For those of you who read my blog and am in the same position as I am needing/wanting to lose 50-100 pounds you can relate to the following. Someone looking to lose 10 pounds might not grasp the daunting, immense, and long haul that we are in for. Sometimes I think that it's comparable to walking into a house in which someone has been hording their entire life. For people looking to lose 10 pounds, it's like asking them to straighten up and clean a desk in the house. It looks a little hard, but it's just one small place and won't take too long. Looking to lose 50-100 pounds is like looking at the house filled with junk and unwanted things and knowing that you have to clean it all. You look at the house knowing that you have to clean it all and you want it done now because you don't like the way it looks or the way it makes you feel. But like most big tasks sometimes you don't know where to start and feel very overwhelmed. So what do you do when faced with a huge task? Sometimes you put it off, sometimes you do clean the metaphorical desk and feel good about that but then look at the rest of the house (your body) and think that it's just too much.
When I first started my blog I was in a very good place to start cleaning up that house. I was unemployed and receiving unemployment benefits. I had nothing else to do so why not tackle the house and get it clean! I did a very good job cleaning house and was very happy with the results. As time went on I used all the unemployment money and had to get a job, which then turned into two jobs. I started to let things pile up in my house. Leaving things here and there. Things would come up and people would come to Sacramento to visit, and the balloons and streamers (food and beer) were allowed to pile up in my house (my hips, thighs, and ass) without feeling the need to clean up. And you don't notice that things are sliding back to where you once were because you leave stuff around little by little. Sometimes you feel the need to clean and go to the gym or eat healthy for awhile but then you look at the house and think that you have so much cleaning to do. As much as people tell you that you should clean or that they will help you. It is something that you need to be motivated to clean on your own.
After letting my house get almost as cluttered and dirty as I had when I started this journey I have new resolve to get back to cleaning and stay committed to it. I feel like I have a two story house to clean, but am looking just to clean off that desk to begin with, then move to the dining room table, and so on tackling portions at a time to not get overwhelmed but keep my eye on the whole house and make sure to follow through with cleaning it all. Although I can have my little group of maid cheerleaders helping me to stay motivated to clean, I need to be the one to make the hard choices, make it to the gym, and keep myself motivated. I have rolled up my sleeves and pulled all my cleaning tricks out of my bag and am ready to do work!
(And that is your metaphor for the day, haha)
Pretty accurate metaphor--if only because I always feel after cleaning my house like "welp, guess ~I'll~ never have to clean the kitchen again!" as though it will magically stay that way forever. However, much like cleaning, we have to create habits that can stick in order to keep our efforts intact.
ReplyDeleteIf you're looking to start permanently keeping the weight off, you may want to look not only at what you eat, but why you eat. I can't tell you how frustrating it is to know what you need to do to lose weight, but never seeming to be able to actually do it. It's easy to get caught in bad patterns around food, especially with emotional/stress eating or eating out of boredom. These patterns only arise because we all have underlying needs that need to be addressed--it's just sometimes we mistakenly handle them with food. Take a look at this video: http://bit.ly/MgbN9w It does a great job explaining our needs and how we can stop destructive patterns.