I'm off to M&D's pretty soon, with a quick stop to the grocery store to pick up breakfast. Things have been going well in BC. Last week had a few days of loss recorded; week before, FOUR STRAIGHT DAYS!! Sarah and Jeremy have possibly been giving me clues that I'm doing OK in the Summer Challenge. I am prone to over-interpretation, however.
I made a wrap yesterday that is VERY satisfying, curbs hunger a LONG time, and is moderate in calories and sodium. Think I'm going to try them for lunch this week. It's one Flat-Out Lite wrap, one can of tuna, mustard, spinach, and chopped celery and onion. Probably ought to go easy on the onion, eating these at work, but there's nothing quite like brushing your teeth after lunch. I can chop all my veggies, even mix the mustard ahead of time, then throw things together at work. YUM.
I spoke with Jeremy's mom, Jacqui, last Monday, as part of the Summer Challenge. She is a life coach, I think, and I was honestly a little skeptical about what she could offer, but... we got together on the phone for 30min. She suggested I make a Vision Board, which is a poster displaying pictures, personal or from a magazine or the Internet, that resonate with me on a feeling level, that make tangible what I want my life to look like, and where I want to be/what I want to look like in, say, 5 yrs. Create an image, as specific as possible, of what I want life to be for me. I did this, and it was fun! I included pics of when I was riding horses a generation ago, as that was the time in my life when I was fittest and slimmest. The words that I jotted down, to guide the theme while I was brainstorming, were MUSCULAR, TRIM, FIT, ATHLETIC, CAPABLE, SMILING, SWEATY, & SPORTY. I zipped thru one of my magazines and picked some images that appealed to me, some phrases that I found supportive and encouraging. I also included a before and after of Ben Davis Ben Does Life. When you look at it on a daily basis, and enjoy looking at it, it reminds me who I am (and where I'm going on this journey), and encourages me to have a new mindset --> that's how I become who I need to be. She said obese people need to change our "inner speak" and get our thoughts in line with what we want in life and within ourselves. She said the obesity problem is mental. It takes awhile for the mental stuff to catch on, but I need to offer myself a new inner dialogue, new song in the background, NOW, so I can align myself with thoughts of where I see myself in 5yrs. Picture yourself at your healthy weight, so that when it happens, it's not a concept that's foreign to yourself; THIS IS ME! She said that's how people often sabotage themselves in their weight control journey. They have a good goal but they don't get there (or they don't stay there), because mentally they haven't accepted and embraced the new vision of their identity and it doesn't fit what they've previously learned. So the vision board helps us to learn a new identity so we can accept it when it becomes a physical reality.
I pondered why people allow themselves to become morbidly obese. Jacqui said we devalue ourselves; somewhere along the line we believed and internalized the notion that we weren't worth the time, effort, expense; that we weren't valuable. It's important to try to determine why you would devalue yourself; why would you have learned or accepted that concept? If there is no rational truth to the idea, probably time to let it go and replace it with a more positive self-concept.
Jacqui recommended I make a list of my positive attributes. We do often tell ourselves negative things; we KNOW it's not true but our mind still latches onto the thought. (Sometimes it's easier to believe the negative ideas.) When you catch yourself in a moment of negative self-talk, you can refer to this list and remind yourself of your own positive attributes, and fight back with it. List specific instances of when the positive things occurred, not generalities. This is empowering, and gives us confidence. We are more than our physical bodies.
People with unappealing physical bodies become invisible to the rest of the world. (Sometimes we want to be invisible; probably linked to the concept of being worthless or unvaluable.) When you have worked on your attributes to make yourself comfortable with the new you, you can stop sabotaging yourself when you are no longer invisible.
Jacqui said it is human nature to take things upon yourself to explain difficult or uncomfortable situations to yourself. We protect ourselves and make up beliefs and hang onto them our whole lives, as a method of controlling the weird world around us. These are limiting beliefs. When we are "recovering" from obesity, we begin to incorporate a new belief to substantiate ourselves. Who I am NOW. I am an adult and I don't still need to believe what I believed as a naive child with an incomplete understanding of the world around me. I also read in "Shrink Yourself" that we are regularly prone to misunderstand the meanings of situations around us, and often take on meanings that have nothing to do with ourselves. In essence we regularly misunderstand the events around us as things we can or should control. But we can learn to analyze better and let go of the things we really have no control over, that may negatively impact our self-talk.
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