Woman loses two stone by trying really hard
*Trigger warning: this blog deals with weight loss and eating habits*
Not a particularly appealing headline is it? You’re far more likely to be sucked in by a link screaming: ‘Eat five cakes a day and see the weight drop off’.
But, as we all know, losing weight is not that easy.
We’re familiar with the science bit; move more and eat less. And, medical conditions permitting, if you jig around and eat healthy stuff your body should settle nicely into a BMI-approved package. (Don’t get me started on BMI… that’s a whole different blog!).
BUT that’s not allowing for the mental gymnastics that are difficult to wriggle out of when we try to change our eating habits.
I know what I’m talking about. My size has always fluctuated, due to an intolerance to sugar (I love it, it doesn’t like me and makes me sickly and completely bonkers) and a well-established binge-eating response to strong emotion.
Stir these personal peccadillos into a six-week detox programme in October 2019 and you have a recipe for disaster.
It seemed like a most excellent idea. It would reset my hormones (I’d just started with hot flushes) and I could look like a supermodel by the end of it (oh yes, my brain dangled that carrot).
I lasted three weeks. It was way stricter than I’d anticipated and eating platefuls of raw broccoli left me feeling deprived and more than a little depraved.
I crashed off the detox and straight into eating ANYTHING THAT WASN’T NAILED DOWN.
Most people say they put on weight during lockdown. I’d already inflated before Boris stepped up to his lectern – and then I just kept on going. It was like a switch had been flicked and, whatever I tried, I couldn’t flick it back.
After a couple of years’ frustration and serious self-damage I realised what I was doing.
I was holding on to weight loss as being the answer to everything.
I told myself I would feel clearer and more confident when I was smaller. I would look like me again, I would feel like me again. I would have nothing in my way. The list went on.
Even though I knew all the theory and helped my clients undo unhelpful patterns, I was doing exactly what I advised them against. Waiting for a mythical day when everything would fall into place and be easier. When I would start living again, rather than existing.
Yeah, excuse my French… but that was a load of bollocks. It got me nowhere. It wasn’t until I started practising what I preached and worked with my own fabulous coach that I started to untangle my head and make progress.
I had to start before I was ‘ready’. Right in the middle. In the messy, uncomfortable, cringeworthy desperation of it all.
It took six long months of focus, accountability, sitting on my hands instead of reaching into the fridge, and the courage to enter rooms full of strong-looking people in lycra (I only got as far as the sack race at school) to lose two stone.
Physical exercise and healthy eating habits aside, I also had to look long and hard at my limiting beliefs around how I behaved and what I could do. Hunting around in the nooks and crannies of my brain for all the ‘I will always be like this’ and ‘Eating is happiness’ loopholes holding me back.
I still have work to do before I feel as fit as a racing snake. But my self-belief and self-discipline stores are topped up now – so I don’t have the same desperate need to fill the gap with biscuits.
What are you waiting to tackle when you feel better or ready? What are you waiting for? What needs to happen before you’ll be happy? Have a think.
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