What was old is new again

May 11, 2013

39.8 pounds to go

This past month has been a struggle.  Truly.  I started slipping into ‘beat-myself-up-land-because-I’m not-losing-weight.”  I started oversnacking.  Overexercising.  Struggling.  The endless whining internal dialogue of ‘why is this so hard for me? Why can’t I get over it?  I’m never going to reach my goal.  Sob.’  My thoughts were constantly creeping towards the side of what I wasn’t doing and how much more weight I have to lose.  How it’s still a lot.  The inspections of my body became more frequent and more critical.  Is this stomach acceptable?  Still considered to big?  Maybe if I squeeze it in 13 second intervals it will start to look more sexy.

But I want to keep moping!

Getting down on myself on a daily basis for what I hadn’t accomplished was sucking me to the darkside.  It’s an old habit.  A pre-health-journey habit that I didn’t even realize I was participating in because it’s so comfortable.  And did I come to that conclusion on my own?  No, I needed help.  About a week ago I went into my therapist ('get help when you can’t do it on your own' in action) because I had slipped into random compulsive eating (get over here chips and cheese.  Mmmm) and that hadn’t happened in at least 9 months.  Why can I no longer control myself?  Help!

So I bitched about my weight and my alarm with my lack of self-control.  Then we started talking about other stuff.  The wedding planning.  The  family.  The work.  Work has been a struggle recently (specifics are changed for the sake of my employment) and I surprised myself on how long I went on about it.  There isn’t a hard red line sharpie mark from “my employees are idiots” à “hand me the twinkie” because back in the winter I was under far more stress and the weight was still steadily dropping.  The difference is “my employees are idiots and I give up trying to teach them because it’s impossible.  Space.  Please hand me the twinkie.”  That feeling of despair or ‘giving up’ is what makes friends with the bag of kettlecorn.  Fill the impossible void.

Then she gave me really good advice (which she always does): treat my journey like I’m at the beginning again.   Pretend I’m at the starting line.

Which is impeccable timing because in my chapter outlines, right around now I had planned on talking about that farewell meal ritual I always plan for myself before I go on a diet.  A last supper to launch into the ‘new me’ which of course, never works and is never as satisfying as I think it’s going to be.  Although I do remember every meal I ate as a splurge before each official start over the years.  One time it was Arby’s. Then a big BLT.  I always remember what I put in my mouth and then the ensuing failure.

The difference this time with pretending to start over is going back to last May and thinking about how I saw myself.  How I saw this journey going.   I remember loathing exercise (which is still alive, but I force myself), scared of the food and being drawn to red meat.   Recently I’ve been overexercising and cut out the red meat, so I decided to flip those around.

However, the biggest, glaring difference is that even though I was ready to get on board with changing, I didn’t hate myself or my body.  I quite liked myself.  Even though it was bigger I still felt sexy.  And now that I am 60 pounds lighter and I started the daily beat-up.  Of how not sexy I am.  Of how much more I have to go.  Of the daily belly inspection.  So the biggest change I needed to make with pretending this is the beginning was to be nice to me.  It sounds silly but I forgot how to do that.  Be happy in the current package.

Although it may seem irrelevant, it’s the ever so slight attitude adjustment of thinking: it’s not about what I don’t want.  It’s about what I do want.  It’s not about what I don’t like but what I do like.  Just changing the view from the negative connotation “I don’t” to the positive “I do” has shifted me back onto my path.  What was old is new again.