Losing weight, much like any change we wish to create in life, is challenging.
Why?
Because if we are like a ship sailing in the sea of life, we direct ourselves in the path of increasing weight and we, suddenly, want to change that path. It is almost like telling ourselves off. Taking responsibility is painful!
Most people find it hard to change because they have been practicing the previous path for a long time. Most people feel like they got up one day and they have noticed they were 20kg overweight where in fact, they got used to one extra kilo and got used to another extra kilo, until they have reached a point, they felt they couldn’t “get used to it” any longer.
think this point where we “wake up one day” and ask how on earth did I get here? Is a good, healthy turning point in our health and personal development quest. The answer is always “slowly, day after day, kilo after kilo” but we were too tired to wake up.
Weight never appears one day. It increased slowly and will be gone, exactly the same way, slowly.
From a very early age, we learn that compromise is a good thing. Since life won’t happen the way we want it to happen (we can argue about that too, maybe in a later post) it is better to learn to accept life as it is. If we want to have good relationships for example, we must learn to compromise. We believe that if we want to have a good relationship with ourselves, we need to compromise on our wants and desires.
hildren go through the process of “compromising” on their wants and desires in order to fit into our society. We even have a name for it, socialization. The problem is that we took this concept too far. There are things we should never compromise on: our health, our values, our truth.
his all starts with the parent’s desire to protect the child. Parents think that if the child learns to “obey” or “follow the rules” he/she will survive the challenges in life, where in fact, children (and later adults) need sense of control and supportive attention, in the journey they set for themselves. While in life, they need to find an internal compass that includes designing themselves, finding their values, finding their truth (True North) and listening to their own body, they spend most of their energy following external rules. No wonder they get up one day and are shocked to look at themselves in the mirror. It is wake up call. The body has been warning us for a long time, but we pressed the snooze button every time we felt uncomfortable and sunk into the shame of being out of control.
f you are overweight and feel ashamed, it is because you have been practicing it for a long time. You are so good at blaming yourself for not fitting into the external constraints and that keeps you totally asleep while the kilos are piling around your waist, your neck, and it is a heavy, very heavy burden to carry.
ne of the ways we use to manage that “compromise” is to excuse ourselves with why we are overweight. It is a natural defense mechanism to help us live with ourselves in peace. The self-blame, self-pity, low self-image, low self-confidence and sometimes self-loathing, are so heavy and hard to bear, we must offload it on external sources.
hen I ask my clients “why are you overweight?” Their answers helped me figure out how they do this offloading. It is always, an accident, a trauma, child birth, my mother is fat, I took medication, I have a health issue, my genes, I had no time to… They come with millions of excuses to offload the burden, the shame. Don’t get me wrong, I did the exact same thing. We even had a joke in my group of friends “ I gave birth… 15 years ago. My last excuse was menopause. Some of my female friends are relieved to reach the age they can use as an excuse.
he Catch 22 of weight
Every excuse we use for any situation we are not happy with (weight gain is just one example) is meant to help us but it also extends the compromising strategy, extend our sleep, and prevent us from waking up to the reality of this uncomfortable feeling. We think we are accepting things as they are but in fact, we extend the feeling of being out of control. Acceptance is when we are at peace with what is happening and compromising on living the life we don’t like, is far away from feeling at peace. I call it the catch 22 and it is easy to explain it when we talk about weight.
We eat because we feel out of control. Feeling out of control makes us eat. It does not matter what started it, it is a never-ending cycle, until we stop hitting the snooze button and take control.
xcuses and control don’t go hand in hand. When we use excuses, we transfer the responsibility to external sources, as if we are saying (mainly to ourselves) that it is out of our control.
Thinking that we are out of control means we haven’t found a way to change the situation. I think adding “Yet” to the equation is a better approach. I’m overweight now because I haven’t found a way to change it, yet! When I use “Yet” I send myself a message that it is possible to change and plant hope in my mindset. Without the belief it is possible, no change can happen.
f you are reading this and want to change your weight, remember that you are the captain of your own ship and you brought yourself to this place. Weight was a defense mechanism to “survive” the challenges in life. It is not your fault, and no one’s fault. It was the best way your mind found to manage. You are the captain, and you take control and can direct the ship to safe waters, without guilt, with enjoying your food and never hungry, looking good, feeling good, strong, and healthy.
f you feel “no more”, celebrate!
our body used different alarms to wake you up, but you were too busy surviving, you couldn’t hear it. Our body is always “talking” we have never learned to “listen”. If you can hear it now, you are one of the lucky ones.
f you refuse to let your weight increase by compromising, celebrate!
hen you say “enough” you have reached the start of this race to your ideal healthy weight. Without this refusal to go on, without feeling “sick and tired of feeling sick and tired” you are not even in the race. When we reach this low place, we are in a space with plenty of potential.
I welcome this feeling because before we learn to decrease our weight, we must first stop it increasing.
y waking up to the realization that we might not be able to control what happened to us, but we can always control what we do about it, we wake up! we take charge! We take responsibility! We gain control!
When we are determined to let go of compromising, let go of excusing and remind ourselves the “Yet” we start a new cycle. We learn that we have power that is beyond what we have imagined. And the best thing: we are in control, so we no longer need food to gain control!
Good luck on your journey towards healthy weight
Make your day a great day, remember, happiness is a choice!
Ronit
https://www.behappyinlife.com
