My super awesome BFF gave me some advice when I first started blogging and said if I wanted followers, I need to visit and become active on other similar blogs. I searched out other blogs about overcoming compulsive eating and really enjoyed them ... unfortunately, some of the ones I was most interested in were no longer active, which was a bummer, and I realized I never saved the others I wanted to follow to my favorites, so now I need to re-search for them, and I just haven't taken time.
Overall, I was super impressed with how open some of these women were, using their blogs as a place to not only write about their weight loss journey, but also providing facts about pounds and inches and sizes and meals ... even going so far as posting photos of the scale readout as they stood on it! Wow, there's honesty and accountability if I've ever seen it.
I had never thought about using this blog for accountability. I don't even have my photo on it. I've dabbled on SparkPeople and My Fat Secret, but I haven't really been very consistent. I get worn out by all the entering of food and constant updating ... but I've also read that people who are diligent about tracking what, how much and why they eat are the most successful at losing weight. What it boils down to for me is, I simply don't want to be held accountable. It's the same old song and dance: I want the prize without doing the work.
I read an interesting account of dieting in a book recently. It's from a character named Allie in Beth Harbison's book "Hope in a Jar." This is from my scrawled notes and it's not necessarily a direct quotation from the book:
"Allie rejected the notion that everyone who overeats does it due to some deep, psychological trauma. But at the same time, she wonders why it is so hard for her to whip up some willpower and lose the weight. For her, that seems to be the big question ...
... and she realizes that she has trouble sticking to a diet simply because she resents the fact that she has to.
So, she's put on a few pounds. Why does she now have to work extra hard and give up the undeniable pleasure of food just to lose them?
The answer ... is that she just does. She just has to. Life isn't always fair, and this is a good example of that.
In the past, she had the feeling that it was out of her control. But now she knows she can make the right changes. Just by taking one sensible step after another in the right direction. That is all. It's plodding and slow at times - but it's the approach she is going to have to take."
I love this. Because it's me. I do resent it. And it wears on me after awhile, the constant thinking about food and what I'm going to eat or what I'm going to avoid eating and facing my dismal self-control almost on a daily basis - it's annoying and frustrating. I think that's why, sometimes, I'll think, "I just need to accept that this is how I am and be fine with being overweight and quit thinking about it anymore." Which, of course, I never can do because I see the potential in me and I feel within me the overwhelming desire to be thin. Yes, yes, I know, I'm supposed to say, "the overwhelming desire to be healthy." Yes, I do want to be healthy, but when I'm strategizing yet again, it's appearance I'm thinking about most.
I also love the simplistic answer the character comes up with: Why do I have to do it? Because I just do. So quit talking about it to death and just do it already.
But the biggest key for me in this passage is when Allie realizes that she has the power to make the right choices, and it's a long, slow process of "one sensible step after another in the right direction." I think what trips me up and sabotages me ALL THE TIME is that I want it now. Two weeks from now, I want to be in my skinny jeans and be toned and fabulous. Well, of course, it doesn't work like that.
If I determine to take one sensible step at a time, and if I stop putting the rush on myself, it shouldn't be wearing and frustrating; the process should be positive since it's bringing me closer to my goal. The reason it gets frustrating is because, if you'll pardon the pun, I want to have my cake and eat it, too. I mean, can I be any more juvenile?
Me: I want to lose weight.
Motherly voice: Well, then, you need to eat less, exercise and make more healthful choices.
Me (whining): But I don't want to do that.
Motherly voice: Then you won't lose weight.
Me (whining): But I want to.
Motherly voice: Then eat fewer carbs and move around more.
Me: But I love carbs.
Motherly voice: Then you won't lose weight.
Me: But I want to.
Motherly voice: I need a tequila shot.
So, in the end, this blog does hold me somewhat accountable because seeing my thought patterns in black and white is quite eye-opening.
Here's to, starting tomorrow (because it's 1:10 a.m. right now), taking one sensible step after another.
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