What's New, Pussycat?

If you’re here, there’s a good chance you’re looking to lose a couple pounds. Or more. And that being the case, there’s also a very high likelihood this isn’t your first trip around the weight-control block. (That sounds weird, huh? “Weight-control block.” Har!) But back to the point. We lose, we gain; we lose, we gain. It’s a yo-yo cycle for many.

Am I on target so far? Thing is, almost everyone who is carrying the flab has tried to shed it at one time or another. Sometimes, they have shed some of it, or all of it, only to put it back on later. That sucks! Let’s see what we can do about that.

So here you are, looking to lose that oversized rump for the umpteenth time, and Goddess has a question: What have you changed? What’s different? Because if there is nothing new, you’re setting yourself up for another yo-yo ride.

Mistakes? I’ve made a few. But then again…well, heck, they’re not too few to mention! Goddess has been there, done that, and got the 4XL t-shirt. In the hopes of saving you some of the grief, she’s sharing some of the differences she’s noted between her former the ill-fated weight loss attempts and her last, hugely successful run. And I do mean HUGELY successful!

Here are some tips to help lose that unsightly fat from your thinking…

The infamous Crash Diet Mentality. In the old days, I didn’t just do it, I overdid it! We all know if a little is good, more is better. Right? Right? Uh...

I wasn’t going to go halfway. I was gonna get this crap off. I was gonna fight my way to thin going 0 to 60 in seconds. Screw the people who talked about doing it healthy! If I’d cared about heath, Little Debbies wouldn’t have been my major food group previously anyway, right? Or so I reasoned, to use the term loosely.

Even though I’d done this dozens of times before, it just wasn’t registering. Crash diets don’t work. They just don’t. The over-the-top crash diet approaches are a bad idea for several reasons:

1. That behavior isn’t sustainable. Watch this point, Sparky. It will be on the quiz.
2. You’re mucking up your metabolism to the point where you’re doing yourself more harm than good. Your body thinks it’s staving, and acts accordingly, hanging onto every ounce of flab as if your life depended on it. Not what we had in mind!
3. Combine crash dieting with an exercise frenzy, you’re messing yourself up even more. All losses aren’t equal. You can lose water (usually accounting for the first few pounds), you can lose fat—the golden ring you’re after!—or you can lose muscle. If you’re running yourself into the ground without eating enough of either protein or carbs to fuel the exercise, this is what you’re doing. You’re burning that compact, metabolism-boosting muscle right off. Ooops.
4. Did I mention that the crash diet eating behavior isn’t sustainable over the long haul? It ain't, man.

The exercise frenzy comes next. Can’t forget to overdo the exercise: I was going to exercise 2 hours a day, too! Every day. No days off for this chick. No, no, no. I was going to fix this. If I’d gotten fat from being lazy, I was going to atone my arse off right there.

Sidenote: Of course, getting fat isn’t about being lazy, but it sure can feel that way.. There are many reasons people get fat. I mean, sure, okay, some fat people may be lazy (as are some thin people). But c’mon. It totally hacks me off when folks act as if overweight people are somehow lazy, weak-willed, lacking willpower and motivation. (And overweight people themselves are among the worst offenders.) The crap people do to lose weight would make a marine look lazy. One fattie on a weight-loss kick has more willpower than…than…whoever has a lot of willpower, damnit! It’s not easy, and us “losers” have done this over and over again. So understand and give credit where credit is due.

And while exercise is great and absolutely vital for would-be losers, it’s not about overdoing and hating every second of it, which is exactly what I did each time. I hated those exercise sessions. Abhorred them, but I did ‘em. I didn’t ease my way in and work up. I didn’t try lots of different things to find out what I enjoyed. Enjoyment had nothing to do with it! I was on a mission. A poorly thought out mission, yes, but a mission nonetheless.

Can you say “sustainable,” Sparky? I thought you could. I sure couldn’t! How long do you think I’m gonna torture myself with being miserably hungry eating 6 grapefruit a day and working out like a lunatic before diving head-first into the fridge? Short answer: Not very!

All that mattered was how fast it came off. This is a HUGE mistake, and one of the main ones I see from newbies. If you think this through, there is only ONE logical reason that you have to hurry, hurry, hurry: you’re anxious to stop dieting. Otherwise, what difference does it make when it comes off?

You go back to your old ways, you go back to your old pants size. See, you just can’t “diet.” Diet is the original 4-letter word! You have to change the way you live. When you’re running around in this half-starved, overworked insane state, man, you’ve got to ask yourself the magic question: Can you do this—or perhaps a modified version of this—forever? If not, or if you don’t plan to continue, why are you wasting your time in the first place? That’s what you’re doing, you know, if you don’t keep it up, or worse, further damaging your metabolism and making it that much more difficult the next time. Do it as well as you can or forget it, man. ‘Cause you don’t need that grief.

Speaking of grief, negativity was my constant companion. Why was I there? Because. I was fat, ugly, disgusting, lazy and lacking willpower. I needed to repent from my selfish, gluttonous ways. I was going to focus on how nasty all that fat was to get rid of it. How could I let myself get there?

Yeah. There’s some motivation to continue to care for yourself. Geez louise.

Listen up, Sparky: Positive change comes from self-love, not self-hatred! You’re out there, doing your thing, and if you feel like you’re worthy, important and a pretty cool person, then you have a reason to take care of yourself. On the other hand, if you think you’re a worthless blob, it’s not going to be long before you’re drowning your sorrows in a vat of Hershey’s syrup, man. Might as well start mainlining the chocolate milk, for all the good your crazed efforts are gonna do you at that point.

Think sustainability. Losing weight is nothing more than being kind to yourself. Remember that.

And while I was in this fog, I spent my energy focusing ONLY on the scale. I lived and died by that scale. Nothing else mattered, I was mistaking one MEASURE of progress for actual progress. Instead of focusing on getting healthier, feeling better, looking better and all the other wonderful perks of losing the poundage, I could see nothing but that ugly number on the scale. I didn’t measure. I didn’t register that muscle-building is more important that those numbers, since muscle weighs more than fat but is so much more compact and speeds your metabolism. I didn’t register the fact that my body is not a gumball machine where you put in a scant 500 calories and added 45 minutes walking, and get out 2.5 pounds weight loss. All I saw were the numbers, and they never were going down fast enough to suit me.

I put losing the weight before everything else, at least for the brief stints I worked on it. Doesn’t sound like a mistake to you? It is. When I was chronically hungry, I told myself, “Oh, that’s just the feeling of losing weight.” When I was exercising like a squirrel on speed and hating every minute of it, I just told myself, “Oh, that’s just what you have to do.” I was miserable, but I kept on going. For a while, that is.

Selecting my approach based on short term was the problem—how much I could lose how fast—instead of long-term—how well I could integrate the approach into my life.

Sustainability, Sparky. There’s that word again! If you’re hungry, tired, frustrated and miserable, then you’re not going to make this “just the way you live.” And you’d be right! At this age in my life, I’ve learned that the best life-compass is joy. If you’re not joyful, something is amiss.

Another byproduct of my short-sightedness was getting disgusted with myself over every dietary deviation, and following up by saying, “Okay, well, the day/week/whatever is shot anyway, so I’ll start again on Monday.” I’ve talked about this before so I won’t run it into the ground here, other than to say your body does not distinguish between what you ate this morning when you’re eating tonight. Food eaten on weekends counts the same as the Monday menu. Your arse doesn’t care! And I don’t know about you, but I’ve never enjoyed more than the first three bites of a binge, anyway. Have you? You hate and berate yourself the entire time you’re shoving that crap into your mouth. You feel crummy before, during and after the incident, and it makes your job all that much harder in the long run. Why on Earth would you do that to yourself?

Plus, binge begets further binges. Because no matter how much progress I’d made, I focused on my deficits. Diets are rules. You can fail a diet. And boy, did I! Even if I’d been “good” for several days, it’s the misstep I focused on. I egged myself on with negative, angry and frustrated self-talk. No matter how much progress I’d made, it wasn’t good enough because I was still fat. You get what you focus on. Focus on the good stuff, man, if that’s what you want to get!

Binges could sometimes be born from obsessing about what I was missing. What better way to make yourself miserable than sitting around thinking about all the amazing goodies you cannot have? Let the pity party begin, Sparky.

If you wanna make it, you can’t allow yourself to feel deprived for long, because that’s the kiss of death. This is why I advocate the occasional planned illegal eating, not to be confused with a blank check to eat whatever the heck you want all the time. We know where that gets you! What you do the most is what comes home to roost.

 Another problem: Going it on my own. Having a plan to start out and get you going in the right direction is invaluable. After all, my way hadn’t worked to well before! Different approaches work for different people, but for Heaven’s sakes, at least have an approach! Learn it, know it, buy the book, and follow it. Not like I used to do. My do-it-yourself “diets” never worked out in the long run. Nooooooo. But did I take a hint? Absolutely not! I still kept hammering away, all my way, instead of letting go of the need to know it all and just listening to someone else for a change! When I finally did decide to borrow others' wisdom, low and behold, I was able to lose some of that tonnage for a change!

The are weight loss attempts, and there is just the way you live. I call it finding your Zen. If you want to get it off and keep it off, you have to change the way you live. Period. Now, I’m not saying it won’t be a bit uncomfortable at first. Changing long-ingrained habits and finding new coping techniques is nothing if not uncomfortable. BUT it’s not miserable. It’s not based in feeling bad about yourself or hating your body or any other such nonsense. If you’re miserable, hungry, depressed and down on yourself, those could be clues you may want to change your approach. Like yesterday already!

So how do you tell if you’re doing it in a way that will serve you through the long term?

A few signposts to look for:

• You are eating healthy foods in reasonable amounts.
• Your goals are related to taking good care of yourself.
• Your exercise is something that you feel good about and, perhaps after an initial adjustment period, enjoy doing.
• You aim to change your habits.
• You aren’t scale-obsessed, understanding there’s a lot more to life than the number on that evil little machine. The scale is but one of many ways you have of measuring your progress.
• You feel good physically.
• You feel good emotionally.
• You relax and just do, because you understand that it takes however long it takes, and you’re in this for life.
• You focus on what you want to generate in your life.

Weight loss is a lot like sex—the important stuff doesn’t happen in the kitchen (or bedroom, in the case of sex). It happens in your head!

And the quiz: What do your weight-loss efforts need?

Yeah. You know the answer. Sustainability!

There is only one real "secret" to success, man: you don’t stop. You keep sane, keep happy, and keep on moving. You get up ONE more time than you stumble. That’s it. You focus on the good, take good care of yourself and make sensible choices with focus on the long-term, and you’ll soon be sitting here, encouraging other people. That’s a pretty cool future to look forward to, man. And I know you can do it.

‘Cause if the Pop-Tart Queen of the Midwest, who housed a shrine to Little Debbie in her fridge, can turn it around, I KNOW you can too.I know it sure as you're sitting here reading this article. I’m looking forward to hearing how you do it. Stop by and tell us about it, won't you?