I get really excited when I think about weight loss as a by-product.
A by-product of what, you might ask.
Weight loss as a by-product of investing in myself.
Investing time.
Investing resources.
Learning.
Learning how to cook.
Learning about nutrition.
Learning how different foods affect my body.
Learning how to experience my emotional life, rather than running from it.
Learning how my thoughts, beliefs, and mindset affect and drive the results I achieve.
Weight loss isn’t the goal.
The goal is self-respect, self-love, and self-care.
The goal is devoting time to myself, putting myself first in a way that serves and honors me.
The goal is accepting myself and wanting only the best for myself.
The goal is taking action in order to achieve the best for myself.
The goal is showing up for myself over and over again, with gentleness, for sure, but also as the person who will keep me on track, and not allow myself to wallow in self-pity or in self-doubt. The goal is to be the one who sees all of this, accepts it, but then gives myself the structure of moving forward.
Some examples are:
Understanding how the hunger scale works, and creating a number range that works for you, so that you know when to eat and when to stop eating.
Planning a week of meals, writing down every day what you will eat, and then assessing.
After assessing how your plan is working, deciding to keep it or change it.
And then doing it all over again, day after day, week after week.
Setting a goal for drinking more water, and then tracking it.
Setting a goal for getting more sleep, and then tracking it.
Planning an exception meal and joy foods, 24 hours ahead of time, eating them, and moving on.
Taking time every day to move your body – stretching, walking, running, exercising.
Taking time out every day to breathe, meditate, reflect and journal.
Making mistakes, sometimes eating something not planned, sometimes eating too much. Dusting yourself off and getting back on track without beating the shit out of yourself.
Not expecting perfection. Giving yourself space to be completely imperfect, mess up, and begin again.
Rinse and repeat with all of these things.
When you take care of yourself, you’re not overeating, because that’s not taking care of yourself. That’s buffering and ignoring what is really going on with you.
And when you do these things consistently, you will be living a life more aligned with your values and your greater desire for yourself.
And weight loss will occur… and that will be fun and exciting, but it won’t be the main thing.
The main thing will be the awe you have for yourself.
The deep appreciation you will have for yourself because you showed up and had your own back.
How reliable you are.
How willing you are to do things for yourself, even when you don’t want to. You do it anyway because you said you would.
The main thing will be how important you are to yourself.
You’re THAT PERSON. The one does what she says she’ll do. The one who has high standards and gives herself a break.
The one who doesn’t punish herself for being less than… because that doesn’t even exist.
The main thing is that you are enough.
You are worthy of the effort just because you are.
How do I know?
Because this is how it all started for me.
Years before I was finally able to lose significant weight, I started doing these things.
It began with a gratitude list.
I listened to an Oprah podcast one day. Her guest was a happiness expert. (I didn’t know someone could have that profession!) He said that it was possible to generate a great sense of well-being and happiness by practicing gratitude for what she already had. His advice was to write down three things everyday for which one is grateful. The key was to write down three different things every day.
That was a challenge for me. I was always grateful for family members, my beloved dog, trips to the woods and beach, and so on. But three new things every day?! That was a stretch. But being a teacher and librarian, I thought about grammar/parts of speech and categorization. So, I began with nouns. What people, places, and things was I grateful for? A particular body part? I special location? A friend I hadn’t seen in awhile? Did I have special mementos of places visited, experiences had? Were there emotions that I was grateful for? Why? Then I moved on to verbs. What were all of the actions for which I was grateful? Mine or someone else’s? I categorized them all – big things, small, subtle things, silly things, poignant things. Then I moved onto modifiers – the adjectives and adverbs. Was I grateful for the thoughtful way in which someone did something for me? Was I grateful that I was able to walk more quickly than before, stretch more deeply in a yoga pose than the week prior?
Now, there is no limit to the people, places, things, and activities for which I’m grateful.
I also began walking every day – once in the morning with my dog, and again at lunch. It was important for me to take a break from work, move my body, and get fresh air. So I figured out how to make it work.
I began a daily meditation practice as part of my morning routine. I began by following a Deepak Chopra guided meditation. Now, I mix it up. I use the Calm app, as well as other techniques.
Soon I added daily journaling to my meditation and breathing practice.
Morning exercise became a thing. Now I’m committed to it daily.
Ditto water intake, planning my meals, and assessing myself without judgment.
The more willing I was to take care of myself, the more unwilling I became to treat myself badly and abuse food in the guise of comfort.
Over time, I lost weight. Some of it just came off while I was busy focusing my attention elsewhere, while some of it came off intentionally.
That weight loss was the by-product of putting myself first. It was a by-product of showing up for myself because I’m worth showing up for, not because I knew that I absolutely had to lose weight. When that is the focus, I might lose weight, but it won’t last. When I focus on caring for myself, and giving myself the time and space to do just that, then the weight loss is a bonus. And I’ll be able to maintain it because the thoughts, feelings, and actions that I want to have and take are already in place.