Failure IS an option!

"I screwed up".

Why is it we can't say these three little words sometimes?

Why is it we get all ashamed, embarrassed, afraid to admit it?

EVERYONE screws up.  It's part of being human!

And on this plan, more than most, I think, IF you're here for the long haul (and I hope you are!), you are going to have to learn how to deal with failure.  

Because things happen.  That's just...life!

There WILL be times when you find yourself without an MF bar or pretzels or something available, and you're out, and it's been 4-1/2 hours and you're STARVED and so you grab ... 'whatever' and then...you hate yourself.

It's not the end of the world.  Just go right back OP the very next meal.  Forgive yourself and move on. Learn a lesson from it (i.e, put THREE bars in your purse…and two in your car’s console…right NOW! LOL)....and move on.

You are also going to have to learn to deal with things you 'used to deal with' with food, without food.

I mean, that's the definition of a food addict, right? Our 'drug of choice' is food! 

So when we get lonely, or angry, or upset, or stressed, or anxious, or frustrated, or depressed, or....whatever (sometimes even multiple emotions all at once) ... when life hands us lemons, when we wake up on the wrong side of the bed and the kids are a pain and your husband is mad at you and you lost your left shoe and you're late for work and everything's going wrong....

You have to stop, take a deep breath, and tell yourself 'This too shall pass'....and get through it.

And if in the interim you succumb to eating off plan or even a binge? Realize that there is a big LESSON there, somewhere.  Buried inside that 'mistake', your mind and your heart are trying to tell you something.  There's something you need to do differently next time.  

And the answer is NOT to postpone doing the program until 'things get better'.  There is no 'perfect time' to do this.  Sooner or later, you have to just take a deep breath and jump in the pool.  

Because life being life, you can't depend on things getting to where you want them. You can plan, you can control to a certain extent....but....not always!  There will always be a monkey-wrench in there somewhere.  So how will you deal with it?

You can't just 'bury' your emotions, your stress, your anger or whatever because it's 'not proper' or you’re afraid that someone is going to be ‘mad’ at you.  You’re a big girl now. You can deal with it. (and so, by the way, can the person you’re angry with).

You have to FEEL your emotions.  And express them.  GET THEM OUT.

Because I promise you, if you don't express them you will EAT them away.

And YES, there WILL be a next time.  There always is.  That's life!  It doesn't stop just because you're OP.  You can't freeze everything....stop going out...."Stop the world I wanna get off!"....just because you're trying to stay OP today.

You have to improvise sometimes.  Compromise.  Be prepared.

And be willing to admit you screwed up!

It's OK!  Believe me, there's nothing you can tell me that I haven't done myself.

Cookie dough in the car?  Oh yeah....'been there, done that'.

Eaten an entire cake? (yikes did my stomach hurt)  "YEP".

Hidden food?  "Yes"

Replaced food I ate that someone would notice was gone?  "Yes"

Woke up surrounded by food wrappers in my bed?  "Yes"

Eaten in the middle of the night in total darkness, crying at the same time?  "Yes"

Most of us who were obese can relate.  

And here's the thing.  You keep telling yourself you have no willpower, right?

But ask a skinny friend if they would do even HALF of the things you've had to do in the name of your latest diet program.....weighing and measuring everything you ate, living on cabbage soup for 3 days, doing a 'juice fast' (cleansing, my FOOT LOL), getting weighed in (UGH), exercising until the sweat was DRIPPING off our bodies, taking pills, trying everything under the sun and expending enormous amounts of time, energy, money, and heartache TRYING to get thin.

You HAVE willpower.

The problem is you have to go further than willpower.  It's not about just saying 'NO' to those donuts at work.

It's about AVOIDING the donuts in the first place (if you can), and if you can't, getting away from them as soon as possible, and just saying 'No' and meaning it, and then heading for your desk and that MF bar instead.  

It's about making sure you eat your 5 MF meals and your full L&G every.single.day.   No matter WHAT.

It’s about putting YOURSELF ‘first’, for a change.  (for many of us this is a SEAchange!)

Even if you're mad at the world, it's raining, you lost your left shoe and your husband is mad at you.

That means every emotion that caused you to overeat in the past?  You will have to experience, figure out how to handle WITHOUT eating through it, and move on.  

And there's lots of experiences we all have in this life!  Sometimes several different emotions hit us all at once!  But you have to figure out how to get through them.  And you WILL fail once in awhile. 

But if you hide your emotions, bury them, refuse to feel them and just grit your teeth to get the weight off, you won't really LEARN anything.  

Let's face it, no one comes here going "I want to lose 62 lbs in 6 months and then I plan to gain it all back".

But that's precisely what happens, all too often!  

WHY?  

Well, I believe it's because of our fear of failure!  Because we can't ADMIT we screwed up, think about what went wrong, what we could do differently next time, learn from it and START OVER AGAIN.

So we rationalize it.  We find fault with the program.  We’re afraid to admit we just find it too difficult to face our feelings sometimes. (and I know it’s not easy! Believe me!)….so we throw our hands up, we say it’s too hard, we justify it maybe by saying it’s too much money or too much trouble or whatever, and we give up.

And then the weight comes back.  In SPADES.

You know what?

I’ve failed UMPTEEN times on this program….but it was all under the auspices of my ‘first try’.  Because I never gave up!  Even when I went off program for MONTHS, I was still here, still reading, still learning, and still trying.  And eventually I got my mojo back. 

But I REFUSED to give up and go away.  I will NEVER give up and go away.

Because this program WORKED when nothing else did.  Even in maintenance, my little ‘experiments’ (and boy do you tend to experiment when you’re in maintenance) … have FAILED BIGTIME whenever I needed to shed a few pounds.

The only way I can lose weight?  Is via the 5/1.  PERIOD.

This is ‘it’ for me.  So I’ll never leave.  Not totally.  I may go off the deep end at times, but I always always pull myself back, because this was LIFE ALTERING for me and I know it. 

And believe me, I failed a LOT during my two-year journey to goal. 

Nothing comes all at once, and nothing comes for 'free'.  

We have to EARN every pound we lose on this program.

We earn them by learning.  THE HARD WAY.  Through cold, hard, experience.  

And yes, through failure.

Failure IS an option on this plan.  You have to be willing to fail in order to learn!  If you are too strict with yourself, if you demand perfection...sooner or later you're going to cave.  Because you're HUMAN.

And then what?  Will you forgive yourself?  Or give up?

 

Unfortunately, many of us can't forgive ourselves. We expect perfection from ourselves!   

We see things in black and white.  Everything has to be 'perfect'. 100% OP.  

Which can quickly become....Feast or famine. 

Binge or starve.  

Where does it end?

Sooner or later you have to reach the point where you realize that, failure IS an option.  It IS OK to fail sometimes, because....

THAT'S HOW WE LEARN.

Let me repeat that....because it's the #1 lesson I learned here and I think it's very very important:

We HAVE to fail in order to LEARN.

Think about it.  When's the last time you learned from success?  But I betcha you've had plenty of times when you learned from failure.

Starting as a little kid, when you put your hand too close to the fire, and you got burned....OOPS!  

"Won't do that again".

(Of course, it depends greatly on the individual....some of us trust others and learn from others ahead of time, but others HAVE to experiment.  Like my kid brother.  We were told, leave the electrical outlets alone.  But my brother had to 'experiment'.  So he stuck a screwdriver in the socket and wound up on the other side of the room.  "OOPS!"  ... "Won't do that again").  LOL

Guys, it's OK to screw up.  HONEST.  Stop beating yourself up and forgive yourself and realize that if you did, you have a lesson to learn in there somewhere.  Maybe it's buried, you have to pick it all apart and realize when and where and how things went wrong....but the lesson IS there if you can get past the shame and embarrassment and admit it. 

Believe me, most of us have done all the 'horrible awful' things you've done.

And if you keep it to yourself and don't admit it?  It will only fester in there.  Like a wound that isn't properly healing....if you bury it and don't expose it and take care of it, it will only hurt MORE.  

Because we are so very, very HARD on ourselves, aren't we?  We get angry at ourselves because we've broken all the promises we made to ourselves and went off plan or binged or whatever 'anyway', and now we're MAD.  And ashamed.  And embarrassed.

Remember this.  

Guilt is feeling bad over something we've DONE.

But shame is feeling bad over something we ARE!

Don't ever feel ashamed of yourself.  You are worthy of love, and respect, and you are most definitely worth 'more one try'.  Don't give up. And open your mouth and say 'I screwed up', even if it's to your Coach (who I promise you has screwed up herself more than once)....or to your friends, or your group you hang out with if they are loving, caring friends (that's why I hang out here on this website LOL).....

A caring friend who is also a food addict?  Will NEVER beat you up for doing something she's done herself.  In fact, she will probably say 'Oh yeah, been there done that'.  Which can open the door to the conversation you SHOULD be having with yourself, which is 'What went wrong?' and 'How can I prevent this from happening the next time?'

Those are the kinds of conversations you should be having with yourself....whether it's in your blogs or your private journal or among your friends or to your Coach.  You need to figure out what happened, and think about it.  Because everyone is different and what works for me may not work for you, in terms of handling emotions WITHOUT food.  

That's really what it comes down to, you know.  Usually buried under all that 'hunger' is an angst, a 'need' to fill ourselves with our old friend, food, to either soften the blows of life or not feel them at all.

It's tough to emerge from that cocoon of food to the land of the living.  It's hard to feel emotions you maybe haven't allowed yourself to feel in YEARS.  

But if you really want to change, if you DON'T want to be back here in 6 months or a year saying "I regained it because life happened", then you MUST find a way.  

But there's no time limit!  No one is grading you. (except YOU, and stop it, by the way LOL). 

No one is keeping score.  It doesn't matter how long it takes.  All that matters is that the lessons you need to learn, you LEARN.  Permanently.

I am not the same person I was when I started back in February 2012.  And I don't just mean physically.  NO WAY.  I am different INSIDE.  I express myself now.  I'm more assertive.  I FEEL my emotions now, and life has more 'highs' and 'lows' than it did before because I'm allowing myself to experience life in all its splendor now instead of numbing myself to it.  Sometimes it's hard....it's very very hard to feel those not-so-nice emotions....boredom, anger, frustration, and in particular (for me), anxiety and worry.

But I'm getting better at it all the time.  Because food is no longer the answer anymore.

FOOD is a lie.  The truth is within me, and I'm stronger than I realized I was.

Every day I see that now.  And every day I am more and more amazed.....at what I can do. 

YOU CAN DO THIS, too.  You CAN change your life.  You can stop using food as a panacea to life and start living it instead.  

But you HAVE to throw away your old notions of 'perfection', and be willing to fall flat on your face sometimes. 

Because perfection?  Doesn't exist. 

Keep on keepin' on!