I've been on a quest for the past several years to lose quite a bit of weight, like more then 100 lbs, and just the other day I realized that I weighed less them my goal weight and had dropped another dress size, so to celebrate my achievement I thought I would share the journey with you.
I really don't know when it was exactly, but I remember the day I decided to do something about my weight issue. Really if you ask people around me, they would have never considered me overweight but I simply didn't feel good about myself and as I sat at the table eating my second large helping I decided that it was time to "Stop the madness!"
Losing a small child is a pretty big undertaking. Breaking an addiction to food is like overcoming any addiction but maybe even harder because you have to eat to survive and food is everywhere. When I think of breaking an addiction to drugs or alcohol, it would seem the first step is to simply not buy it or go places that you might be exposed to it, you can't do that with food. Well I guess you can in a sense, you can choose what you buy but you can't just not buy it or avoid places that it might be served. Temptation is everywhere, food is on every corner. The urge to eat is primal, its not something you can just ignore. So at least in my opinion changing your eating habits is much harder then breaking other habits. And yes, there are withdrawal symptoms and again because of the availability of food in the world they are much harder to overcome.
Losing large amounts of weight is a lot like having faith in Him. I wasn't keen to my theme song when all this began but the theme of Trust and Obey would ring true even while changing your eating habits. You really have to do a lot of soul searching when trying to discover what your triggers are and you really have to have faith that even though you are not seeing the results you were looking for, you are still doing what it right.
Believe me I could have given up long ago, especially when it took almost a year to loose 40 lbs. In fact the results were so slow coming I stopped weighing myself and just had faith that I was loosing the weight. I mean 40lbs in a year is less then 1lb a week, most "diets" say you can loose 3lbs a week easily. In fact I looked at one "diet" that promised 15lbs in a week. Just as an aside, loosing that much weight that fast is dangerous and probably a lot of hype, the slower you loose the weight, the more likely you will be to keep it off, but less then 1lb a week was really painful, but just like when you are believing in Him for something you just have to keep on keeping on, so that's what I did.
The weight took so long to come off because it really took me that long to really get my eating under control. Instead of "going on a diet", I was changing my eating habits and habits that had been developed over 30+ years take a while to change. I knew that this would have to be a lifestyle change not just something to do to drop a few pounds and really because I was still eating and not starving myself it wasn't as painful as you would think.
When you go on a "diet" the change is so severe that your body goes into shock. You feel deprived all the time and all you want to do is eat what you can't have. When you change your eating habits you learn that you still get to eat the stuff that you love and you never feel deprived. When you grown in Him, you learn that just because you've given up something you find that there are better things in store.
As I shrunk I learned a lot about myself, I learned that when faced with adversity I was able to overcome. There is no magic secret to loosing weight, it is a long hard road. If I only needed to loose a few pounds it would have been different, but I literally lost a small middle schooler, you don't do that over night. Adversity did come, when faced with the choice to feed my feelings or exercise, the chocolate ice cream in the freezer was really hard to ignore. And although I didn't always ignore it, I was able to find other ways to nurse my sadness and with my love affair of anything chocolate that was a major accomplishment.
There's no magic secret to living either. Sure there are times that you cave to the chocolate ice cream and there are other times when you walk to the freezer, open the door and before you reach in you say to yourself, "not today". We all have moments in our lives that need to be fed, but always turning to food is a recipe for disaster. At the time, the support I needed wasn't available but I did try to look to the heavens for the support I needed. Setting out on this road I knew I would need lots of help and I found that praying, when faced with a decision between that scrumptious chocolate ice cream or a walk around the block, really seemed to help. Probably because for one short moment I took my mind of the ice cream's deliciousness, but whatever the reason changing my thinking seemed to be easier when I looked heavenward.
As my attitude and eating habits started to become permanent the weight finally started falling off faster. After the initial 40 lbs in the first year the next 60 lbs came off within a few short months. I had lost 5 pants sizes and 100 lbs and I was so busy feeling better about myself that I didn't even really know that those last 60 lbs were gone. Like I said I stopped weighing myself so it wasn't until I made a trip to the doctor that I really knew what I had done.
The day that I walked into the "skinny girl's store" and put on a pair of pants in a size I had never been was quite a memorable day. I took those pants home and sized them up to some pants that I was wearing just a year and a half earlier, and I almost cried. I remember letting out a little victory squeal in the dressing room when those pants zipped up without any problem. I had dreamed of shopping in that store for a long time and it was finally a reality,
I think with most things motivation is key. You have to have a goal in mind or a purpose to really encourage you as you push forward. My goal was to feel better about myself and to not be so concerned when I had my picture taken. For many months I looked at the last picture I allowed to be taken of me. I remember it well and I remember how terrible it made me feel when I looked at it. But like I said, I was pretty happy when the first 40 lbs came off, I was impressed with myself and my accomplishment.
If I didn't lose any more weight I would have been fine, but the next 60 lbs just kind of fell off because my eating habits had permanently changed. I had set a goal for my weight loss and I was so close after that year and a half, but again I was feeling so good about myself, I really didn't care if those last few pounds ever came off. I was in a size I had never been, my BMI was in normal range, I felt better physically, and emotionally and most of all I wasn't as worried about having my picture taken.
Just as a disclaimer, I am not suggesting that people can't be happy when their BMI is high, but I wasn't so I choose to do something about it, and it is something you have to choose to do for yourself, for whatever reason it is, you have to do it for yourself, Don't do it for your husband or wife or significant other, do it because you want to. It's always easier to do something you want to do because your success in solely in your hands.
One thing I learned was never allow yourself to feel deprived. There is nothing wrong with a scoop of ice cream or whipped cream in your latte, the key is moderation. Oh and my favorite tidbit of knowledge, dark chocolate is actually pretty good for you and if I'm not mistaken there are less calories in dark chocolate then milk chocolate, just don't forget that a serving size is two squares and not the entire bar.
Well now its been another year and finally those last few pounds have come off and another dress size is gone. I have literally lost the equivalent of another person. I actually enjoy shopping for clothes and I love looking at my profile in the mirror but the lessons I have learned over the past few years will be a permanent reminder of how far I have come. Yes there are still more lessons to be learned but because I know that I can be successful in what I put my mind to, hopefully the lessons won't be so hard fought.
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