Friend of Julie: Hard

A key friend asked this question today: which is harder: losing or maintaining? Hard is what I felt about going to college at age 37, but I did it anyway. In a cartoon class I took a few years ago, I looked around at how well others were drawing and I said to myself "this is really hard," but I did it anyway. In following this program, hard should not be a part of the equation.

Cartoon by Theresa

It may be hard to get back into the river, but if we don't get go off program this isn't an issue - so stay in the river! Take out the hard part of your equation and stay on program.  Besides, going on and off-program is not part of this program. Once and done as Julie says. Lose your weight once and be done.

When I hear myself saying how hard this program is - I know I'm in trouble. One of two things are going on when I'm thinking how hard this is: I'm in my head too much or I'm eating something off-program.

If I'm in my head too much, it means I'm not trusting my body enough. When I constantly think about what to do to stay on program, I stop and ask myself: am I eating something I shouldn't be?

About a year into this program, I discovered that sometimes I was over thinking this program and when I did this I often used the word hard. One day while talking with another key friend about how hard this is, I realized something wasn't right. This program wasn't hard before, so what's different now that it feels so hard? I decided to review what I was eating and sure enough I found I was eating something not on program. Something that I hadn't been eating before, but somehow thought I could eat. I immediately stopped eating that food and that took hard out the equation.

Just this week I discovered something that was hard for me: giving up yogurt. I'm taking it out of the equation. I loved my Siggi's, but I'm giving it up now that I understand:

Yogurt is to be eaten the same way as vegetables: always with a with big chunk of meat.

I've been eating yogurt immediately after my dinner and I can't imagine eating yogurt along with my meal, so I'm giving it up. I don't know why I didn't understand this concept sooner, but I'm telling my little mean girl to hush, what's done is done. I'm moving forward, as I can't change the past.

I'm also giving up yogurt because a part of me doesn't want to give it up. But the biggest reason I'm giving up yogurt:

If you feel you are losing slowly or on a plateau, you should not eat yogurt.

Tap, tap, tap. I'm pushing away the cravings to have this treat because my desire to reach my goal far outweighs my desire to treat myself to yogurt. Besides, yogurt isn't meant to be a treat.

Back to the question, which is harder: losing weight or maintenance, I say take the question out of the equation and find the source of what feels so hard. 

If you're obsessing or thinking about how hard weight loss or maintenance is, perhaps you need to stop and ask yourself: what's that really all about? Is it possible that what's really hard is pushing past your fears and trusting that your body knows what to do to lose weight and maintain your goal size?

Tap, tap, tap. I'm pushing away the fears of how hard maintenance might be, because on the other side of maintenance is where I want to be. Whatever I have to face to get there will be worth it.

I'm never going back to the size I was when I drew this cartoon!

Cartoon of myself when I was a size 30/32. Cartoon and photo by Theresa.