I can't look into the future. I don't know if I will win the lottery this week, or if I will ever be discovered and become a movie star, or even whether the sun will come up tomorrow. However, there are a few things I know for sure. I know that my dog will always be happy when I get home, and that I will always love my family, and that never, never, will mourners stand over my grave and say "poor thing, she was so stressed that she just starved herself to death."
From the day we are born, we are taught that food is comfort. Our first experiences with being fed are combined with being wrapped in a warm blanket and held next to our mother's heart, as she rocked and sang to us. Well no wonder that when we have a bad day the first thing we want is Oreo cookies! Am I suggesting that, from now on, as a way to remove this human trait, that we systematically blow an air horn behind all feeding infants? I think not. No...I definitely think this is a bad idea. However, as thinking adults we need to embrace the emotions that naturally flow through food, especially if we are one of the humans that God generously endowed with extra fat.
Yesterday was Thanksgiving, and I, for one, am thankful it is over. I have learned that having a plan is paramount to my success as a svelte angel. Together, my sister and I bought a thousand groceries in preparation for the family feast. Our challenge was to scale down quantity while our guest list was being manipulated daily. Having enough food without having too many tempting leftovers while anticipating the sum total of possible diners became a task akin to quantum physics. We divided the menu between us, and two kitchens were filled with the sounds and smells of cooking for two days. I was left unsupervised in a kitchen with most, if not all, of my favorite trigger foods--all carbs! When no one was looking, I did GREAT. I ate only what I planned, and the carb-rich leftovers were out of my house by this morning. I am proud of me.
However, the negative emotions that flowed through me surrounding the Thanksgiving meal were frightening, and this surprised me. Early on I became aware that I was spending too much time planning the menu, and it puzzled me. My initial distorted reaction to this realization was to think "it must be true" --the old, ugly impressions embedded by weight-loss groups or misinformed doctors in my past. My over-planning must be something diagnostic that proves something abnormal about me. These old thoughts have the ability to rob me of my success, in essence THEY are my weight problem. When I really drilled down into my thoughts, I realized that I sincerely was not excited about the food that was ahead. I was just over-planning the planning! I am so determined not to fail that I not only wanted an escape route, but a hatch within the escape route in case it failed. I have already embraced that my largest obstacle will be my perfectionist traits, setting unrealistic goals and pushing myself too hard--sort of like "no pain, no gain" on steroids. I didn't see this until today, when I found myself surprised at how easy it was to simply be aware of the plan and follow it. The problem is not Thanksgiving dinner, the problem is to be accountable for the calories you consume over SEVERAL days, not the one. Once I embraced that, I could just do it. The unnecessary emotions and fear, were associated with the big picture and emotional scars of my entire weight problem and the years I have spent fighting it. Somehow, someway, I need to remember that the defeatist hammer I sometimes think is poised over me is only there if I let it stay. Tomorrow I can always have a do-over. I am beginning to believe that it is really that simple. Christmas is going to be easier since I learned this.
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