DO YOU CHOOSE FAILURE OR SUCCESS?

DO YOU CHOOSE FAILURE OR SUCCESS?

This is the question I have recently began to ask myself. 

Over 50 years of being overweight and I think I am finally getting it.  I have spent my life on and off of diets because I failed.  How many of us have been on a healthy eating plan to lose weight and we have that day where we eat too much or eat sweets that we tell ourselves we shouldn’t?  At the end of the day, we feel guilty, unworthy and a failure.  We beat ourselves up badly.  And then we quit.  It might be months or even years before we try to lose weight again.

What happens?  We quit eating healthy.  We start eating out of control, sometimes binging.  We have to buy bigger clothes.  We stop even weighing.  We dread looking in the mirror.  We tend to pick that part of our bodies that we like no matter what.  Mine was my eyes.  We hate going to the dr; we might even put it off as long as we can.  Why?  You know why.  They are going to weigh us.  And again, we will be humiliated.  They will know what we already know:  WE ARE A FAILURE.

I have been losing weight this time, my last weight loss journey, for almost a year.  I decided that this time I was going to do it differently.  No food would be off limits.  I had finally figured out something.  When there are foods that “aren’t allowed”, we want them more.  After a while, whether a day, a week or a month, we start feeling punished.  We tell ourselves we deserve to eat whatever it is.  And you know that is a short conversation.  Because we feel we have been denied, we usually eat that food like we will never have it again.

This time I told myself that no food was off limits.  If I want a cookie, I eat a cookie.  I have learned that with that freedom to have the food, I’m much less likely to gorge myself with it.  Notice I said “much less likely”.  I have had a few moments where I overate.   But not once this past year have I felt like I did in the past:  that I was a failure and I should just quit.   That is so amazing to me!  I am now able to say, “tomorrow’s a new day and I’ll start again.”  What freedom that has brought me.

Things that are not allowed because much more important in our lives.  When they are allowed, they lose that power over us.  We can have them, even if we overeat them on occasion.  Someday I know I will reach that point where I still eat the “forbidden” foods, but I don’t gorge myself on them.

Do a little experiment.  Try allowing “forbidden” foods on your food plan.  You can’t do it every day but certainly occasionally you can.  See if it helps you.  I’d love to hear from you.

copyrighted 2014

caryn cannatella

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