Camp Fitness BootyCampFit You don’t give up at the end, you go harder

ThenHeatherSaid ThenHeatherSaid I am the master of every situation!!

 Trim The Fat Trim_The_Fat  I’ve been living by Progress Not Perfection! My latest, though, is Every Good Choice Counts :)  

 Jess trulyjess Don’t EVER give up!

 carla birnberg MizFitOnline I am my own superhero 

 Pam ThinnerLobster  “A successful beginning will have no ending”

 Christie O. christieo Love that! Mine’s Strength,Focus,Discipline

CarrotsNCake CarrotsNCake  Good things happen to people who work hard.

Gena Hamshaw choosingraw The unexamined life is not worth living.

 Anne P fANNEtasticfood Go hard or walk home!!!

Susan BalanceSusan  “To the stars on the wings of a pig” (ie anything is possible)

Caitlin CaitlinHTP Pain is temporary, quitting is forever.

Jaime balanceblog Mine is Keep it Real.

As I’ve told you, mine is NEVER GO BACK! I never want to go back to living in fear of breaking chairs, feeling isolated from the world, and watching my health deteriorate at a rapid pace. I never want to live like that again.

So, here’s the question of the day! What’s your personal mantra? Please share.  Diane

Filed Under: Choices, goal setting 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: , , ,

Where Is Your Focus?

December 2, 2009 By

Where's Your Focus?Sometimes when my children are drifting off while we are working on a school subject I jokingly tell them, “Focus people!” We all laugh and try to focus on the task at hand. Focusing on school is an important part of their future success. If they don’t learn their math, grammar, and history now then they will have to learn it later. And speaking from personal experience, Trigonometry is hard to relearn at my age! So learning to focus on important things early is of great benefit.

It’s funny because I realize looking back on my ten years of obesity that I was very much focused on my weight. How much did the scale read that day? 289 pounds? I’d vow to do something about my weight that minute, but had lost my focus by about 9:30 a.m. and was right back in the pantry eating cookies and chips by the handful. The next day I’d turn the focus again to my weight on the scale, vow to do better, and fail.

Where did I go wrong all those years? I could focus on the children’s education, our finances, and decorating the house, but couldn’t seem to find it in myself to focus on what was bothering me so much. I fretted about it, cried over my inability to fit into chairs, and fumed when I was left out of friend’s plans. To no avail.

Looking back, I realize that when I focused on some goals for myself rather than just the number, things began to turn around. Yes, I still wanted to weigh less than 300 pounds, but I realized there were also other things I wanted to do with my life that weren’t all about weight. Here were some of my life goals that I felt my weight was getting in the way of achieving!

♦ Have more children

♦ Feel like an attractive young mom rather than a big water buffalo (sorry, it’s really how I felt!)

♦ Contribute to the family income

♦ Protect my long term health as much as I could

♦ Have enough energy for life

♦ Quit thinking only of myself

I know they aren’t earth shattering goals like: Change the world, Bring about world peace, or Minister to the nations, but in my own way they were important life goals to me. Once I took the focus solely off my weight and shifted my focus to include the bigger picture, I started to experience some success. I looked at each day as an opportunity to advance my life goals while at the same time achieving a greater level of fitness. That shifting focus helped me emotionally much more than sitting on the couch day after day feeling like a big, fat failure.

What is your focus? Do you think that focusing on some life goals rather than just weight goals helps you have success?  Have you set some life goals for yourself that you’d be willing to share?  Diane

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

The Hayride

November 3, 2009 By

At 300 pounds I didn’t really fit into social situations very well. I spilled over chairs. Got stuck in restaurant booths, and sat on the sidelines of life. As active members of our church John and I were involved in an adult class. Most of the other couples in our class had small children and we would often get together and celebrate holidays and events.

Getting left behind at one of those events made me so sad that I had to go to the car and have a little cry.

The season was fall. It was Florida so I can’t really say that the leaves were turning on the trees, but at least it wasn’t 90 degrees right then. The class decided that it would be a lot of fun to go to a church member’s farm and have a cookout and a hayride. My fat person antenne immediately went up. Hayride. I didn’t do hayrides. It wasn’t that I was allergic to the hay, or afraid I’d fall out. No, I knew I wouldn’t be able to haul my 300 pound self up into the wagon. No stinkin’ way.

So I tried everything I could to get out of going. I made up scary scenarios. I tried convincing John to go out of town. I said I didn’t have the right clothes (this was true.) But no go. The girls were thrilled to go on a hayride and cook hotdogs over the fire and mom was going with them.

So off we went. It was just as I expected. Unfcomfortable standing around trying to look like I wasn’t about ready to crush the hay bale I was sitting on. Laughing as yet another marshmallow fell into the fire, saying, “Well, I probably didn’t need that smore anyway.” But the worst part came when everyone piled into the wagon and left me standing there holding up the fence post. I volunteered to stay behind and clean up a bit because I really “didn’t like the smell of hay.”

John and my friends looked at me when I uttered those words. They must have known the truth but thankfully no one said anything. The wagon left me behind and I had to flee to the car to have a little cry. Once I fixed my make-up and got back to the cookout site I ate three bars of chocolate that someone had left sitting on a bale of hay. I was so sad.

Fast forward 3 years. Same scenario with one big difference. I had gone from 300 pounds to about 180 pounds. I had lost a whole person and couldn’t wait for the fall hayride and cookout. This time there was no stopping me. I was going to go on that hayride.

The wagon pulled up and I hopped up the high step with ease. I held onto the girls and our whole family enjoyed riding around the man’s farm. I felt like a new person. I had cute clothes on. I felt svelte. I felt energetic. I felt alive.

Not Left Behind!

It may sound like a trite experience to those of you who haven’t experienced extreme obesity, but believe me it wasn’t. Even though that hayride was a long time ago, it was one of those non-scale victories I’ll never, ever forget.

Have you had a good non-scale victory lately? Sometimes those non-scale victories are sweeter than the scale variety. They last longer and are indelibly seared on our memories.  Diane

Filed Under: goal setting, self esteem Tagged With: , ,

From the Husband

November 2, 2009 By

Diane & John

Hi!  I’m John, Diane’s husband, and I have the honor of being Diane’s first guest blogger. 

I like the name of Diane’s website and upcoming book, Fit to the Finish, because it is very descriptive of her.  One of the things I admire about Diane is her ability to finish what she starts, especially since I am a chronic procrastinator.  No matter what she sets her mind to, she stays on task until it is done.  Diane never dabbles in anything–she masters it.  Over the years I have seen her learn quilting, scrapbooking, photography, refinishing and upholstering furniture, and of course blogging.  But the one thing she could not seem to master was weight loss.

Early in our marriage, when the pounds began to mysteriously appear, Diane tried different diets.  Unfortunately, she was not able to stick with anything.  The big meals, desserts, and snacks continued unabated—I should know, I was right there with her stuffing my own face!  But honestly, I always thought of her weight gain as temporary, because I knew it was something that bothered her a lot.The extra weight didn’t change my feelings for Diane at all.  To me she was the same wonderful woman I married, but I knew all  the extra weight was having a deep impact on her self-esteem.  Diane had always cared about how she looked and enjoyed being on the go.  But when she became heavy, she was less concerned about her appearance and she limited her activities, often sitting on the sidelines or staying home.  As her clothing size increased, the selection of clothing options decreased, and she had to resort to making her own clothes.  To save money, she would buy clearance fabric (never the most attractive colors or prints).  I remember one jumper she made that was purple and blue with a fish pattern (yes, it was as bad as you are picturing).  She had spilled bleach on it and ruined it.  A few days later, I met her and the kids for lunch at the mall and she was wearing it!  I asked her why and she said, “It’s fine.  Besides, no one looks at me anyway.”

When the scale announced that Diane had hit over 300 lbs., she set her will to doing what it took to lose weight.  Unhealthy or dangerous foods were banished from our house (darn).  To my dismay, the Oreos, Breyers ice cream, and chips were gone.  It was as if she had put a lock on her mouth.  She could not be enticed to deviate from her plan.  Sometimes I tried to get her to share my guilt in some gluttonous indulgences, but to no avail.  Once, at a child’s birthday party, the mother offered us a big slice of cake with the requisite mound of ice cream, and pointed us to the savory treats at the “adults’ table.”  I gladly took my plate and then heard Diane say, “No thank you.”  I did a double take and looked at this woman who had always joined me in consuming such tasty treats in bulk, but was now politely refusing some of her favorite foods.  I knew then that she was serious.  She became almost annoyingly tenacious about exercising.  No matter what the weather was like, or even if we were on vacation, the girl was going to walk.  And sure enough, the pounds began to come off.  This is not to say that it was an easy journey and that she didn’t stumble at times, but her determination returned and she was back on track.  I could tell, she really wanted to lose weight.

At the time, I called Diane “the incredible shrinking woman.”  I enjoyed watching the reactions of family and friends when they saw her transformation.  It was great to see her buying new clothes and having more energy.  One of my favorite memories was at Sea World where she was invited from the audience to participate in the Shamu whale show.  When the show was over, she leaned over and whispered to me, “They never would have asked me if I had still been fat.”  Seeing the look in her eyes made me realize how she had always felt about her weight problem and how much being overweight it had hurt.  It brought tears to my eyes, I was so happy for her that she had reached her goal of being fit. (Read that whole story here.)

In so many ways, Diane is my hero.  When I face temptations in my life or think I can’t accomplish something, I remember the commitment she made to herself and her unflinching resolve.  In dealing with my own weight issues, her example showed me, that no matter how many diets, gimmicks, or good intentions you have for getting fit, until you set your will  and make deep down commitment, is isn’t going to work.  Do you have that resolve in your journey?  John

Filed Under: embarassing moments, emotions Tagged With: , , , ,

I Ran the Pink Ribbon 5K

October 3, 2009 By

Pink Ribbon Run

As many of you know, I’ve been fighting a knee issue on and off for a few months.  I waited until the last minute to decide if I would be able to run the Pink Ribbon 5K, and decided I could do it! So my sweet husband got up early with me this morning and we drove 30 minutes to the next little town up from ours. I was expecting a big crowd of people like we used to have in Florida, but NO! There were only about 40 or so. And 90% of them looked like serious runners.

You know the type. They are jumping up and down, doing little sprints across the parking lot, stretching, and wearing fancy watches. I started to get nervous. Then I got even more nervous when the woman at the registration table told me the route and mentioned several big hills. Where we live there are just a couple of hills, and none near me, so I didn’t train for hills. (Oops.)

We started out (with me almost in the back) and immediately went down a hill, and then up a huge hill that went on forever. I persevered through the whole race and finished in 32:08 seconds. Definitely slower than I normally do a 5K. I guess I learned my lesson about not training for the hills!

I also learned that thin does not mean fit. There was this beautiful young girl, who was thin and fit looking. She started off running at a good clip, and promptly stopped and began walking. Later, I  saw her finishing up the course as John and I were driving away. I think it’s great that she finished, but I learned not to judge a book by its cover. The lady who finished right in front of me was about my age, but was only about 5’2″ and probably outweighed me by 50 pounds. But she and I kept pace together, and finished together. If I saw that woman in the mall, I’d never think she could run a 5K at all.

Running little races like this makes me appreciate how far I’ve come, and keeps me committed to maintaining a healthy weight. When I weighed 300 pounds, I couldn’t have walked this course, but now, I can run it – albeit slowly. Yet another reason to stay commited to your plan – you can run races, help a good cause, and get some really cute t-shirts!

As I was writing this post I was wondering if any of you have done a race like this? If not, it’s a great goal to set for yourself. Look online for races in your area, and commit to doing one. You will be glad that you did! And me?  Before I do my next 5K in two weeks, I will head to the one hill in my town and practice!  Diane

Filed Under: Exercise, self esteem, Weight Loss Tagged With: ,

One Stitch At A Time

October 1, 2009 By

Have any of you ever made anything with your hands? Tried knitting, sewing, cross stitch, painting, quilting, or smocking? When I was growing up, my mother was not a very handy person. She knew how to do some hand crafts, but didn’t enjoy them, and hence didn’t pass the skills on to me.

Once I became an adult, I was introduced to the world of hand crafts by my mother-in-law, Deanna. She taught me to sew when I became pregnant, and I’ve appreciated that lesson to this day. Here’s a picture of me about 5 months pregnant with my first child and Deanna showing me how to run the machine. Note the lovely maternity jumper. I had only gained about 35 pounds. I say only, but I still had 3 more months to go. (This was the pregnancy that really started the weight gain!)

sewing0001

In any event, throughout the years I’ve enjoyed the process of sewing, smocking, and scrap booking. It’s fun to take a piece of flat fabric, cut it apart, sew it together, and see a (hopefully) beautiful creation. Last night, my daughter was cutting out some fabric that she is using to make a dress for the Runway for a Cure to benefit breast cancer awareness. As I was watching her, I had a picture of weight loss.

Fabric on a bolt is all wrapped up, tight and restricted. When I was fat, I was wrapped up in layers of fat and felt restricted.

Unrolling the fabric reveals it’s full beauty and potential. Unrolling the layers of emotion surrounding my weight showed me the beauty that was still inside.

Cutting the fabric apart is necessary to make something new. Taking myself and allowing myself to cut out some of the bad habits and emotional baggage I was carrying around was hard, but needed.

Pinning the fabric together before you sew a seam helps get things set for the final product. Sometimes when I was developing new habits, they were just pinned together temporarily, but the pins could slip out until the final habit was set.

Sewing the seams together gives a strong bond, one that will last for a lifetime if properly taken care of. Stitching each new habit, choice, and desire together made me stronger. The habits are locked together like stitches, and can last a lifetime if I take care of myself properly.

The final work and joy of sewing is wearing or using the garment. The final work in weight loss for me was being able to finally be comfortable in the skin I was in, using my body to its potential, and sharing the joy with other people.

Just like Deanna shared her knowledge and experience with me, I share my thoughts with you. But it doesn’t stop there. You share your thoughts and experiences with other people, and the circle widens. One stitch at a time.  Where are you in the process of creating something beautiful? Can you see yourself being stitched together, one choice at a time?  Diane

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

Are Secrets Hindering Your Success?

September 29, 2009 By

A few weeks ago, I got this comment from Vickie:

“Please add this to your list of things to write about – keeping secrets and why the secrets have to come out/stop in order to get to a place where one can lose weight, maintain losses and be happy (with themselves). It can be the number on the scale, the secret stash of food (which you have written about), or the daily habits. and I think that it can also be the $$$/debt on a credit card, the condition of the clutter in our house, how we spend our time, and lots of other things that we MAKE into secrets.”

I’ve been thinking about this topic ever since I got the comment from Vickie. Why do we keep secrets? I can’t speak for the world in general, but in my own life, I realized there were many reasons to explain why I kept/keep secrets.

  • Embarrassed/Ashamed
  • Protect Myself
  • Protect Other People
  • I Know What I’m Doing Is Wrong
  • Don’t Want Others To Emulate My Behavior
  • Fear
  • Uncertainty
  • Selfish
  • Power
  • Establish or Destroy Boundaries

As I was writing these things down the last one I wrote resonated with me. It seemed to be the common denominator among them all. When I was hiding food from my husband, or eating drive thru meals on the sly, I was putting up a fence between the Diane I wanted people to see, and the real Diane. And for me, that fence wasn’t a see thru chain link fence, but rather an 8 foot solid wood fence. It sent the message: DO NOT ENTER.

The boundaries I was establishing by keeping secrets were a hindrance to my progress. I realized as I was contemplating this question, that the secrets we keep from other people and from ourselves are often times determential to us, not only in weight loss, but also in life. As Vickie alluded to in her comment, there are many secrets that we can keep. Financial, emotional, cleanliness, habits, weight, etc. Is there any correlation between the keeping of secrets and our forward progress?

For me, there definitely was. It wasn’t until I could admit to myself that I was struggling with food and my secret habits were damaging my life and my body, that I could move forward. It’s similiar to shining a light in a dark room. Until the light is on you can’t see what’s hidden in there. And until you can see what’s hidden, you don’t know what you are dealing with.

Secrets for me weren’t just about food. They were about relationships and life. I kept things from John and my friends hoping that they wouldn’t think badly of me. The funny thing was, they didn’t think of me any differently once I showed them my secret food habits. In fact they were proud that I was strong enough to come clean, and that I trusted them.

Secrets have a way of being revealed whether we intend for them to be or not. And when they are revealed, there is sometimes pain. The pain in my life was what often sent me to food. Pulling the secrets out and really dealing with them helped move me past my dependence on food, and start relying more on my faith and on the realization that no secret was worth keeping if the consequences were bad for me.

Do I still have secrets? Of course! We all do. But knowing what secrets are okay to have, and which ones are bad for you is an important part of your success in life. It’s never easy to open yourself up, either internally or to other people, but sometimes it’s necessary and healing.

What are your thoughts on the secrets we keep? Harmful or helpful?  Diane

By the way – I got to tell my story to Skinny Scoopers Diet Detectives! They have a great newsletter too! 

P.S. This next week my goal is to get my act together with my blogrolls. If you’d like to be on there, please either let me know in the comments or email me at diane@fittothefinish.com. I’m going to keep it broken into two sections (I think), one for those “Fighting the Fight” and those for “Staying the Course.” If you’d let me know where you’d like to be placed that would be great!  I’ll keep this P.S. up on the next several posts so I can catch everyone who likes link love, and don’t we all!

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

How Far Can You Go?

September 28, 2009 By

I was reading some blogs this weekend and came across this post from 266. In it she describes her experience pushing herself to walk 25 km in one day. For those of us who are metrically challenged, that’s approximately 15 miles. And no, 266 is not a super athlete, training for an iron man triathlon. She is a weight loss blogger, who is pushing herself beyond where she ever thought possible.

As I thought about her post, I looked back and reflected upon my own weight loss journey. I realized that although I didn’t walk 15 miles in one day, there were many, many times where I pushed myself far beyond where I would have thought possible. Initially just getting up early was hard for me. And getting up early to attempt some exercise at 300 pounds was even more incredible. Walking down the dark neighborhood roads for 10 minutes seemed impossible, and when I got home those first few days you would have thought that I had walked 15 miles as drenched in sweat as I was.

Every day, when I got up and exercised I was pushing myself beyond where I would have thought possible. I still remember the first time I walked for 30 minutes at one time. When I got back to the house John said, “I was starting to get worried about you.” I looked at him and smiled, thinking, “I was a little bit worried I wasn’t going to make it back home.” But I did.

I eventually worked up to jogging a bit and ran a 5K during that year of my weight loss. I still remember the triumphant feeling when I crossed the finish line at about 34:00. I never dreamed that I would be able to walk a 5K, much less run one. But I pushed myself, and realized that I could go a lot farther than I had ever thought possible.

Pushing myself farther didn’t just relate to exercise. As I reflected on my journey, and what made this time different than some of the other attempts I had, I realized that I pushed myself in every area of my life. I pushed myself to try new foods, including things like asparagus, artichokes, and squash. I pushed myself emotionally, by taking the time and effort to examine why I was making food choices that were harmful to me. And I pushed myself socially, by opening myself up to new experiences and relationships.

It was a year of reaching for something new. It was a rediscovery of myself and of the abilities that had been hidden under layers of fat.

Sometimes, it can be scary to push yourself. Why? Because, if you are like me, you may be afraid of failure. Or, you may be worried that you just can’t do it. Or, you may lack the self confidence to just try.

This week, as you go about your life, I want you to think about pushing yourself. It doesn’t have to be weight related, but rather can be anything. It may be something that you’ve set as a goal for yourself if you are participating in Steve’s challenge, or it could be a private goal. Something you’ve always wanted to do.  Take the next seven days and do something to make that goal a reality. Even better if you have to push yourself to do it. 

I’m going to push myself out of my comfort zone and make some contacts with people that I’ve been a little nervous to call. What can you push yourself to accomplish this week?  Diane

Filed Under: emotions, Exercise, goal setting Tagged With: , , ,

Lessons From A 6 Year Old

September 22, 2009 By

This is my third son. He’s fun, energetic and learning to read.

swimming

The other day, we were working through his very exciting reader. You remember the ones: “Come, Rachel, come. See me ride Peter, see me ride. I can ride down. See me ride down.” I won’t torture you with anymore of that because I’m sure that you get the idea.

We were sitting at the kitchen table, and there were three words he kept getting stuck on. Here, down, and Rachel. I told him that he needed to really LOOK at the words and start to remember them. That way he wouldn’t get stuck on them every single time. He said to me, “But Mommy, sometimes I just can’t learn every single little word in just one day.” I sat back in my chair and looked at him. I nodded, and told him that we’d just take a break from reading for a bit and move onto math.

That little conversation stuck with me the rest of the day. What he expressed in his little six year old way is true of weight loss, weight maintenance, and a lot of life situations. “We can’t learn every single thing in one day.”

I wasn’t perfect during the 14 months that it took me to lose my 150 pounds. There were many days where I ate things I instantly regretted, didn’t exercise to my fullest potential, and took the easy way out instead of working my plan. I didn’t learn everything the very first day of my journey.

Why? Because just like learning to read, you don’t just “get it” all at once. There is a process involved, and sometimes part of the process is allowing things to percolate up to the surface as needed. I found this to be true for me as I was losing the weight. The main points of my plan were simple: Portions, Fat %, Exercise. But there were a lot more factors involved in the overall scheme of things. For example, how to handle certain social situations, what to tell people who asked what I was doing, when to buy new clothes, how much to lose, how to come back from mistakes, when to change up the exercise.

I didn’t just “get it” on the first day, or the second day, or even the third day. It was a process of learning, growing, and adapting to my new way of life. Much the same as my son was trying to express to me with his reading ability.

I wonder if you have gotten frustrated at yourself because you didn’t “get it right” all on the first day? If you have, I’d implore you to relax a bit, and understand that weight loss is a process, and part of that process is learning new things, one experience at a time.

An interesting thing happened two days after my son and I were working through that reader. He was once reading along and came to those hated words, “here, down and Rachel.” This time, he read them easily, without struggling at all. We had given the new lessons time to percolate, take hold, and come out. I’d encourage you to do the same thing. Give yourself time to learn the new lessons that you need to embrace. 

If I asked you what was the hardest lesson you FIRST had to learn while on your journey what would it be?  Diane

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