Insanity

I have been doing a lot of thinking lately. I keep going over and over in my head the fact that I had reached where I wanted to get to, but then didn't protect it. How the heck does one do that? It drives me crazy.

So having thought about it too much, I decided to let that go. Move forward with getting there again. Of course, having had amazing success in losing 100 pounds in just a few months, my instinct is, let's do that again! I obviously know how to make it happen right? Well as we have all heard a million times, the definition of insanity is doing the same things over and over, expecting different results. I have always been able to lose weight easily and quickly, but I have never been able to keep it off. I always go back to poor eating HABITS. Habits, as in behaviors. Bad habits are not born over night, and changing them will not be a permanent fix if you attempt to do it over night.

So having reached that conclusion, my next question was ok, but this overeating thing, surely it is born of some emotional need right? I mean, it just isn't my fault!! To that I say that perhaps. Perhaps in a former life, where I was in a dead end job, I had no family, I knew I was meant for something bigger than standing on a factory floor all day, sometimes 7 days a week. Perhaps when I didn't have a close relationship with God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit. Perhaps before I went to 4 years of undergrad, finished law school, passed the bar, and got my dream job working in the prosecutor's office. Perhaps when I was constantly struggling to make ends meet, keep my family solvent, and wishing like crazy we had just enough money to take even a weekend trip to somewhere besides this state. Perhaps there was a huge hole I was trying to fill with food. But at this point in my life, I am better emotionally, professionally, and spiritually than I have ever been! And yet, I eat and eat and eat. At this point I can't really see that emotional eating is my problem. So I have narrowed it down to two problems. I eat out of habit, and dang it, I just like to eat!! If I am being honest, after my current meal, I am often thinking about what will the next meal be.

Previously, I was all about the numbers. How many calories am I eating? How many did I burn? What is my weight this week? It became a job or a project. As we all know, when you work too hard at a job or finish a project, you burn out or congratulate yourself on a job well done. I seriously remember that when I hit the Onederland mark, when I saw that 199, I breathed a sigh of relief. I had DONE IT. As in I was done. I had spent so much emotional energy chasing a NUMBER. I now realize, I needed to be chasing an change in behavior. I know, it seems that the behavior should have logically followed. But clearly, it didn't have time to take in the few months it took me to reach the goal NUMBER.

So now, my plan is this. I am not going to be fascinated by numbers anymore. From now on, the day starts with goals with regard to my behaviors. Yesterday, I had three goals when I started the day. I will not have seconds, I will not finish the kids plates, and I will not snack after supper(and if I am being honest yet again, snacking means eating continuously after supper). Not a single one of those are hard goals. And I made every single one of them. I ended the day with a sense of accomplishment. I began this day with a sense of resolve. I will keep those same goals for the next 3 weeks. I think that is sufficient time for them to become newer habits, replacing old habits.