Psssst – I’m over at Becky’s blog today as well, chatting about Leslie Knope (what else?!) Enjoy!
I’ve really been thinking lately about why I haven’t been successful with my weight loss journeys.
(Again, this is a post about weight loss. While I don’t want to share my weight every week on LWI anymore, I’m still going to talk about things in regards to weight loss from time to time here. I hope that’s okay!)
I’m Type A through my core — to-do list check offs give me a euphoria that others would find crazy and I thrive when having a plan and items to check off to reach that goal. So why then, can I not seem to lose weight? Shouldn’t my OCD tendencies help? I’ve seriously wrestled with this for years and wondered what the heck is wrong with me.
Why I can plan, plan, plan my life but never really make any long-term progress. Finally, it hit me.
An “all or nothing” attitude has ruled my weight loss efforts for far too long.
I’m either eating 100% “clean” and feeling deprived, or I’m eating everything in sight and not listening at all to my hunger cues. It’s a high or low, and there never really seems to be a balance for me. Neither of those behaviors are sustainable, and I truly think that’s why my weight has yo-yoed so much over the last couple years. If I made one unhealthy choice, my thought process was always to say “whatever” and just keep going. That’s what an all or nothing attitude gets you.
In this next diet lifestyle change, I plan to incorporate more of an 80/20 rule, which will keep me from having the “all or nothing” mentality that has plagued me for so long. I’m hopeful I can find a successful, long-term approach to healthy eating while doing this. I’m not perfect, and neither is my eating, but I’m trying my best.
I don’t want to be this weight forever — being overweight has consumed my life for far too long. It’s hard to find the balance, but being overweight is also hard. I suppose I’ll always be a constant work in progress, and I genuinely wish I was naturally thin, but that’s not a reality for me.
Instead, by thinking about and addressing this attitude, I’m hopeful I can find a better balance with food (such as eating wedding cake but also choosing a salad most of the time for lunch!) I really, really like wedding cake, guys. I also really like fitting into my pants. C’est la vie.
Balance —> constant balance. I’m always going to be working on this. Being overweight isn’t all about just eating less (though I wish it were!), it’s completely changing your thought process. Again, I think about why this bothered me so much.
From my post about Katie Hopkins in January:
If you’ve never been overweight, or used emotional eating, you may not understand what it’s like. I’ve gotten so much better and am more in tune with my emotions and WHY I was eating the way I was, but no matter what weight I’m at it’s always going to be a battle. I’m always going to want to reach for food first, and address the problem later. That doesn’t make me less than you, Katie, it makes me human.
Bullies like Katie Hopkins are always going to be around, (I was just called fat this weekend by someone who doesn’t even know me!) but that just means we have to work a little harder to tune them out.
Instead of putting people down, we should be lifting them up, and being supportive of anyone who is on this journey. Losing weight isn’t easy, but it is doable.
I’m honestly not sure of the point of this post anymore. I’ve gotten myself into quite a bit of a funk lately about my weight loss (or lack thereof) and I guess I wanted to talk it out. I have a plan, but I’ve always seemed to struggle a bit with the follow through. Hopefully this is the time that turns it around. Hard work, and time, will tell I suppose.