I've been quite ho-hum lately with my weight loss. It's been non-existant but I haven't worried about it because I really have felt active, vibrant, and happy.
When you've obsessed about your weight for over 25 years as I have (yes, I remember it being a problem at 6 years old), there inevitably comes exhaustion of worrying about everything that enters your mouth and how many calories you're burning. Then, as soon as you tell yourself you're being crazy about things and you should lay off, you worry that you're just being lazy. So you go back to being obsessive. It's an awful cycle, and I'm sure is the reason many of us have started and stopped so many diets in our lifetimes.
I fight with myself a lot. I fight tendencies to binge eat, to make unhealthy choices, to straddle the line between health-seeking and batshit crazy. I've spent some time lately really trying to distill some truths that will hopefully quiet all the voices just a bit.
- I haven't weighed in over a month, but doesn't mean I'm a failure. It just means I'm recognizing that the number stresses me out more than is helpful at this point.
- A crazier schedule means more erratic workouts, but that doesn't mean I've given up.
- Just because my numbers probably aren't moving doesn't mean that I'm a failure. It's okay to just BE for a while.
- There are things I could always improve on – I need to be okay with imperfection.
- The only opinion about my body/size/health that really matters is my own.
- Being stagnant doesn't take away from the progress I've made.
- My metric of success: Do I feel healthy, vibrant, and active? If yes, I have to shut down the negative voices.
- My identity is not defined by my weight loss. (This is hard – see this recent post. So uncomfortable.)
Working through this stuff is difficult and uncomfortable. It's easier to try to avoid it than address it, but by addressing it, I know it will give me what I need to push forward.
