Regaining your Superpower!

A friend of mine posted about losing her "superpower" over the holidays...how she felt so wonderful, so powerful when she lost the weight...she was doing great....but then she 'lost it' over the holidays and now she HATES herself because she's regained weight.

And boy, can I RELATE!

So many of us went down the sludge road over the holidays.

But it's not over till it's over, right?  So as long as you NEVER give up on yourself, you still have a chance!

So here's the thing. What I'm doing to get my 'superpower' back, is doing what worked BEFORE, and adding back in some tools that I found helpful.

For me, a big part of that is the books that gave me inspiration and ideas on how to fight BACK. How to regain CONTROL over my eating.

And for me, that comes down to a simple philosophy.....the idea that we have TWO voices in our heads at all times...our intelligent side PLUS our 'Fat Brain'. Fat Brain is our addictive voice. She wants us to keep doing what we did....eat eat eat....because that's how we handled life, that was our answer to just about everything, that was our comfort, our friend, our pleasure in life.

But YOU, your intelligent side, knows that that is just a LIE. YOU know now....(especially if you've lost weight before on this plan!)....that a better life awaits you when you regain CONTROL and get back in the groove and back to goal. So you can CHALLENGE Fat Brain, and NOT listen to her.

Lost your Mojo?

Over the holidays, like many of you, I 'lost it'.  Lost my mojo completely.  Fat Brain talked me into 'letting it all go' and just eating whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted -- once again telling me that I could ALWAYS go back OP 'afterwards' and re-lose the weight.

The stupidity of that seems obvious now -- I mean, why open that can of worms again?  Why experience the bloated stomach, puffy face, nausea, actual stomach PAIN from eating too much;  and most of all, the self-hatred that occurs when I'm bingeing?

Because make no mistake.....for me?  I'm either OP or I'm bingeing.  I can TELL myself I'm just 'eating normally' or 'eating what I want', but if I really sit down and log all the sludge I ate on any given day over the holidays....whoa baby, the calories are way way too much!  No wonder I gain weight! 

And here's the thing.  I'm usually STILL HUNGRY.

Changing how I FEEL...leads to changing how I REACT!

One of the things I've learned, over the course of my Medifast experience, is to embrace and enhance my spiritual side. 

I know that sounds trite, and I don't mean it to be....but it's the truth.

It started with simple meditation for stress relief.  It's incredibly important to 'center' yourself and reduce your stress if you want to be successful on this program....because otherwise it's all-too-tempting to fall back into using FOOD as an emotional 'crutch'.

I know....I did it for over 50 years!  "Oh no!  A bad thing happened!  Where's the peanut butter?"  LOL...

But seriously. I USED food for too many years.  And I came to realize that of course this was NOT a smart thing to do!  After all, food is NUTRITION, that's all.  It's NOT a bandaid for life.  I had to learn how to handle my life WITHOUT turning to food all the time.

So I learned meditation techniques. And by "meditation" I don't mean sitting in a dark room in the lotus position going 'OOHMM'...LOL...

I just learned some deep breathing techniques and bought several meditation CDs, and read spiritual books.  I found that just lying or sitting quietly and going 'inside' myself and getting in touch with my SOUL was very powerful and helped a lot.  I wanted to get in touch with my deepest needs and desires, with who I want to BECOME in this life, with my PURPOSE in life.

Things to Remember before you take that first bite...

It's the holidays....and even worse, a weekend.  UGH.  This is really the hardest time of year for many of us...myself included!

And I've had to fight temptation over and over again.  Sometimes successfully;  sometimes not.

But I've been thinking about it a lot lately....what WORKS? 

How do you get through it and out to the point where you can sail along....and STAY OP?

Well, I've had to go back to the basics. 

First, I reminded myself what's different about this program.  Things that had been missing for ALL MY LIFE up until Feb 2012
when I started on the 5/1. 

My present to ME this year!

So many of us are doing a LOT of running around these last few weeks before Christmas...making sure we have gifts for everyone on our list, sending holiday cards if you still do that (I do....traditions die hard, and I LIKE to visually SEE the cards from everyone; I tape them up where I can see them), cleaning the house (ugh), baking if you still do that (I don't), looking for bargains, attending holiday concerts for the kids, .... the list goes on and on.

STRESS can build up pretty quickly, and you're left feeling like, 'What about ME? Who takes care of ME this year?'

Well, the answer is obvious, right? YOU take care of you. YOU have to make sure you're getting enough sleep, and enough exercise, and eating right and de-stressing wherever and whenever possible.

I also like to 'sneak in' a few small items for myself during my Christmas shopping....for example I went to Walmart for the cats' Xmas (yep, in our house the cats get gifts, too! LOL)....and in between buying the cat toys, I found a couple cute t shirts on sale for $2.99 each. And I ask you, where can you find a tee shirt for $3.? OK OK, so they are kinda junky and will shrink the first time I wash them; they're fine for something new to wear to the gym. I bought one that says "Jersey Girl - Sarcasm included" and another all black one with just an outline of a cat. They're fun and they brighten my day!

Go back to what WORKED!

Yesterday I was 100% OP....AND I did Spinning and CXworx (that's a 30 minute exercise class with lots of abdominal crunches, planks, that kind of thing. It's hard, but it's only 30 minutes).

Boy, was I SORE the rest of the day. LOL.

Anyway, I was determined to do a COMPLETELY 100% OP day...I mean no extra ANYTHING....which isn't easy when you've been on maintenance for awhile. And I finally DID it. I'd been coming close these past several weeks...(with Thanksgiving being a notable, and regrettable, exception)...but somehow I always rationalized one extra MF snack, or a bit more protein (in addition to 2 ozs. extra if I worked out), etc.

On Holliday Treats!

There are plenty of holiday treats that are once a year, right?

It's not like your Aunt Tilly makes her fabulous, famous apple strudel every day, and that triple fudge cake recipe offered in that flyer you got for gift baskets is available at Christmastime ONLY, right?
You can order some of these things for Christmas but that's it. After that, no more sales. Reeses even makes peanut butter 'trees' to celebrate the holidays. Can't get those at other times.

Sigh....all these 'once a year' type treats....it gives Fat Brain all kinds of fuel to go off program, or 'take a break', right?

I saw one of these Xmas special cakes recently in a flyer. And it had me salivating just reading the description and looking at the picture.

And I had NO ONE in mind to send it to....except...MYSELF!

Is it WORTH IT?

I was thinking this morning, as I thought back to this past Thanksgiving holiday (which was a disaster for me, eating and family drama wise).....to WHY I enjoy staying OP so much anymore.

That IS a sea change for me....it's a GOOD change, and I cling to it! 
I really DO feel better...physically, emotionally, EVERY way...when I'm OP than when I'm bingeing.

Is it WORTH IT?  Is a binge worth all the emotional distress that I feel afterwards?  (sometimes just a few MINUTES afterwards)?

Is it worth the self-hatred, the beating myself up, the anxiety, the tension, the stress, the DEPRESSION (yes I've actually cried myself to sleep over it during the worst of my binges).....for a few moments of pleasure eating something I know will backfire on me?

NO!  It's NOT!  That's the bottom line.

It's NOT WORTH IT.

Never give up, Never Surrender!

Like many of you, I've had my share of struggles lately....Thanksgiving was a nightmare -- WAY too much family drama to suit my taste -- and it's been hard, without the old Community platform we all know and love.

Most of us miss the old blogs....we miss that support...and we're feeling a bit like the rug has been swept out from under us!

But I keep thinking about the line from the movie "Galaxy Quest" (stupid movie, but cute!) where Tim Allen does a Shatner/Captain Kirk imitation....and keeps saying, "Never give up, Never Surrender".

That's EXACTLY how I feel about this program and about my participation in it.

I'll NEVER give up. And as long as I know I'll never give up, there is ALWAYS HOPE!

I KNOW this is the truth. Because way back in the holiday season 2012-2013, I DID (temporarily) 'give up'....I 'took a break' from Medifast...with resulting weight gain and general unhappiness as I watched 200 lbs creep up on the scale again. I was devastated, and thought I'd 'lost it'.

But I stayed online....I read a lot...and I KEPT TRYING.

Every single morning I'd wake up and open a packet.

So what if sometimes I didn't make it through the whole day?

I keep trying anyway. And it took several WEEKS before I could even get through ONE lousy day. REALLY!

But FINALLY, eventually I DID make it through one day.

And then, my struggle became....Can I make it through more than a FEW days? Can I actually do a whole WEEK OP?

And that took several MONTHS to achieve! Really! Again, I stumbled, I fell, I cried, I prayed....

BUT I KEPT ON TRYING. And again, eventually I FOUND my mojo. I thought about it, I prayed about it, I listened, I kept open to new ideas, and I finally worked it out in my head and set myself up for success and I DID IT, I made it through one full week.

And of course the scale cooperated.....and I lost weight. I can't remember now how much I lost that first week but I DID lose.

And that's all that matters. Because I knew I could do it then. I could get through a full week. And if I could get through ONE full week, I could do TWO full weeks. And then one full MONTH.

And so on.

ONE DAY at a time. And some days were easier than others....some days it became one MEAL at a time....but I did it.

I never gave up on myself.

Well, gang, that's exactly where my head is at right NOW. No, I didn't gain to the point of 200 lbs, thank God, and NO, I haven't taken this entire holiday season 'off' (Thanksgiving was bad enough....all my best laid plans went by the wayside).....and I have NO INTENTION of doing so, either.

But I HAVE been struggling. So...I'm back to basics.

I am taking it ONE DAY at a time, one MEAL at a time if I have to, and just trying to string together more than a few OP days.

It's not easy....not easy to go to the gym and see that I look heavier. UGH. Not easy to think about my stupid binges. Not easy to keep busy sometimes, and NOT think about food. Especially over this month.

But this is all about a HoliDAY...not a HoliMONTH, right?

Christmas is just one day. So is Thanksgiving. So why are we making it a two-month-long DEBACLE?

It doesn't have to be. All you have to do is put your head down and DO IT. One day at a time.

That's all it really takes, you know. PERSISTENCE in the face of obstacles. STUBBORNESS! Being UNWILLING to accept that you will 'always be fat'.

I refuse to do that. The program works, I know it works. YOU DO, TOO! Right? You've SEEN it work, on your own body!

You FEEL better when you're OP. I know I do! Once you get into ketosis, the hunger dissipates and you really feel awesome.

And you can KEEP going.

BUT....!!!!!

Never ever ever forget that that ONE bite, that ONE serving, that ONE piece of sludge, WILL do you in. EVERY TIME.

You can tell yourself it won't hurt.....you can add the calories up and go, "Well gee, we're only talking like 100 extra calories here, what's the big deal?"

The 'big deal' is that it opens the floodgates. We are all or nothing people....and this is, really, an 'all or nothing' program.

You can't do it 'halfway'. You can't do it only during the week and take weekends off....you'll quickly see you get NOWHERE FAST that way.

And you can't do it only when conditions are 'perfect'. Because...guess what? Conditions will NEVER be perfect. Life isn't perfect!

So you have to JUMP IN with both feet, say a quick prayer, and DO IT. Just DO IT. Set yourself up for success...get rid of the sludge in your house, lay out your MF meals ahead of time, make yourself a checklist if you must ..... here's mine:
(check off when done):

___ Get up and have my MF meal, such as Berry cereal with 1/2 cup Almondbreeze...or whatever MF meal
___ Go to the gym and do 1/2 hour exercise
___ Have mid-morning MF snack (usually a bar or pretzels for me)
___ KEEP BUSY
___ Have Lunchtime MF meal with lots of water (again, whatever MF meal works!)
___ Make SURE you drink 64 ozs. of water today (have a large jug of water and keep refilling your water glass)
___ Have MF afternoon snack 3 hours after lunch (not before, and don't wait TOO late, either)
___ Have your L&G ... plan it....make it simple, but DO IT....with a cup of herb tea and a glass of water
___ 3 hours later, have your final MF meal
___ YOU DID IT! Go to bed (and pat yourself on the back for a job well done)

.....then tomorrow? DO IT ALL OVER AGAIN.

That's really all it comes down to. Don't overcomplicate it, don't overanalyze it, don't jump on and off the scale or worry about will the weight come off, because it WILL if you work the program exactly as written! IT WILL!

And above all, NEVER GIVE UP, and NEVER SURRENDER.

If you fall....the next morning or the next meal....as soon as you can!.....GET BACK OP AGAIN.

As many times as necessary. And yes, it will seem tedious at times. YES, you may need to do this over and over and over and over and over (am I making my point? LOL)....again.....but sooner or later, you WILL get your "Mojo" back, you WILL get into ketosis, and you WILL sail along, losing the weight.

And THOSE are the days worth fighting for.

YOU CAN DO IT.

NEVER GIVE UP, NEVER SURRENDER!
Linda
Certified TSFL Health Coach
angiecat6@comcast.net