I've had a GREAT week this week. Have you had that experience yet that, for some unknown reason, the switch in your brain flips and you get your mojo back and suddenly you're eating right and exercising regularly and getting excited about hopping on the scale and seeing where you stand?
As a lifetime dieter, I have felt this before -- and have wished I could capture it. I know I made some changes in my actions (digging up recipes for veggies that I love, doing more prep work so eating healthier was more convenient, etc) but for me the flipped switch always seems to start with something psychological.
Last week I began looking for inspirational books, tv shows, and web posts about living a healthier lifestyle. There are statistics galore out there that tell us that long-term successful weight loss is virtually impossible -- and an equal number of articles telling us what failures we are for not doing what we know we should be doing to live healthier lives. My fragile psyche doesn't find those encouraging, as I'm far too likely to buy into how "impossible" changing my lifestyle is, what a complete failure I am, and resigning myself to certain defeat. I realize I must cultivate hope and better self-esteem -- and that's what I set out to do in my search: find books, journals, movies, whatever that illustrated that there are ways of overcoming obstacles to permanent healthy lifestyle changes.
As an example, last night while I walked on the treadmill, I watched 2 episodes of "Eat Yourself Sexy, Australia". I don't know that I'd recommend this series to everyone, but because I was ready to hear it, I picked up on the truth that my problems are no different from most folks who desire to weigh less but work long hours, deal with stress, don't care to take time to cook (and shop, chop, and clean up afterwards), don't feel they have time to exercise, and so on. The bottom line, as someone once told me, is that you don't have to LIKE exercising and eating right, but you do have to do it.
My truth, though, is that to have long-term success, I do need to like it -- or more precisely, find reasons to like it! To be successful, I need to make exercise and eating right more FUN. I know this -- but sometimes I forget it. And I think that unwillingness to "find the fun" is the most important factor in my recent season of weight gain. I have been so focused on how difficult it is to make time to shop for produce, prepare healthy foods, make time for exercise, and so on; that I simply could not will myself to start what I was only seeing as a life sentence of deprivation and drudgery. But it doesn’t have to be!
This week, I found hope! Hope through the stories of success that others have experienced, and hope through the success I’ve had in making a few small changes and finding I’m happier (and lighter!) for having made them.
And hope is what Spring is all about, isn’t it?