I'm going to start by saying all this is just strictly as a layperson who has my own personal experiences and years (lots of them) people watching and helping friends and family.
How many of you over your life have heard from friends, family, and even ourselves:
"Don't bother, you won't succeed anyway."
"Wow, that's a lot of weight to lose. I think you need a more realistic goal"
"You're not worth it."
"You're just not trying hard enough. It's just eat less, move more. You're just lazy/ undisciplined/ not really motivated"
"Again? How many times have you already failed at that?"
For many people, it's not just a diet or exercise program. Everyone has their reason for our goals-- a wedding, our children, ourselves, to reverse diabetes or heart disease, etc. But within that motivation, I've learned you have to reach one crucial element... I am worth the work. It's a nasty crap-ton of work to sweat every day, measure and weigh and log every bite of food, to listen to outside and internal voices say all those things I started with. Survivors of abusive relationships, as children or adults, often still think they were at least partially to blame. They could have done something different. They didn't so they must have deserved it. Maybe still deserve something bad or a punishment or they don't deserve happiness and success now. You do. I will never say I was a victim of anything, I am a survivor. I have survived sexual abuse from a family member, physical and emotional abuse from an alcoholic parent, I survived rape, and a grueling breast cancer battle for a year with unilateral mastectomy and no reconstruction as a single mom working three jobs. That last one was tough. Cleavage and gorgeous hair is what society judges women on, and I had neither. I even had other breast cancer survivors give me a hard time about listening to my doctors and not getting reconstruction. I usually wear a prosthetic, but not always. It's amazing how no one would ever tell someone who lost their arm or leg to bone cancer that they really needed to wear a prosthetic because it looks better and makes other people more comfortable, but that's exactly what I've heard from men and women. I ate and hated what I looked like for multiple reasons. I finally realized I worked too hard to be alive to come out the other end worrying about weight related issues like heart disease and diabetes. I finally was able to look in the mirror almost every day and say "I'm worth it. Yes, I need to get healthier, but I'm alive and I'm going to kick butt today.
We also need to restructure our entire relationship with food. Honestly, the term "cheat meal/ cheat day" really bothers me. If you have to "cheat" on yourself, then this probably is not going to be a relationship with food that will produce lifelong healthy rewards. If your diet is restricting something you love to eat, you're not going to be happy with the journey. It's about finding what to eat and how much in a way that can help you get to healthy and happy for years down the road. If someone texts and says "Let's meet after work to celebrate my sister's birthday" go. Make healthy choices on your meal, have them bring a go box and split it before you eat any of it, then grab a spoon and enjoy the chocolate cake or creme brulee with everyone else. You're learning to eat for the rest of your life, and the counting and weighing and measuring every bite is just until you learn what an honest actual serving size looks like, until you have the habits to replace that Snickers bar with a couple of Hershey's Dark Chocolate Kisses, until you know the difference between thirsty and honestly hungry.
You can do this. I can do this. At my heaviest I was 179 pounds, my goal is back to the 125 I was before cancer, because until then I still don't feel like I've really beat it but it's still beating me. But now I know I'm worth the work. Please share with me some of your favorite positive affirmations and motivations.
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