I am a better person when I have less on my plate.When I read those words I immediately associated it with dieting and since I never read the book I didn't understand the context. It made me irrationally angry. What's on my plate should not matter.
I still have not read the book, but that quote has a whole new meaning for me now.
You see, I picked the word perspective as my word for this year instead of a resolution. I felt that I had been sharing the worse parts of me, intentionally and unintentionally, and it's my perspective in life that I would need to change if I was going to live a purposeful life.
By April, I knew I was failing at my goal. My work life was a mess, my weight was going up and I was just angry all. of. the. time.
A few things happened that helped me to put some things into perspective and I was able to clear my plate in more ways than one.
The first happened while I was shopping for the kids' Easter baskets. I deliberately bought chocolate for my daughter's basket, knowing she would not eat it. Even worse, to ensure she would not eat some of it I bought chocolate with filling from a local chocolatier.
This was not one of my finest hours but in my defense, each kid only had a few pieces of great chocolate and no bagged candy. They also each got a book and some fun toys. Yes, I hear myself trying to justify this even today.
The other big revelation came from my doctor. I went to him for anxiety and depression help and he pointed out a few things that I could not see in my haze. The big one being that I was binge eating to fill the void that was left after my mom died.
Once he said it out loud, the fog started to lift. Of course, the medication helped to lessen the panic attacks and my need to constantly eat. I was finally starting to feel like me again.
The next step was to change my diet. Weight Watchers does not fit the budget and calorie counting hasn't been working so I went back to what worked for me - low carb, lean meat, high fiber.
The weight is coming off slowly and I should be working out too but one step at a time. For now, I'm trying to get out of my head and the refrigerator.
Since I'm in this for the long haul, I have to change not only my thinking towards food but my vocabulary for dieting.
Diet is NOT a four letter word.
I can't hate being on a diet!Everyone is on a diet, it's the food we consume. I just can't eat anything I want without repercussions so I'm changing the food that is in my diet to lose weight.
I don't want to eat that.
Do I want to eat a dozen cupcakes? Heck yea I do, but I shouldn't.Do I want to eat one cupcake? I do, but it will start to unravel what I'm working towards and the work I've put in so far.
Instead of saying, "I can't eat that cupcake," I started to say, "I don't want to eat it."
By saying I don't want something that I really do want makes it easier to pass it up because I'm making a choice instead of denying myself.
I would rather have...
My office is good for having doughnuts and tempting me with cookies and pizza but given the choice of someone's iffy homemade cookies or stale pizza and something that would taste better I will of course pick the better tasting item.
Deciding not to eat something now and waiting for something better makes me believe that I will be getting that something better even though I don't really want to eat it (see number two).
Time is NOT on my side
Change takes time and I don't have time to waste. If I quit what I'm doing right today will mean that it'll take even longer to reach my goal. I'm too old for this shit.
Have a cheat in mind - but don't do it...
I hate the tip to give yourself a reward when you reach a goal as long as it's not food.
I'm restricting my food for goodness sakes because I like it too much! I want to eat something I've been denying myself.
Every day I think of a new food that I have to have when I reach my mini goal. Once I reach that mini goal, which for me is five pounds, I think about eating something "naughty" and ultimately get something within the parameters of the diet.
I have too much weight to lose to go backwards but I still want to dream about the food that I will eat (once in awhile) when I reach the big goal - 57 pounds from now.
I'm restricting my food for goodness sakes because I like it too much! I want to eat something I've been denying myself.
Every day I think of a new food that I have to have when I reach my mini goal. Once I reach that mini goal, which for me is five pounds, I think about eating something "naughty" and ultimately get something within the parameters of the diet.
I have too much weight to lose to go backwards but I still want to dream about the food that I will eat (once in awhile) when I reach the big goal - 57 pounds from now.
