Hang in there! Sometimes the journey seems like it is
taking forever. We are not used to things taking forever in our
culture. But good things sometimes take a long time to marinate/slow cook/ferment, you name it.
When I began this journey (again!) I could not bear to look at the big picture in terms of "how much do I have still to lose" because the number was too big. It was too daunting. It was to "other-worldly" and seemed unattainable. Had I not already done it once, I would have doubted it could actually be done. In my mind, "having" to "lose
130 pounds" smacked of failure. Defeat. And I didn't want to look at
my journey as a "should, have to, need to" type of journey. I was all
about the "want to, desire to, can't wait to" mentality.
So I chose to look at it in 2 pound increments. And that really took the negative "you'll never do it" pressure OFF and replaced it with positive "see, you are DOING IT" pressure.
Two pounds I can do. Two pounds I DID, pretty consistently, just about spot on 2 pounds on average per week for 16 months! And the days went by, and the sizes continued to drop.
By breaking the process down in to numbers that I could wrap my head around, the impossible became.....POSSIBLE.
So how many "2 pounds" do you have to lose? What are you doing TODAY to lose that next "2 pounds"?
And what is your underlying motivation? Is it one of obligation? Is it a "should" or "have to" type process of running away from something negative (the weight) that you are resenting? Or is it a creative process of "can't wait to, desire to, want to" process of creating health, and becoming the best you that you can be?
Because I'll tell you what, this journey has GOT to be enjoyable. Yes the Medifast 5&1 is a tool, a vehicle if you will, that will get us where we want to go. But we can enjoy the journey, can't we? Are you enjoying the journey? Are you actively involved in dreaming about the "you" that you are becoming? Or are you still JUST running away from emotional pain and conflict which being obese was causing in your life? It is important to make that distinction between "Negative goals" and "Positive goals" because as you DO lose a few "2 pounds" here and there, that emotional pain and conflict
that is driving you (if that is what is driving you) will diminish and
then you will find that you have less and less motivation to see this
through.
So examine your motivations, your reasons for doing the plan. If ALL of your reasons are
centered around what you DON'T want anymore, what you are trying to get
OUT of your life, start to dream a little bit. I'm not saying those
are BAD reasons to want to "lose weight", they are often THE trigger point which get us to begin to change. But you WILL need to REPLACE those reasons with POSITIVE goals, which are things you want to bring IN to your life, good things, as a RESULT of this process of creating a healthy YOU.
What do you hope to ACHIEVE? Who do you want to BE at the end of this process of getting healthy?
Examples of negative goals: (want something out of my life)*I want to get off my medication
*I don't want my knees to hurt anymore
*I don't want to be the biggest person in the room anymore
*I don't want to be in the 200's anymore
*I'm tired of my CPAP machine
Examples of positive goals (something positive I want to bring into my life):
*I want to be the fittest and healthiest person I can be
*I want to finally achieve this dream so I can go on to achieving some of the other dreams I have
*I want to be a great role model for my kids/family
*I want to live the healthiest, best life I can, insofar as it is in my control
*I want to run a marathon
*I want to run again (period!)
I didn't come up with the negative/positive goals concept myself, it is detailed in the most excellent book "Dr. A's Habits of Health" which I highly recommend to anyone who wants to make THIS time the LAST time.
Rinse and Repeat!
No comments:
Post a Comment