I feel I’m at a crossroads. I’ve got a bit of crap happening (not all bad, just some changes) and while I’m stoked I’m exercising regularly and haven’t been in that diet / binge (rinse, repeat) cycle, I still bloody well need to lose some weight.
The not-dieting approach is good for someone like me who wonders if life is worth living once things become forbidden, but I’ve got a long way to go until I start eating intuitively. And maybe I’ll never get there.
I was reading a blog post before work yesterday which stayed with me all day. And it’s made me wonder if I need to shift my perspective a little.
At the moment I’m relieved I’ve moved on from dieting / bingeing; to dieting Vs not dieting; but perhaps I’m still coming at this from the wrong angle and need to shift my perspective.
I’m a regular reader of life coach Jenny Blake’s Life After College blog and her own story is very inspiring. Yesterday however, she featured a client who lost a massive 85lbs in 10 months. Even more amazing, Devin set himself exactly that amount of time to achieve the loss. And. He. Did. It.
His guest post wraps up with some advice for the rest of us, including this:
Do not decide to lose weight, gain muscle, or improve performance. That will come later. Decide to change your life.
Shit. (#thatisall)
No lightbulb moment or cathartic thunder bolt, but… thinking back on my recent ‘why I want to lose weight’ post, for me it’s all about losing weight. It’s about how I’ll feel about myself when I’m not-fat and how others will perceive me. I’m not even vaguely thinking about a healthier lifestyle. Nope. No siree.
So, if I’m honest, sure I want to lose weight, but I want to be able to continue to eat crap (ie. whatever I want in an unrestricted way!). I don’t REALLY want to change my habits long term.
I’m obviously very conscious (from a history of yo-yoing weight) that whatever I do has to be sustainable – hence my moving away from the ‘dieting’ mentality and exercise I don’t enjoy or won’t continue for years to come. But… my perspective is all screwy.
I’ve long confessed to being ‘outcome focussed’. I’m all about the end goal: the destination, not the journey. But, when happens when the journey is actually the end goal and the destination a by-product?
And that’s the big question. Do I really want to change my life?!
Are you trying to lose weight or get fitter? Or are you trying to change your life?
Strike that. Reverse it: Named after a quote in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.
August 3, 2012
Yes…it really is about changing our mindsets and getting at what’s behind our resistance and when we do that we can change our lives (although for some reason that particular language doesn’t resonate with me…but that’s okay, I know what you mean). For me, this journey has been all about figuring out what’s behind my resistance and changing my mindset, knowing that my body would respond in kind by becoming healthier, fitter, lighter.
August 3, 2012
Karen, I can only think my resistance is that I ‘want to eat what I want to eat’ and don’t want to make the hard decisions to NOT do something. I know that sometimes I delve into the psychological reasons behind something but perhaps it’s just a ‘I don’t want to do without’ or a ‘I want to live an indulgent life’ problem – MORE THAN I want to lose weight.
Maybe.
August 3, 2012
I’ve hit the heaviest I’ve ever been. I’ve also had asthma on & off for the last 4 weeks & a dreadful head cold. I haven’t trained at all this week & that doesn’t suit me at all. I’ve always said I want to lose for vanity sake, for recognition, so that i won’t feel invisible or clumpy. My doctor told me yesterday that I have to lose it for my health. I do want to change my habits, but I also want freedom of choice. The biggest lightbulb moment? I no longer have any respect for myself. I have let myself and my body get old before it should. Now it’s about getting serious.
August 3, 2012
Jo, I think it’s good that you want to make changes for the sake of your health. In my ‘why’ post I really noticed my lack of respect for my body. Something I read elsewhere (around that time) cemented that for me. I almost wrote a ‘need to get in touch with my body (and not in a rude way)’ post, but not sure exactly how I go about doing it.
I know it’s my head making the ‘bad’ decisions (and I wrote about that), but rather than ‘blame’ my mad monkey mind, I loathe my body instead.
*Sigh*
Deb
August 3, 2012
its weird. Until it (the asthma) stopped me from doing what I normally do this week, I had put health to the I’ll think about it when I get old bucket. I’ve had asthma all my life, but up till now its never meant more than a temporary blip in my activities.
August 3, 2012
It’s good that you’re more conscious of it Jo… perhaps cos you’ve been training so well lately and this has interrupted it!
August 3, 2012
I am only speaking about me right now… but if I lost 85 pounds in one year, I don’t think I’d be able to sustain that over the long term. The way I’m doing it right now, through attuned eating, I’m losing about 2-3 lbs a month. It’s not a lot. But, I do believe it is sustainable. However, I’m not a fortune teller.
Diet definitely work in the short term. However, there isn’t data to support diets working over the long term. We do have data that shows that diets bring about weight gain and disordered eating over the long term.
Peace. xoxo
August 3, 2012
Will be interesting to see if it’s possible – guess if there are big lifestyle changes then it may be sustainable. I just liked the ‘changing life first and IF weight loss comes from that, then good’ frame of mind.
Deb
August 3, 2012
Hi Deb! I think mine is more of a lifestyle change. Pre-Marion and Post-Marion are quite different people. I used to be very shy with no personal friends and unwilling to try new things due to the risk of making mistakes. I used to put myself as the last priority. All of that has changed. I have many friends and make them easily. I constantly try new things and often succeed at them, but also often fail. I spend more time per week doing good things for myself, which is why I’ve lost weight and got in good physical shape. I love exercise most because of the personal support I received at the gym, the personal exploration, and the increased self-esteem. Looks are definitely not the highest priority for me. I like to love myself being very good at things. So I do think it is a lifestyle change.
Deb, I wish I lived closer so I could invite you to try things at the gym with me that I think you’d have fun with.
🙂 Marion
August 3, 2012
Absolutely Marion… though you’d have me doing scary yoga headstands and backbends and the like!!!
Deb
August 3, 2012
All great comments to go with a great post. I made the decision and committed to it……I want to be happier. That one thing WAS in major conflict with the weight versus everything else…and over the last few years the more I focused on losing weight the less happy I became.
The longer it went on…the more unhappy, isolated, and blah my life seemed to become…and hence the downward spiral began……..
But…there is a post coming in the next few days that explains the shift…….
Thanks once again and as always for your honest posts..
August 3, 2012
No worries Jules and thank you. I think I’m still at the ‘weight vs everything else’ stage.
Look forward to your upcoming post.
Deb
August 3, 2012
I am at this very same place. Constantly asking myself if I want to change my life. Because I am the only one who can do it.
I’ve lost 20kg with my band but really need to lose another 10kg more. I just cannot seem to give up the crap. I just cannot let go of sugar! It is an addiction for me. I crave it, think about it all the time, about when I can get the next hit. I can’t stand the thought of what my life would be like to maintain 70 or 75kg – the exercise I would have to do, the food I would not be able to eat. If I can’t even imagine a healthy life how an I going to get one?
I’ve thought about hypnosis… have you done that? I’ve done so much therapy. No help so far. But I want to be slim. I want to be healthy. I want to be sexy. It. Just. Sucks.
Why can’t I just f##king do it?
August 3, 2012
I’ve thought about hypnosis Vanessa, though not sure if he works… I suspect I’m too focused on what I want out of life (weight loss) than what I need to do.
Deb
August 3, 2012
PS, your beautiful comment on my last post came through to my email but didn’t show up on my blog so I couldn’t reply there. Thanks so for your words.
August 3, 2012
Sometimes my comments go into people’s spam folders. I have no idea why it happens but it happens A LOT!
August 3, 2012
Love this post, Debbie! I’m definitely trying to change my life but it probably won’t be easy and fast. I’m afraid it will take years. BTW: I especially like this sentence: “But, what happens when the journey is actually the end goal and the destination a by-product?”
I think learning intuitive eating is so difficult partly because of the name. And it’s not an effortless approach to learn. My brand of intuitive eating is some kind of mixture of healthy eating rules of thumb I’ve learned during the last three years and trying to be more relaxed about food.
August 3, 2012
I’m definitely struggling with the intuitive eating Satu. I like Karen’s comment about the fact that we’re never going to be perfect. I’m sure people who rarely overeat and have a normal relationship with food occasionally overindulge as well… or make bad food decisions. (At least I like to think so!!!)
Deb
August 3, 2012
Normal eating includes overeating from time to time. It’s a wide variety of experiences. So yeah, no need to be perfect. That ain’t normal! 🙂
August 6, 2012
Agreed….
August 4, 2012
Hi Deb, I’ve gained some weight over winter and no, not happy about it. Time for me to just get on with the job, I’m afraid – and do it for me in the most loving, sane way possible. No amount of therapy or thinking replaces action I am afraid.
xx
August 6, 2012
Winter’s a bugger for a bit of weight gain. Not sure if it’s a comfort food thing, less exercise, increased illness or what. Or perhaps we’re like cats, but instead of growing extra fur for warmth, we grow a layer of fat!!! 🙂
August 4, 2012
Changing the way I thought about weight loss was what really helped me start to lose weight.
August 6, 2012
Think I need to do the same Dannii!