Losing by Quitting?

Losing by quitting?  It seems I've tried just about everything else so why not this. 

So here's my current situation:  I've got at least 50 pounds to lose and my metabolism has gone the way of the covered wagon - I mean, it's just not there anymore.  For my birthday last year I asked my husband if I could join this pricey gym that offered small group personal training, as it too seemed to be one of the last things I hadn't tried in my varied weight loss schemes.  So I joined but was surprised that they also had their own eating plan too - and that's when I froze.  I was going for the exercise aspect - not looking for yet another food plan.  My membership expired last week and while I didn't GAIN, I most likely took the prize for least amount of weight lost.

I tell my husband I'm really struggling and he suggests joining Weight Watchers together.  I jump at yet another chance to lose by following someone else's plan.  Since February of this year, the husband lost 22 pounds (of the 25 he wants to lose) - I lost 8.  Hmmm - what's my problem with formalized weight plans?  I really gave this a lot of thought and I think it comes down to this feeling I get of being scrutinized and judged.  I always felt like my mother and her thin friends were looking over my shoulder, making sure I followed everything to the letter.  I'm hard enough on myself without that Greek chorus adding their two cents.  So the more scrutinized and pressured I felt to lose weight this way, the more I rebelled - even though my two most recent blood sugar tests came back "pre-diabetic".  So I quit Weight Watchers.

I suppose I sound like one of those good-intentioned people who has more excuses than solutions - and maybe that's so.  The good news is that I'm using my food journal and exercising every day.  I've even starting blogging again.  But the other piece of the puzzle I'm adding that I never thought to before is becoming more interested in my life again.  Sounds crazy, I know, but for the past ten years my focus has been on a child who was frequently operating at Def Con 3 - it's been like waking up to a live grenade every day - I wasn't quite sure when he was going to go off but he always did.  Thankfully, he's in a much better place this year and it has caught me offguard.  Now that I actually don't have to spend my days putting out fires and talking with people who have judged me according to my teen's behavior, I find that I've lost a lot of myself in all that drama.  I had to push it all aside to keep my teen from that tipping point that tipped the wrong way - and, fingers crossed, I think he may be past the worst of it.  So this last part of my "Plan" is going to revolve around enjoying life again and finding that happy spirit that I know is in me somewhere.

Twas Beauty Killed the Beast

Do your weight loss efforts feel a little like a monkey on your back?  In my case, it's more like a gorilla.  Fay Wray's got nothing on me.  That big gorilla hand has got me firmly in his grasp.  And if I let him, this big fugly gorilla will get the best of me.  But if you saw the movie, you'll remember "twas the beauty killed the beast" - not the other way around.

No, I'm not calling myself any beauty but rather am referring to the beauty within us that we've perhaps forgotten we have.  And we all have something - a gift, a talent, a way with people, a penchant for kindness - you name it.  Whatever your "beauty" is, it may have temporarily gotten obscured by the beast of low self-esteem, criticism, loneliness, frustration - any number of emotions or circumstances that turn us away from our better selves.

Last week, I saw a photo of a couple who I knew a very long time ago.  They were in great shape and their smiles seemed to express that not only did they look good, they felt good too.  Given I haven't been in good shape since - well, um - 1991, the green-eyed monster made a brief appearance and I started feeling badly about myself.  Good Lord, I thought, if they saw a picture of me today, I don't think they'd recognize me!  And that's when a light inside me went on.  No, I certainly have not achieved the physical condition these folks have, but I have achieved plenty of other things in my life that I've lately been giving short shrift to.  I've only been focusing on what I don't have rather than what I do have and it has made my weight loss journey that much more difficult.

Finding that beauty within will help sustain you during these trying times when that monkey on your back is beginning to feel like King Kong.  Find out what you like best about yourself and keep it in front of you as often as possible, along with your goal, and you'll soon find that beauty indeed will kill the beast.

Messages From the Movies

"I'd rethink the ankle socks with pumps deal if I were you.

But I mean that in the nicest possible way."

                                                                                     
Dorothy: Oh, will you help me? Can you help me?
Glinda: You don't need to be helped any longer. You've always had the power to go back to Kansas.
Dorothy: I have?
Scarecrow: Then why didn't you tell her before?
Glinda: Because she wouldn't have believed me. She had to learn it for herself.

Oh yes, I've been playing Dorothy for most of my life, always looking to someone else for help and the answers.  Yes, I have finally learned for myself (refer to last post) that nobody's going to lose this weight for me.  And while I know I must have the power within me somewhere, I cannot for the life of me seem to access it.

Dave: Open the pod bay doors, please, HAL. Open the pod bay doors, please, HAL. Hello, HAL. Do you read me? Hello, HAL. Do you read me? Do you read me, HAL?

HAL: Affirmative, Dave. I read you.

Dave: Open the pod bay doors, HAL.

HAL: I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that.

Dave: What's the problem?

HAL: I think you know what the problem is just as well as I do.

Dave: What are you talking about, HAL?

HAL: This mission is too important for me to allow you to jeopardize it.

Okay, so now I'm feeling a lot like Dave from "2001 - A Space Odyssey" - begging HAL to open the pod bay doors for me.  I think my pod bay doors are jammed, too, when I engage in this endless cycle of self-sabotage and denying myself the things in life I really truly want.  I have figured out the emotional reasons why I am overweight (thanks in large part to Geneen Roth's "Women, Food & God") but feel I'm still missing the part that will ultimately help me get unstuck and moving forward - the stuff behind the pod bay doors.  I might also be part HAL - not trusting myself enough to accomplish this important mission.

I hate to say this but I am taking one last stab at a self-help book that seems to address just this issue called "The Tools".  The authors claim that their tools will take the reader beyond the "why" of their problems to "how" they can teach themselves to break obsessive habits, like self-sabotage and rumination of past problems.  Couldn't hurt - even though I'm kind of going outside myself for the answer.  But I think the difference here is that they're directing me back to myself to identify and drop some bad habits, and learn to develop some good ones.  Sigh - anyone interested in joining my support group for people who read too many self-help books?

I'm really struggling not to backslide any further.  I'm trying to establish some kind of beach head here and it's taking everything I've got.  I think I've got most of the bad stuff out of my head but cry almost every night out of sheer frustration at not being able to move forward with the good. To loosely quote another favorite movie,"A League of Their Own":  "Crying?  There's no crying in hardball."  (P.S. yes, my fellow purists, I know the real line refers to "baseball" - please allow me a little blogger's license.)