Thursday, February 11, 2010

Belated update... yikes!

"The mind is as important to weight loss as healthy food & exercise" - Theresa Proctor, my awesome WW leader
So I promised that I would post a new blog entry this past Saturday by the end of the day! Clearly that didn't happen and I'm sorry ya'll! I got home from running my errands and quickly transformed into Betty Crocker trying to get some Superbowl party food contributions done!

Those of you who follow me on Twitter or are my friends on Facebook may have seen my weigh-in update from Saturday, February 6th. If not, well, when I weighed in I showed a gain of 1 lb. For the record, NO I was not upset or depressed about having a gain of 1 lb. Honestly, I was upset at myself for not being prepared to see a gain. Last week before the weigh-in, I hit the gym and I hit the gym H-A-R-D! I was consistent, didn't miss a day, was sore as heck and... gain. Now, why would I be upset at myself for not being prepared for the gain? Because I should KNOW BETTER! While you are working out, you develop muscle in addition to the fat that you are already carrying, so what may appear to be a gain on the scale, may not be the type of gain we should be worried about!

Saturday's lesson in Weight Watchers was about the MENTAL side of weight loss! What an APPROPRIATE lesson for me that day. This has honestly been my biggest struggle since I joined WW in November 2006. I am VERY proud of the mental/emotional obstacles that I have identified, faced and ultimately overcome. What I continue to struggle with is being so "dependent" upon that scale to define my success on this journey. No matter how many "non-scale victories" I have and allow myself to celebrate, I still bet the bank on that scale every Saturday. I also continue to struggle with accepting any praise or compliments that I receive from other people, male or female. The compliments could be about my work, personal life or weight loss journey. Instead of hearing someone say "Wow Sandi, you look great! What an awesome job you're doing!" and saying "Thank you so much" and then SHUTTING UP and really enjoying my compliment, I immediately in my mind and sometimes verbally tell myself (and others) everything that's not great about me! I am working on this slowly, but surely.

I do believe that my personality is type perfectionist most of the time. So if things aren't going according to the way I plan them out, then I'm going to start laying into myself on all the things I didn't do or messed up that made my plans go awry! They say that if you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans! I bet God gets some good behind giggles outta me!

What I love is that on this SAME day (Sat, Feb 6th), I got an email from The Daily Love and the very first quote was:
"Aim for success, not perfection. Never give up your right to be wrong, because then you will lose the ability to learn new things and move forward with your life." - Dr. David M. Burns, Stanford professor and best-selling author.
and
"Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people. It will keep you cramped and insane your whole life. I think perfectionism is based on the obsessive belief that if you run carefully enough, hitting each stepping-stone just right, you won't have to die. The truth is that you will die anyway and that a lot of people who aren't even looking at their feet are going to do a whole lot better than you, and have a lot more fun doing it." - Anne Lamott, best-selling author, acclaimed public speaker and activist.
 I can't even lie yo, I was almost in tears in that WW meeting because I got my Daily Love email while I was in the meeting and we were talking about allowing ourselves to "make mistakes" on this journey, nobody's perfect. My fantabulous WW leader Theresa left us with the following quote:
"Destiny is not a matter of chance, it is a matter of choice. It is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved!" - William Bryans.
 I am CHOOSING to achieve my goal! I am CHOOSING to not be so hard on myself! I am CHOOSING to love me more everyday in every choice I make! Are you CHOOSING the destiny you want for yourself??

3 comments:

  1. Girl, you know you are testifying up in this piece! I'm so proud of you! *hugs*

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  2. You're spot on with half of weight loss being mental. One thing I had to remember is when I look in the mirror, you always seem like you look the same as you always did. I attribute this to our subconscious mind resetting our default look (appearance_, and our conscious mind not getting the memo about our change in appearance. So every time we look in the mirror, we really don't see any change. I have to look at old photos of myslef all the time so I can see how much progress I made....Keep up the Good work Dr. Sandi we'll all make it to our goals!

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  3. Thank Tiff & Rich...

    Rich - I have to look @ pics of myself often too... There are mornings I wake up and see myself in the mirror and am like "I can't believe that's what I actually look like"... I got rid of the "fat pic" of me on the fridge and replaced it with an "edited" picture of myself from weightview.com of what I should look like when I make it to goal so that I get used to what I look like! :o)

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