“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.

“I” Is for Keep It Interesting

Weight loss and maintenance is lifelong endeavor. It is for me anyway. I never had a weight problem until after my second child and then it worsened after the third. He is now 13 and I’m even bigger than I was then. So I’m pretty sure the rest of my life will be spent in losing it and working to maintain a healthy weight.

Keeping things interesting is the key. I am not one of those people who can eat a salad every single day. I cannot walk on the treadmill every day for exercise. I need variety; I need a little spice in my life. There are things I enjoy and I can eat a hamburger patty and side of green beans 3 or 4 times a week to keep up with my low-carb goals but I cannot eat it every day. If I try, I will start craving other flavors, other sensations and there I go off the path.

The same is true with exercise. I cannot spend 40 minutes or so everyday doing the same thing. I don’t have the room to set up the treadmill in front of the TV so I can watch something while I sweat. I have had to be creative when it comes to exercise. I tread once or twice a week. I try to spend an hour at least once a week doing heavy labor in support of my yard and garden. Once a week I attend a Zumba class which is the most grueling of all. The rest of the time, I indulge Wii games of the physical variety: Wii Fit Plus, Walk It Out and Personal Trainer. Together the combination seems to work for me. I feel my stamina and flexibility improving each week even if it doesn’t show up on the scale. People are always saying the scale isn’t the only way to judge progress and I’ve seen that myself.

I am working on getting my diet to the point where it has flexibility and diversity but is still manageable. This will be an ongoing challenge but, hey…it keeps things interesting.

“B” Is for Breaking Bad Habits

Bad habits are what made me fat, aren’t they? I didn’t exercise enough, I ate the wrong foods. I ate too much of the right foods. I ate to comfort myself. I ate to celebrate. I ate when I was depressed. I avoided really looking in the mirror so I wouldn’t have to see the thing I was becoming. I avoided the scale because I didn’t want its confirmation that I was doing all the wrong things. Bad habits.

My baby steps involve breaking these bad habits. I try to focus on one at a time but then I find one of the others creeps up on me like a stalker in the night and I fall prey to it. Sometimes I am confronted by all of them in one day and the struggle seems insurmountable. Still, here I am, trying to break my bad habits.

Most recently I have been focusing on adding exercise to my daily life. Sometimes this takes the form of doing vigorous yard work. Sometimes it is mind-numbing time spent on the treadmill. Other times it is spent playing active games using the Wii game console. Once a week I attend a Zumba class where I am encouraged y others like me trying to change their lives.

During my pre-fat days, yard work was something I enjoyed immensely. In recent years, the attempt has become a sore reminder of how far I have fallen. In my effort to change this habit though, I remind myself of how I will be able to enjoy this again, if I just keep at it. Finding the games, classes and activities I enjoy has made all the difference.

And as the weeks of the new year have steadily drifted by, the weight slips off in tiny little increments. The best news about focusing on the lack-of-exercise bad habit is that I can feel my energy and stamina return. Everyday activities are not as taxing and actually doing the exercise is less exhausting and more rewarding. Breaking my bad habits looks like the way to go.