Interest vs Commitment

Hello, blogosphere. I've just realised I've been a bit quiet this week, probably because I was in recovery from night shift as per my last post. I am waiting for some rice to cool down so I can incorporate into my healthy recipe I'm about to cook now, to be served along with salad. And it's very hot today and the last thing I actually feel like doing is cooking, so the fact that I'm doing it, well, I take it as a good sign!

What moved me to write a post was this quote which I found shared by a friend on Facebook.

This saying really resonated with me and I'm sure there are others to whom it really applies too. You see, I'd have to say that in my life I've always tended to be a bit of a quitter. When things really get tough I'm able to stand it to an extent, but when it becomes what I feel is unbearable, I must admit the white flag goes up and I surrender and usually get totally overrun by the enemy, which in my case is my eating/food demons. It might not happen straightaway but it has seemed almost inevitable because I just get tired of fighting. I think that's why with everyone doing challenges all around me (there's even one at work I could join) I'm resisting. The path is so familiar to me and in my mind, doing things that way appears to lead to certain failure. And it's no wonder I don't succeed with an attitude like that - I'm well aware how it sounds - but to me it's not a sign I have no willpower or am weak. Quite the opposite, in fact. I actually think I'm a fairly strong person, stubborn, even. This is why I feel I need a unique approach to my weight loss if it's to work. As per Mindwise Bodywise, I'm determined to do this for the sake of health, and this means taking out of the equation things like scales and measurements for now. This means using my clothes as a gauge. This means not listening to the inner voices of negativity which, ironically, have gone into overdrive since I'm not medicating so much with food/eating. The fact they are there, well, I actually take it as a sign I'm succeeding. If I were lulled into a false sense of security by thinking as I've thought every other time I've had success, "Right, that's it - I'm all over this now and I will be slim forever and never have a weight problem!" - well, weren't they famous last words! I don't take it for granted that when I do this, I will never have to worry about it ever again, but I do believe once I've worn new paths through my neural landscape of eating like a normal/healthy person, it will be easier. And that goes back to having faith in the process, and that I do have, in spades. :)

So, coming back to the saying about 'commitment', I think it really applies to my life now that I'm a shift-worker. I have to face the fact that I'm probably not going to "feel like" training at the gym a lot of the time, but really, that's too bad. If I'm really committed, that means I go anyway. I've had a new program written yesterday by an exercise physiologist and I've been advised to do it three to four times a week, so that's what I'm going to do. However and wherever I can fit it in around work, I'll do it. If I can find an hour to watch TV, I can find an hour to exercise. My body and my mind BOTH need it in equal quantities. So, just as I'm committed to making my best efforts at eating differently/mindfully from now on, I'm committing to exercise. There will be a way to fit it in and make it work. It's up to me to find what that is.

And that's all she wrote, for now. Ciao!

Cos you've gotta have faith...

Hello, blogosphere. That title isn't just a lyric from a favourite 1980s song of mine - it's how I'm treating my behavioural change program. I said this was going to be an honest blog so I'll reiterate that when it comes to the belief that one day I will be a normal, healthy weight, well, I'd say I really don't believe it in my heart of hearts. I will have to cultivate a more positive attitude to this, I can see, but right now everything is too raw and new and I'm flying blind to an extent, but admittedly I do have some good people flying along with me and that means a lot.

So what I'm doing right now is just putting my trust in the process. While my belief in my ultimate success is not strong, to put it mildly, what I DO have is a pretty strong belief that if I keep doing what I'm doing, really important changes are going to happen. Right now things are hard and uncomfortable. Eating at a table, not in front of the TV, not while I'm reading a paper or some catalogues or mucking around on my smartphone - that feels so weird and unnatural. Deliberately leaving some food on my plate when I'm finished eating, as it's been recommended I do - THAT'S hard to do as well. While I'm eating, trying to tune in to my body's signals to see when it tells me I have had enough food - well, I feel like my body and I are communicating with two old tins strung together with fishing line, so unclear are those signals. But yet I HAVE felt that little moment when it seemed very clear to me that I'd filled my stomach and it was just as I've been told - after I'd had a pretty damn small amount of food. A stomach is the size of a fist and even though I have quite a large fist, that's still not much food. When you know this and you realise how often you shovel fistful after fistful of food into it in one go, everything suddenly makes so much more sense. No wonder things have got to this state.

And this may not make any sense to anyone who's currently following any kind of conventional diet or exercise program, but I feel better about doing this than I have felt about any diet I've ever been on, and it has nothing to do with the fact that nobody has put any restrictions on my diet. Well, they didn't need to because following these rules, you naturally eat less. I know I'm not going to see fast results. I could do a 12-week challenge and probably lose 15kg or more, no worries. Hell, I've done it before. But I know deep, deep in my heart that there is no way I'm ever going to commit permanently to a program of food restriction/heavy exercise for the rest of my life. I wish I could but realistically, it's just not going to happen. And my GP and I would far rather I lose 10kg in a year and never again regain it than lose 40kg in a year and end up 50kg heavier in the next year. The madness just has to stop and I'm stopping it. So I'm not doing this because I hate myself - I'm doing it because I don't. And that makes it so different to every other time.

Enough of this philosophy. Peace out, for now. :)