In the previous post, I mentioned my abnormal fear of the idea of 'permanence.' This came up at Lynn's Weigh, a blog that I follow, when a question was posed to successful 'losers' who had lost their weight and kept it off. The question was: 'What was it this time that did the trick? What clicked that hadn't clicked before? And there was one answer that really affected me. The person accepted the fact that they had to make permanent lifestyle changes.
Sigh.
It's the word permanent that scares the be-jesus out of me. The idea of giving up chocolate and the rest of my highly processed food permanently gives me the heebie-jeebies. Honestly, I don't know if I can do it. How will I cope? Will it trigger a slide back into that black hole of depression? What if I give it all up (the food, I mean) and nothing changes? What if my self confidence, my self image and my self esteem remain the same?
In her book, You Can Be Thin, Marissa Peer posits the theory that we do things out of habit that we link pleasure to and we avoid things that we link pain to. In its most simplistic terms, pain is a great motivator. Currently, I derive a lot of pleasure and comfort from eating the wrong kinds of food and I choose to ignore the pain that this causes. The pain being my inability to walk more than a few steps, the need for a double knee replacement at 44 and wearing the only designer label that fits me: 'morbidly obese.' I must have a high pain threshhold, for how long can I ignore these painful facts? And there are more of these if I should choose to list them.
In the same vein, it's the pain I focus on when I think about that I have to 'give' up my favorite foods, choosing to ignore the pleasure that's linked with permanent weight loss: better health, improved mobility, better looks, more self confidence and the list goes on.
Before I can really tackle my weight, I need to do some 'mental' prep work. I can look at the past 8 months as a failure but I can't; I prefer to see it as a journey which is how I arrived here in this spot today. It's the same as building a house without a proper foundation. I cannot deal with my body until I deal with my mind.
It's time to work on changing my attitude.
And the journey of enlightment and awakening continues.
