Weight Loss Journey

I think I’ve figured out why Jillian and Bob, the ruthless trainers on “The Biggest Loser” scream at the top of their freakin’ lungs at the contestants on the show.

Because the conversation that is going on inside of a fat person’s head is so persistent that the trainers are simply trying to force a new conversation into the stubborn brain.

Kind of like when the military uses loud rock and roll to mess with the concentration of the dictator they are trying to oust from their hide out.  These top-of-the-lung commands interrupt the habitual mental banter that has undermined the weight-loss success of the folks on the show.

It seems like J and B are angry. And if they were yelling at me, I’d want to stuff my fistful of Twinkies down their throats.  But when I step back, I can see that they are not yelling at the person.  They are really confronting the lies that have taken up residence. They’re yelling at the mental machinery that spits out mind-screwing sentences like: “You can’t do this.” “You’ll never make it.”  ”You’re not worth it.” and on and on and on…

I think I’m getting ready for someone to scream in my face because there are some false realities that need to be exchanged for the whole truth regarding my weight and worth.

Hmmm….should be interesting….

Freedom is coming.  I can feel it.

It’s great to see all the “why’s” that people have posted.  Health is a high focus and feeling good is part of it and wanting to look our best is in there, too, either for ourselves, our spouse, or our partner down the road….

Great!

So, there’s a couple of things going on…

The background noise shows up in every bite of food we eat (”Should I eat this? Is this on my ‘program’? Oh no, I ruined it.”) We have mental conversations of whether a food is a ‘bad’ food or a ‘good’ food and we try desperately to fall in love with cottage cheese and fruit because we’ve been so overexposed to methods and mindsets about eating and food. If you don’t believe me, look at the covers of magazines the next time you check out at the grocery store and see how many articles are about food and weight loss.

Then, there are our actions - the steps we take toward the desired result.  It’s not rocket science - eat less, move more.  That’s actually, believe it or not, the easiest part of this ‘game’.

And finally, the big ol’ undertow that pulls us in and we can’t even see it, is the unworthiness and unloving that we have — when we believe that we’re unworthy on any level, we end up sabotaging our efforts because of the false belief system that is driving us.

This is the monster to see and to slay.

Imagine you’re on a ride at Disneyland.  You get in the little car, sit on the drivers side, you put your hands on the wheel and you start spinning like crazy.  You can make screeching noises, or ‘vrooom’-ing noises and lean your body one way or the other and you know what?  Not one lick of difference because you’re on this track that is taking you on the very same ride to the same destination — every. single. time.

And to get ON the same ride every time and expect it to take you somewhere different is looney-tunes.

So, in our conversation, there will be ‘aha’ moments of discovery to see where our belief system is doing us in and driving us towards undesired results.

For me, it happened when I was counseling a young adult who was bulimic and abusing alcohol.  She was trying to convince me that she loved herself.  I just looked at her and asked, “If I were to pour alcohol down my 6-year old’s throat or if I were to feed him a delicious meal and then stick my finger down his throat to force him to throw up — would that be screaming ‘love’ to you?

The obvious answer was ‘no’.

“So, how is that loving to you?”

See, love shows up in actions.  But just like when we were in math class growing up, sometimes, to check our math, we work the equation backwards.

In our case, regarding weight, we are going to do the math backwards: Look at your actions. Do they cry out ‘love?’

For me, I am seeing a couple of areas right off the bat: My calendar and my sleep.

Huh?  What does that have to do with weight?

Well, because my unloving belief system (which hides in the shadows of my life) is showing itself in those other areas: Having more to do than my life is designed to handle, going to bed later and sleeping less than my body needs right now.

If I ran my kids ragged and denied them sleep that would be negligent and harmful. That would affect their emotions, their attention and focus, they’re joy in life and it could eventually compromise their immune system and leave them susceptible to sickness and disease.

That’s what I’ve been doing to me.

To be able to see it is the first, greatest power.

So, today, we’re going to do a couple of things to help us to see:

1. Do backwards math and take a look at your life actions: Are they reflecting a loving balance? Make a list of the things that if you were to do those to the children in your life, would it be seen as unloving?

2. Take a mental note of your conversations with yourself: Are you talking to yourself in ways that call yourself ‘good’ or bad’, ’stupid’, or ‘wrong’? Are you calling foods ‘good’ or ‘bad’? Can you see the vast amount of judgmental conversations that you have going on about you and food?

3. Take an action step that flies in the face of the unloving.

For me, Rocky’s taking the car today so that I’m “grounded” from running all over doing errands all over town. I’m also taking on drinking three bottles of water today and not eating past 7, and I’m going to continue reading, “The Four Agreements” as a way to savor wisdom and take it in.

That sounds like a lot but that’s for me, today.  You can do whatever fits for you.  There are no rules about this.  Your biggest gift today would be to notice something that’s operating in your life that’s been keeping you on this track of weight issues and landing you in the same place of dissatisfied and frustrated.

This is what we’re taking on today – 

Who’s in with me?

Hello, Fellow Sojourners -

First of all, follow-up:  How did yesterday go?  Did you make your list of “Why’s” so that you can SEE that you have some inspiring reasons to lose the weight?

Did you read it out loud so that you could HEAR yourself SAYING your ‘why’?

If you didn’t, just jump in today, make your list, read it out loud and add this one twist today: SHARE it with someone else of why you’re inspired to lose weight.  In fact, I would throw out there to pick three people to share it with if you are willing.

Here’s the “why” behind the “why”:  Because a conversation is operating in the background of our minds and our lives that we’ve given real credence to about how we’re not worth it or it’s not worth it and about how it’s impossible to lose this weight (almost like that little asterisk at the bottom of the skinny ‘after’ picture on a diet commercial: * Results not typical).

We have all these reasons for why we can’t do it and we validate the “can’ts” in our lives repeatedly.

So, when we make our list of what’s inspiring to us and we say it out loud and share it with others, we are confronting our excuses and old conversation with a new inspiring reasons and a new conversation.  By the way, this isn’t “positive thinking” in the most benign sense, this is placing thoughts of inspiration and possibility into your life where thoughts of resign and impossibility have reigned.

And this isn’t the whole kit and kaboodle on day 2, we’re just taking steps towards seeing and  deconstructing the lie and transforming our lives to a place of freedom.

Because this isn’t really about the weight — this is about an unempowering belief system that operates within our lives and it’s reflected in our weight.

So, for today, make your list of why you want to lose the weight, at the end of it, I added “And I’m worth it” (even though I felt a little like Mike Myers on Saturday Night Live “And doggone it, people like me…ha!)

Today, I’m going to share it with three people. 

So, who’s with me?

(stay tuned, tomorrow we’re talking about the Power of Intention…)

There’s something about nighttime that holds a distinct capacity to remind me of what’s most important and why.

Maybe it’s because of blitzing around all day with two busy boys, two part-time businesses, one non-profit organization and a book to write - along with the laundry, home schooling, meals, and chasing dust-bunnies that multiply on our hardwood floor — doesn’t give me the time to think two clear thoughts in a row.

At night, when the boys are sleeping and I’m exhausted and it’s rude to make phone calls past 9 p.m., there is the space to look at the “whys” and “wherefores” in my life.

Truthfully, I think that’s why, at night, I want to be distracted.  Not having Tv has turned into a Facebook (aka “Crackbook”) fettish. What am I avoiding when everything slows down and I have time to think? Some strong feelings.  I go through waves of feeling guilt and disappointment because I didn’t keep the vision of health that was so crystal clear the night before, throughout my day. I feel like a terrible mom and a failing wife sometimes because when I don’t take care of me, I’m not taking care of them. I don’t feel that badly all the time - just enough to have me feel like I’ve duped myself, and ripped them off again and missed out on moving one day closer to my goal.

Because just the evening before I KNEW what mattered most and it boils down to this: I want to live, with my husband and children, a long, healthy, fun, vibrant, sensual, self-expressed life. But there’s this weird tweaky thing that happens to my resolve when I go to sleep. It’s like it gets diluted in the midnight hours and by morning, I’m craving the very opposite of what will get me to my goal. I sometimes feel like I’ve lost my mind, and not just my vision, between when I go to bed and when I wake up in the morning.

But that guilt is a whole other story and component to the reason we’re overweight and we will deal with that another time.  Trust me.

Today is about “Why do you/I want to lose weight?”

On the TV show, The Biggest Loser I see folks with their “Why” printed on their shirts, 

“To walk my daughter down the aisle.”

“To run with my kids.”

“To live to see my grandchildren.”

They place their inspiring reasons for getting healthy on their shirts so that each time they see it, they are reminded of why they are taking 12 bites of that food instead of 112.

I haven’t done that, quite honestly, and I’m willing to try it out.  

Oh don’t get me wrong — I’ve written out my intentions and that has been powerful but I’m going to put my ‘why’s’ down today.

And here’s what just hit me:  I’m a little scared.

Because my “why” is going to confront something that is a strong conversation in me:

The “I’m not worth it” conversation.

The “I’ve ruined it” conversation.

The “It’s too late” conversation.

Yikes.

Okay, so here’s my personal experiment and you can make it yours: Write down your “why’s” today and just carry them around and read them out loud to your self.  Hear yourself say those words. And I’m going to put on the bottom of mine, just for kicks: “And I’m worth it.”

And see what presenting that into my conversation brings up or results in today.

Let me know you’re in.  And pass this around to others who might be interested. Let’s build a supportive team around us as we journey together.

Who’s with me?

So, I’m seriously considering it….I’m considering taking on a public journey, via this blog, of losing weight.

That’s an exciting and terrifying thought.

Excited for the accountability and the community connection since there are people who want to go there together –

Terrified because, “what if”….I fail, go into hiding, gain weight….

Sitting in that today.  Don’t have answers.

Thinking about it.  What would it look like? Parameters, goals, etc?

Just woke up.  Maybe I should brush my teeth first and then jump into some serious consideration…

So, my husband, Rocky and I were talking tonight before bed and I was having those rare few moments of self-expression that fall between the children’s bedtime and mine.  We were talking about an issue our family has.

“Issue” is such a serious word.

This isn’t serious but it is…

There’s a “finishing what we’ve started”, “cleaning up before we start the next project” — “issue”.

Not a moral thing.  Not a ‘good’ or ‘evil’ thing.  But it’s a thing.

And it’s not extreme, not like those folks you see on Dateline where you walk into their house and they have stuff from the 1800’s up til today piled in stacks around their apartment and have to sleep on the couch because their collection of Encyclopedia Brittanica from the 1970’s has its home on their bed. No, it’s not like that.

But still…

This afternoon, I had sat stupefied on the couch, surveying the house, the busy boys and my inbox and didn’t know where to start.  Do I delete e-mails (I have about 550 to sort through on this account and several thousand on others)?  Do I clean the counter with all the paperwork, notecards, homeschooling books, and random life supplies?  Do I head to the laundry basket and rescue my kids from commando-world?  Where do I start?

I walked, past all the obvious piles and macro messes, over to the ’secretary’ (the antique desk by the door) and to the left of it sat my purse.  Not my current purse that’s butter yellow and bulging against the bookcase, but the black purse that I took with me to Utah…in February.

I declared to my husband, “I’m going to clean my purse!”

“Great! He said, “Take ten minutes to do that.”

I love his optimism…

As I started digging through, I found an embarrassing collection of items so random that I could have been a winning contestant on the old game show, “Let’s Make a Deal” with Monty Hall that I remembered from my youth.

Wadded up tissues, vitamins, business cards, a teasing comb, stickers, kids tattoos, dental floss sticks, scraps of papers with phone numbers with no name to identify themselves by, crumpled receipts dating back to mid-2008 and more pennies than I could count.  And for some inexplicable reason, sand.  There was sand at the bottom of my purse.  I don’t remember there being sand in Provo, Utah in February….maybe having all this crap floating around at 35,000 feet creates some kind of “purse dust” that ends up looking like sand.

Go figure.

As I pulled it all out and sorted it in “Stacey categories” (categories that make sense to me — and a ferret) I realized why I don’t clean out my bag that often — it’s because I don’t know where to put the things that I pull out of it.

I started with the obvious and managed my way to the last few piles that I was avoiding.

Shuffling aimlessly around the house in my robe and Ugg boots, with both hands clenched full with random items,  made me look a patient in an insane asylum.  I didn’t know where to put this stuff.

One by one, I created a home  – spare change in the kids’ piggy bank, teeth cleaners in an envelope in the bathroom drawer, pen caps in the garbage and on and on and on.  Until all that was left was a to-do list and a mangled, chubby lip liner pencil that had melted all over itself in a baggie without a cap and was now sitting on my make-shift coffee table.

When Rock and I sat down tonight and reflected on the day, we talked about being different — that it’s going to take us being different to have different results.  Yes, we’ve grown a lot in the last twenty years of marriage and yes, having young kids and moving 3 times in the last 4 years puts a twist into the whole organizational mix, but it’s seeming like our life is on top of us, instead of us being on top of our life.

I nodded and said, “My purse is like my car, which is like our garage, which is like my e-mail box….overflowing with stuff that I put in but don’t take out.”

“Yeah, I know, I almost didn’t have room for the kids in the car.  They got in and empty water bottles and library books started falling out. So, frustrating, Stace…”

Ouch.

I nodded again.  Sorry and caught.  The impact doesn’t stop there. There was more.

“Rock, my purse is like my body…I’m carrying around all this extra weight in my life that I don’t know how to get rid of.  I think that I don’t know how to deal with some stuff that’s going on in my life and I’m just housing it in here,” I said, pointing to my thighs, “because I’m not really sure where to put it.”

“Wow,” he said. “That’s good.”

Hmm…‘good’ is a relative term. ‘Good’ can sometimes hit you kinda hard.

So, it’s time…time to take care of the flood of e-mail, the distressed shoulder bags that would scream in pain if they could say anything, and the body that is my human purse, storing the random emotional items that I’m not sure how to sort and store in their proper homes..

It’s a good thing to see — a ’sighing’ thing even.

I deleted 121 e-mails today, down to 429 — and have one purse behind me.  The rest will have to wait until morning and then we’ll take care of it - or at least, I’ll continue on….

One scrap of paper — one bit of sand — and I’m thinking even, one pound — at a time.