Big box on the kitchen counter when I got home. My ten pound reward jeans!!! My fancy pants!
I ran upstairs and tried them on.
THEY ARE TOO LARGE.
Now, rolling on the floor laughing and screaming.
Along with a friend of mine, I decided to actually write out my specific reasons for wanting to lose weight. I’ve been mulling this in my head for the past month, and it occurs to me that it is very, very different from other times. In the past, I’ve wanted to… just because. But it was very mushy thinking. The only time I was ever really successful with a food plan was when I was pregnant with my daughter and had gestational diabetes. My food intake was impeccable during that period. There was NOTHING I was going to do to put that baby at risk.
So here I am again, only it’s me this time. I’m the one who is at risk. And I’m finding it an excellent, excellent motivator. And here are my Reasons. (not necessarily in order of importance, just as they come into my head)
- I don’t want to have diabetes. I don’t want to have to take medication or insulin to keep it under control.
- I want to be a healthy role model for my daughters. I feel like I have a lot of karma to work off for the years of being an unhealthy one.
- I don’t want my physician husband to have to feel “concerned” about me and my health because I am overweight.
- I’d love to be able to randomly order clothes from a catalog or at a store and feel pretty confident that they will fit and/or look good on me.
- I want physical activity to feel good, not to feel like torture.
- I want to have energy, not feel like a couch potato.
- I know I will die someday, but when I do, I want to feel that I did not contribute to my death by having unhealthy habits. I used to have a recurring dread nightmare that I would die of a stroke or heart attack, and when they did an autopsy they would find that my heart was encased in fat like a big butterball. And people would shake their heads and say, She brought this on herself. I want to feel that I truly did all I could do to keep myself healthy.
- I feel a lot bouncier overall when I weigh less – physically and emotionally.
- I want to find better ways of dealing with my emotions other than eating stuff.
- I want to not be disgusted with myself.
The Beck book recommends making multiple copies of your list and keeping it in one’s wallet, coat pocket, computer screen and whatnot.
Can I just say, I love my reasons. I think they are good reasons and I think they will help me get where I want to go. In the past, I had either very nonspecific reasons, or dumb, temporary reasons like “high school reunion.” (did that, 10 years ago, promptly put it all back on right after) I feel like these reasons are going to stay with me for a long time. Or at least that is my hope. They’re not reasons that can “wear off.”
What are your reasons?
🙂
I never, ever thought I would buy or use a food scale. I had many reasons for this: the scale seemed expensive, it seemed like an excessive/obsessive thing to do, I was afraid that the scale would tell me I needed to eat much, much less than I wanted to, and so on.
But this week I got to the point where I was actually curious. About what my food weighed. And I felt like this was a reasonable reason to go ahead and buy a scale.
I used it for the first time tonight. We were having flank steak. To stay within my points range for the day, I was allotting myself 3 ounces of steak. First, I eyeballed it, using the visual “deck of cards” estimated size. Then I set up the scale and weighed. Hah. My portion weighed FOUR ounces. I was all, “How about that.” It looked like a very small amount. I was not upset, but I was surprised. Hmph. No wonder. I started substituting and taking away until it read 3.0 oz. What I ended up with was two strips of steak. Normally I can easily put away eight strips, no problem. So yeah. Portion control has definitely been my Achilles heel.
But my dinner was great. I had the steak, plus an extremely delicious mache salad with blush wine vinaigrette and slivered almonds and feta crumbles. Mache is a very delicate, round-leafed lettuce, almost like clover. It’s delicious. I also had a fancy-shmancy shrimp and avocado cocktail that I got from Biggest Loser trainer Jillian’s book. It was yummy. All very yummy. And in the end I was quite satisfied, almost fullish.
How about THAT. I actually used a food scale, and the world did not come to an end.
foodfoodbodybody 