“M” Is for the Pivotal Moments

I have discovered that my weight loss successes as well as my failures really come down to moments. Every day is made of dozens of these moments. How I face them determines the outcome.

Should I go through the drive-thru at the bank or park the car and walk inside? Should I put an extra spoonful of rice on my plate when no one is looking or skip it? Should I exercise for ten more minutes or call it a day? These and so many other choices come at me throughout the moments of my day.

Each one of these moments presents an opportunity for me to change my life. Every time I make the right choice, I am rewarded with self-respect and perhaps eventually weight loss. When I miss those opportunities, I am sometimes filled with self-loathing and perhaps punished with weight gain.

Sometimes I am able to recognize the hidden challenges in these moments and sometimes I am not. And even when I recognize the moment for what it is, I am weak and give in to it. Those are my moments of failure and I know it.

My challenge as I go forward is to do better in those moments my own human weakness threatens to drag me down. This seems such a somber post but as I think about this, I am convinced it is the key to making changes.

“E” Is for Exercise

Exercise has been the bane of my existence. All my life, the “e” word was like a curse word to me. Never naturally athletic or coordinated, I was the last one picked for teams in gym class. I wasn’t even heavy as a child – that didn’t happen until my third child. Still, even in kindergarten, I had to be taught how to skip because it didn’t come easily to me.

That’s not to say that I didn’t play. I jumped rope, played hopscotch and chased others as we played tag every chance I got. It’s probably one of the reasons I did stay thin in my youth. Once I left childhood and its required daily P.E. behind, regular exercise was a thing of the past.

As I said in my “D” post, I have always loved dancing but it hasn’t always had a place in my life. Work, marriage, kids, divorce, then more work, another marriage and another kid left little room for dancing. If here was no dancing, there was no exercise.

For years that was ok. My busy schedule and youthful metabolism did their best to keep me reasonably thin, even if I thought I looked fat. Oh, what I wouldn’t give to weigh 140 or even 150 now! Sometime after I turned 40 though, my body said that’s enough. Weight doesn’t come off like it used to. In fact it seems to leap onto me from all directions when I’m not looking.

I have tried many diets in an effort to shed the weight and the one thing I’ve learned is that for me, I need to exercise. Anytime I have had even moderate success in weight loss, it has been the result of adding some kind of exercise. You have no idea how irritating I find this revelation. Have I mentioned that exercise and I don’t get along?

Knowing that exercise is imperative to my success, it is one of the things I have been working at this year. I have not yet reached some sort of obsessive devotion to it but I am becoming more committed. Those days when I don’t exercise, I can feel it. I feel sluggish and tired. And after adding physical activity to my life and making a concerted effort to gradually bump it week after week, I feel my endurance improving.

The only advice I can give to someone who, like me, despises regular exercise is to find something you love, employ variation so it doesn’t become boring and keep at it. In the long run, the benefits far out-”weigh” the disadvantages.

“D” Is for Determination

The definition of determination is “a decision arrived at by thought and investigation,” according to YourDictinary.com. How often have I said ‘I am determined to do this,’ with regards to my weight loss? Countless times. Sometimes it is a mantra I recite daily, hourly even.

Certainly I have investigated the situation. I have looked in the mirror. I have attempted to put on clothing that has become too snug. I have stepped on the dreaded scale and seen the proof. I have compared these oh-so-scientific findings to the charts and graphs that taunt me everywhere, telling me I am overweight. The handwriting is on the wall or the computer screen as the case may be.

I have thought about it. I have focused, mused and obsessed about it. At times, my struggle to find balance in my life, a balance that allows me to enjoy eating without depravation, has been my only thought. I guess by the dictionary definition, I am determined. So why have I not succeeded?

What this definition of determination does not include is commitment. We can realize there is a problem. We can do the research, the planning and even make the decision that “something has to be done.” Until we are committed, determination alone is not enough.

I am three-and-a-half months into the New Year and have only 9.6 meager pounds lost to show for myself. While I tell others that any weight loss is good, as a means of being encouraging, for me, I am dissatisfied. With 115 pounds to lose when I started this, I could have done more by now. So though I have been determined all along, it is time to examine my commitment to that determination.

“C” is for Criticism

Those of us who are overweight deal with criticism all the time. It is not always spoken out loud but it is felt none the less. We see it in the disdainful looks of others. We feel it from those around us when we are forced to sit in tight quarters such as on buses, in movie theaters or on airplanes. And we hear the whispered remarks that the whisperers don’t think we hear as we pass by.

Sometimes we hear it from friends and family who think a tough love approach might help us. In some cases, that might be true, but I’m guessing not many. Do you have a mother who says, “My goodness, I can’t believe how you’ve let yourself go,” as she hands you a piece of cake? What about a husband who thinks he’s funny when he makes jokes about other fat people but then tells you that you are beautiful just the way you are. Does he really think you believe that?

But the harshest criticism of all has to come from within. I am dumb. I am certainly not blind. I know what I look like, feel like. I know the things I say to myself when I catch my reflection in a department store window. My thoughts scream at me when I can’t keep up with my kids or when I start panting halfway up the stairs. Criticism, whether stated or implied, can be one of the cruelest forms of communication mankind can dole out, especially when we do it to ourselves.

Fortunately, I am working to overcome the self-criticism. I cannot control the actions or words of others but I can control my own. When I am disappointed with how I look, I remind myself that I am a work in progress. I am making strides, even if they are small, every day. I am good and loving person and above all I am not defined by weight or my shape.

I hope that you will remember to be less harsh with others and with yourself. Focus on their (and your) good points and achievements. Start today and work each day to be less critical and more supportive. Before long, you’ll find your step is a little lighter and you wear a smile a little more often.

This post is brought to by the letter “C” as part of the A-to-Z Blogging Challenge. Have a wonderful day