For anyone who has been on a
weight loss journey, it is not surprising to hear that the road is
terrifying. It contains mountains to
surpass, potholes to dig ourselves out of, curves that throw of us off track,
and straightaways that can loll us into wrong thinking and false security. And, we occasionally reach that valley of
relaxation and accomplishment. While we
can celebrate our accomplishment, and indeed we should, we can’t stay in the
valley of relaxation and get too comfortable.
We need to forever be diligent in our thinking and our actions. It is
indeed a lifelong journey!
When first starting my journey, I
must say that it truly felt and worked quite seamlessly and easily. I was on a very structured plan… a plan that I did not need to really “think”
about. It was outlined specifically for
me, and all I had to do was muster up my resolve to stay the course. I thought obtaining that resolve would be
the hardest part, but in reality, it turned out to be the easiest part of my
journey. My resolve came quickly, as I saw
the pounds melt away on a weekly basis.
I believe I lost 5 pounds the first week, and subsequent weeks lost between 1 to 3 pounds weekly. The key word is “lost.” As long as I lost weekly, my resolve was good to go!!!! That’s why the resolve was the easiest part.
As with every journey, you cannot
stay in one place forever; as it is
with my diet plan. At this point, I will
not refer again to my “diet plan.” I
actually early in this journey stopped using the word “diet.” If I learned anything early on, it is that it
is so much more than a “diet.” It is a “wellness”
journey. My wellness journey! Not
staying in one place forever, I soon
found was the hardest and most challenging part of this process.
Since I had had great success
with my Phase 1 journey, I was so reluctant to move to Phase 2 of my
journey. Phase 1 was so very structured, no “thinking” on my
part, just “doing.” Now I found myself
in the first curve of the road; the
curve of trying to ease my way into Phase 2.
This phase required me to branch
out a bit, and to start introducing certain food groups back into a healthy
balance. This was so scary, since I saw
a lot of those foods as the very ones that caused issues with me in the
past. What I had to learn was that it
wasn’t the food group that was the issue … it was the volume and the balance of that food
group. One of my favorite stories with
regard to balance and what I could and could not eat, was when I asked my health educator if I could
have garbanzo beans on my salad. His
reply, “Sharon, it was not the garbanzo beans that brought you to me in the
first place.” How true!!! That is now my mantra when deciding about a
food group, the amount of said food group, and the balance it has in my overall
diet, “It was not the garbanzo beans…”
If I have learned anything
through this journey, I would have to say the biggest revelation is the
uniqueness of the human body. What it
does and doesn’t do is mind boggling.
All of our lives we have been taught and told to eat less and exercise
more. I’d like someone to name one, just
one “diet plan” or “weight loss program” that in most of the literature, that
doesn’t first tell you the “miracle” of
their product or program, and then the disclaimer will read something to the
effect of “exercise needed to compliment the program.” I particularly love the belly fat ads about
taking a pill that will reduce belly fat, and their comment during the
commercial, that “if your belly fat decrease is too drastic, to only take one
of the pills daily.” Well, sign me
up!!! I only need to swallow two and
maybe just one pill, and my belly fat will just melt away. If you believe that one, I’ve got a nice
piece of swamp land in South Carolina that I’d like to sell you!!!!
The body doesn’t respond to pills,
wraps, 20 day exercise fads … it responds to a daily dose of healthy, balanced
eating, coupled with healthy cardio and weight training, good sleep habits, and
reduction and management of daily stress.
Oh, it will respond to pills, wraps, fads, initially; but it cannot sustain a healthy level without
a balanced healthy lifestyle. But, the
key to this healthy lifestyle is to realize that even when doing everything
correctly, food, exercise, sleep, the body will still at different times show
the agony of a “gain” on the scale. I
call this the scale being a brat!!!!!!
This leads me to the highest
mountain on my journey. I am a
scalephobe. I believe the technical
term, at least per Google, is gravitaphobia.
It has tempered a great deal, but I look forward to when this is resolved
once and for all. My lifestyle is extremely healthy now, with
what I believe, is a fairly balanced eating style and exercise habits. But even with these habits, the scale on a
weekly basis goes down 2 pounds, up 1.5, down .75, up 2. It is a roller coaster!! With what appears to be no rhyme or reason!
I do know that stress, lack of sleep, hormone changes can all make the scale do
different things. Recently while on
vacation in Saratoga Springs, NY, I got up each morning at 7:00 a.m. to get on the treadmill, I ate
lean proteins, whole grains, fruits, vegetables, my protein shakes. I had one Bloody Mary and 10, yes I counted
them, 10 pretzel crisps! It is a picnic area, full of vendors with specialty foods. So many folks
picnicking around me ate junk for 5 solid days and consumed liquor quite happily. Was the scale a brat upon my return? Of course, it was. Gained 1.5 pounds!!!!! My
first thought was that I should have eaten and drank like everyone else picnicking at Saratoga Race Course. But then I thought, no the scale
would have been a bigger brat, and I probably would have gained 3
pounds!!! So, I allowed myself to be
disappointed for that one evening, the entire time telling myself, that I did
everything I was supposed to do, I couldn’t have done any better, so no need to
beat myself up. The scale will do what the scale wants to do. All I need to do is stay focused on eating
healthy, exercising appropriately, sleeping well, and managing my stress. Everything else will fall into place.
I titled this, “The Trap …
Unhealthy Trying To Be Healthy.” This
title comes naturally to me, because I can say this was my lifestyle for the
first several months into Phase 2. Since
I had been told for most of my years to “eat less, exercise more” I found that
what I usually did as a solution to the scale being a brat, was to adjust my
food intake, calorie intake, and to exercise even more! When I first started into Phase 2 and added
whole grains back into my diet, the scale would go up a bit. I immediately thought “those dreaded carbs.” So I would take them out of my food plan, and
of course, the scale would go back down.
I would stay there a week or two, and then add them back in … the scale
would inch back up … out they would go again.
My health educator preached, and a bit harshly at times, that the body
has to get used to what you are using to fuel it. Until it gets used to what you are introducing back into it, the scale
will show a reaction of a plus or a minus.
How many times did he say to “stay the course?” Too many for me to count, and so many that I
led him to complete frustration with me.
I was eating the incorrect
balance of lean proteins, whole grains, veggies and fruits. My fruits and veggies were astounding at 10
to 12 servings per day, along with two lean proteins. But I often had no healthy whole grain carbs
in my diet, and while they weren’t in my diet, I was exercising in great
intensity 5 to 6 days per week. I was
not fueling my body. I was the picture
of being Unhealthy Trying To Be Healthy!!!!
Thankfully and blessedly, my health educator
refused to give up on me. We worked
together to formulate a healthy plan. It
was not just about eating the correct balance, but in my case it was even more
of the head game to get my mind where it needed to be with the scale, and its
associated ups and downs. My mountain to climb. I would say that I’m about three-fourths the
way to the peak now. I am staying the
course, and I’m talking to myself daily about remaining calm about the journey. My reaction to the latest scale “brattiness”
after vacation validated my improvement.
For a “wellness program”, my wellness program, I know that it is
forever. It is not a destination, it is
a journey. It is never over, it is for
always and forever. There is a not a
before and after, but a before and always!
I wake up every morning, and I know that I need to make the same commitment
for the new day that I have made for the days before. Each day is a new commitment to a healthy
day. Our health educator uses the term “eating
with intention.” That makes so much
sense. We don’t eat for flavor, for fun,
for social activity. We eat to fuel our bodies. These beautiful God given
bodies. These temples given to us to
preserve and treat with respect. My
wellness program.
For anyone that can’t understand
these journeys, I would pray for their empathy for those of us embarking and
well on our way. It is riddled with obstacles,
but the accomplishment at the end is indescribable with joy and gratitude for a
healthy body, mind, and soul.
I close with this Max Lucado quote, “God never said that the journey would
be easy. But he did say that the arrival would be worthwhile.”
