The Mental Game

I keep thinking this or that will be a good idea for me, and then before too long I just get tired of it. I have done a few different "brilliant" ideas over the past 6 months, and I just fizzle out so quickly! It's really hard to not just "go back" to the unhealthy habits. Probably because it's just so easy. It's autopilot. It's what I can do without having to put in all the time and effort and focus. Not that I want to go back. But.

With as much experience as I have with weight loss, you'd think I'd have myself a little more figured out by this point. (Too bad I have more experience with weight gain than with weight loss). I don't want to ignore the fact that I have learned A LOT. I've learned a lot about weight loss and health and fitness in general, and I've learned a lot about myself in relation to all that. So yes, I am leaps and bounds ahead of where I used to be. But I do not have myself all figured out.

Maybe part of it is that life changes, and people change. The dynamics of my life usually aren't the same for too many years at a time. All through childhood, life's dynamics change rapidly. Then as an adult, it's college and then figuring out what you're doing for the summer, and where you're living, and who your roommates are, and how many credits you will take, and what your job schedule will be like (if you worked through college like I did). Then it's done with college, time to get a job--where to apply, which job to take, where to live, maybe who to live with, co-workers, etc. Then for me it was getting married, getting pregnant, having a baby (moving multiple times in the process), Jared graduating, then joining the Army, then us moving across the country--and then it was years and years and years of changes. Adding more kids to the family, moving (again and again and again)--and not just when the Army sent us somewhere. We have a habit of moving a lot. The longest we've ever lived in one house is 18 months. More kids, master's degree, more kids, more moving, deployments, more moving, vacations, getting used to new places and new schedules and new resources. And during all of that, of course it's not just life that's changing, it's me that's changing. Things that worked before don't always work again, maybe because my body is older or different or has been through more, maybe because my mindset is different, my learning has increased, my food addiction has gotten worse, my views change, whatever.

So. The one thing that is constant is that I have to always reevaluate what and how I'm doing. What in the world is going on inside my head? I think that right now it's more a head game than anything.

I was really excited to do WW, and then after less than a week of tracking points I got so tired of it. Not that I don't want to do weight watchers, because I absolutely do. I know that the problem is not with the program, the problem is with me. I need to adjust my mindset. Looking back to preparing to start the weight watchers points plus plan, things that I thought were "You can eat whatever you want in WW as long as you can fit it into your points. No food is restricted!" I still like that, but I think I started focusing so much more on eating whatever I wanted. Portions were part of that. I dreamed of eating and eating, mounds and mounds of veggies and fruits because they're "free." Not that eating a lot of fruits and vegetables is bad, it's just that the whole idea of doing weight watchers got me to thinking about all the stuff I was going to eat. I would finish eating something and start thinking about the next thing I would eat. And what I would have for dessert. It's the same thing I did when I tried following the Biggest Loser eating plan.

I am starting to get it that even though this battle includes thinking and planning and counting and tracking, and it always will, I do not do well when I let food be on my mind so much. And so the challenge for me is to learn how to think and plan and count and track in a more passive way. Some way that will let me not think so much. I have to figure out how to be more relaxed about it all. I mean, life is happening all day long, and there are so many things that are so much more important than food!

I need more time for taking care of home and family, providing for all the needs around me--the cleaning, the cooking, the laundry, the fun, the events, the plans, the work--and if that wasn't enough, I have started an online marketing class that involves weekly assignments and all that jazz. At any rate, I do not want my LIFE to be thinking and planning and counting and tracking food. I want my life to be family and kids and fun and events and work and all those things that life really is. If I could have it my way, I'd just eat whatever is for breakfast lunch and dinner every day and not worry about it. Obviously that hasn't worked for me in the past, and the fact that I have not been able to handle it SCREAMS at me that not thinking about it is clearly not an option. I do have to work at it. I do have to pay attention. I do have to think and plan and count and track.

I just need to make peace with it. The weight management part of my life cannot be the engine. It can't be first. I cannot devote as much time to it as it seems to need. And so I have to figure out how to just do it and stop letting it be so huge.

I so loved the idea of doing a picture food journal every day and posting it. I did like it. But the truth is, having to remember to take a picture of everything, then put the pictures on the computer and then onto the blog, every day--it required to much thought and focus. I don't want to give the food in my life that much importance at the expense of things I could be doing and thinking of instead. It seems that sometimes the great ideas can really backfire. I love having this blog, but if I start posting all the time and "checking in" and going on and on (like I'm doing right now? LOL) also gives the whole weight thing a lot of my attention and time.

I need a good balance, so that I don't put so much work into tracking that I get sick of it and quit. So that I don't put so much work into blogging about weight loss that I get sick of it and stop blogging for weeks at a time. I want to do these things, and so in order to be able to keep doing them I actually need to stop doing them so much. Just like exercising. I want to keep exercising, but if I set my standards at 2 hours a day, it won't take too many days for me to just stop. That's a hard one, because I can just tell myself that 30 minutes is great, but then when I've done 30 minutes it feels so good that I want to keep going. So I keep going for a long time, and then do it the next day, and then I don't even want to think about exercising for a week. I guess I need to be more disciplined and maybe set a 45 minute a day cap or something, so that I don't wear myself out too much to keep going. I need to back off the exercise. I need to back off the pictures of my food. I need to just relax and just incorporate good foods and good portions into every day life.

OK, that's enough. I'm sure I've yapped enough for one session. I guess this is the long story about where I am right now.