I’m down 93.6 pounds; a slight decrease, but considering I had large gains from Thanksgiving during the past week, I’ll take it! It’s not enough to tip the ticker to the next pound, but every ounce counts.
A friend of mine recently posted an interesting article titled “Food and Emotions: 90 percent overlook key to weight loss, survey finds”. (Shout-out to Moxie, if she’s reading.) From the article:
Only 1 in 10, however, thought psychological well-being was a factor. “That may explain why so many of us struggle,” said Robinson. “In order to lose weight and keep it off long term, we need to do more than just think about what we eat, we also need to understand why we’re eating.”
It’s only hell if you make it that way.
Although I’m convinced that there are no universal rules to successful weight loss, I’ve come to believe through my own experience that my mind is my biggest hindrance to losing weight and keeping it off. If your mind isn’t in the right place, you will not lose weight.
The article touches on exploring the emotional ties we have to food, including as a reward, celebration, and comfort. For those with varying degrees of food issues, this becomes doubly important to solve, because the jump from food-as-reward to diet-as-punishment is a very narrow gap.
The odds are stacked against losing weight and keeping it off. “Studies show nearly 2 out of 3 people who lose 5 percent of their total weight will gain it back, and the more weight you lose, the less your chances of keeping it off.” And yet, when surveyed, respondents listed psychological factors as the smallest barrier to losing weight, rather than, as I believe, the largest one.
Food issues aside, I believe the reason losing weight becomes so overwhelmingly difficult for most people is because it takes a lot of mental work and dedication to make it successful. This is one of the chief reasons I don’t believe in fad diets or diet pills; they detract from the learning and adapting that must take place in order for weight loss to be sustained. And that’s a hell of a hard lesson; for all of the times I’ve lost weight in the past, with some pretty big efforts, I have yet to learn and adapt in ways that will sustain my new body.
I live in hope that this time, I’ll get it.
Even this last weekend, after months of successful weight loss, I overate — knowing it would take me at least a week of losing just to get back where I started. I could list any number of reasons for why I was distracted, but the fact was that I was distracted, and allowed myself to backslide. I had intended to enjoy a few treats and was willing to pay the price for them, but ended up enjoying much more and not limiting myself as originally planned.
No, I’m not flogging myself over it, because that’s as much an emotionally volatile issue as overeating itself. Forcing myself to feel badly over an error in judgment can start a cascade of self-punishment that builds enough resentment to flip that switch; the one where I let that little voice that tells me I’m not good or deserving enough to succeed, win. So instead, I recognize what I’ve done, I adjust, I correct, and I go on.
I wouldn’t call it hell as the meme suggests; more like a never-ending learning curve, but the biggest thing I’ve learned about weight loss is that it’s as much a mental battle as a physical one. Accept that, and the battle becomes a bit easier, and success a little bit more sure.
After all, 93 pounds of me is already gone.