The 5 Stages of Grief....apply to ME!

Have you ever heard of the 5 stages of grief?

When we lose someone (or something) that means a lot to us, we all go through stages in learning to ACCEPT the loss and move on:

These stages are:

1.  Denial
2.  Bargaining
3.  Anger
4.  Despair
5.  Acceptance

What does this have to do with weight loss? 

Plenty!

When we finally decide that we have to change our lifestyle....i.e., another 'diet' just won't work anymore, and that we need to not only lose the weight, but KEEP it off...hopefully without white-knuckling it (trust me, that doesn't work for very long)....and embrace a healthier lifestyle, we have to go through these stages, one by one until we ACCEPT that we simply cannot eat the way we 'used to'.

Why?  Because giving up our 'goodies' is a mourning process!  It really is! 

IF we don't go through these steps....if we simply ignore them and go on another diet, reach goal, and then don't change our lifestyle.....you can BET the weight will come back, faster than you can say "Take Shape for Life"  :)

So how do these steps apply?

1.  Denial

We've all been here.  "I can't go on a diet....diets don't work for me".  Or "I can't give up my favorite foods".  Or "My husband/wife loves me ANYWAY.  So I'm overweight.  Big deal!"...OR "I'm not THAT bad, just a little chunky"...OR "I have big bones, they run in my family"....OR "I have a low thyroid"....or "I just can't lose weight". 

I used ALL of these excuses at one point or another.  Until I finally realized, I was only fooling MYSELF.  One look in the mirror told me what a liar I was!

So I went on the Take Shape for Life system using Medifast meals...and I lost over 70 lbs. 

BUT....!   My work was only HALF-DONE.  Because my HEAD still hadn't changed.

When I reached goal weight, I was thrilled...and ADAMANT, totally VIGILANT about STAYING there.  But over time, that gets 'old' (yep, it really does!)

People got 'used to' how I looked....and the compliments stopped....and I still had the same problems I always had had....and I was still the same person, just SMALLER.
And it just didn't seem FAIR that I had to watch everything I ate while everyone ELSE got to eat 'everything'!... STILL, after all this time! 

So little by little, I'd 'experiment' with eating some goodie or two that I was missing, and of course pretty soon I'd overdo it, and I'd gain weight. 

And then I'd tell myself "It's cool....look, my goal jeans still fit....I still look good...this isn't the end of the world".

Well, I did that over and over again until my goal jeans got so tight I had a 'muffin top' and had to lie on the BED and do acrobatics just to get them on!  It wasn't until I took a good hard look at myself ... AND the scale ... to realize just how bad it had gotten. 

I was in denial.  AGAIN! 
Hoping against hope that I could 'freeze' myself at my goal weight or right around goal weight....and STILL eat what I wanted.

Which brings up an important point.  ALL of these steps...we can move backwards and forwards through them at various stages.  They don't follow a step-by-step pattern.  They don't follow ANY pattern at all!  It all depends on YOU and the life lessons you learn along the way.

Anyway, regarding denial....it didn't work.  And it doesn't work for long, for ANYONE.
It's just a lie. If you're overweight, you KNOW IT.  Nobody has to pull out a weight chart to prove it to you. 

So STOP denying you have a problem and turn and face it.  Facing it is just swallowing your pride a little bit, and that won't kill you. 

What WILL kill you though, is the continual denial....because being overweight leads to diabetes, and a HOST of other diseases that WILL kill you.  Not to mention the daily struggle of dealing with all that extra fat around your body!

2.  Bargaining

Oh, am I a CHAMP at this one!  I can bargain with the best of them.  "If I work out REALLY hard today, I'll burn like, 500 calories....and then I can EAT WHAT I WANT".

"If I stay on my Medifast program religiously all week long, I can party over the weekends".

"If I just have X for lunch, then I can have X&Y&Z for dinner". 

"I was a good girl today, and I had SUCH a stressful day...I DESERVE THIS."

Ever done that? 

The 'rules' that worked for me so well through the Medifast 5/1 (or 4&2, whichever is your preference) program, I threw out the window.  (and psst...we all do THIS at one point or another, too....we tell ourselves we're 'different'). 

I started to make my OWN rules.  I joined FitBit and logged everything I ate...but I also logged all my exercise, and BOY, was that a terrific excuse to eat 'more'!   The problem with FitBit is, it says (after you enter your exercise and it calculates, or YOU calculate, the amount of calories burned), "You have earned X calories through exercise".  To which I immediately said, "Yippee!  I can EAT MORE!"

I had to stop with the FitBit.  After all, I wasn't exercising to burn X # of calories, anyway.  Not really (and if you are, I urge you to rethink your exercise!)  I was exercising because it was GOOD FOR ME.  It helped my posture, my balance, it turned my body into more lean muscle, it accelerated my metabolism, it made me FEEL good by releasing endorphins in my brain, etc.  And YES it burned calories....but I have learned the hard way, NOT to 'count' these calories AT ALL.  They are just 'freebies'.  EXTRA calories you've burned.  They do NOT entitle you to eat 'more'.  After all, I'm not a gymnast in training.  I'm NOT an athlete.  I don't need hundreds of extra calories because I'm only working out maybe 3 or 4x a week, and for maybe an hour (at most, 2) a day.  That's it.  And that's ENOUGH.  You don't 'earn' a piece of chocolate cake by working out for an hour.  If you believe that, you're going to have a problem sooner or later if you're a compulsive overeater. 

We ALL enter bargaining at one time or another.  And again, in fact, with these 5 stages of grief?  We can go back and forth throughout the stages....we don't necessarily follow them in order, or do them 'once and done'.  You can enter BACK into denial at any point in time.  You can be doing great....thinking you're into "Acceptance"...and suddenly Fat Brain is whispering in your ear "You can have that glass of wine AND dessert....you'll make up for it tomorrow". 

And...guess what?  You've entered Bargaining...AGAIN.

Be ever watchful for Bargaining.  It's a tough one!

3.  Anger

I've talked before about my anger whenever I see a food commercial on TV.  I would really get myself all worked up....the NERVE of these food manufacturers, showing gorgeous, SKINNY young beautiful women stuffing their faces with some goodie or drink.  Like there were no consequences!  When we all KNOW there ARE consequences, indeed. In fact, these same women in real life probably never TOUCH the food or drink in question.  If they did, they certainly wouldn't look THAT skinny for long.  Also, the food isn't REAL!  They use all sorts of gimmicks and fake stuff to make the food LOOK better than it actually is.  When was the last time you saw an actual McDonald's burger LOOK like what it looks like on TV?

My husband would get to the point where he'd not only mute commercials, he'd brace himself for the onslaught of my anger, yet again. 

Finally, my Health Coach told me I was wasting an enormous amount of emotional energy getting ANGRY at things I had NO CONTROL over.  And she said, "This isn't a personal affront to YOU, Linda.  They are just trying to sell a product.  Recognizing that the images are faked and all of that is one thing, but getting yourself all tied up in knots over it is another!  Why are you letting them GET to you like that?"

And I realized I WAS wasting an incredible amount of emotional energy.  So I finally STOPPED.  I just don't look at them.  I avoid them completely.  They don't enter my 'personal space'. 

If you spend a lot of time getting ANGRY because you can't eat like 'normal people', rethink it.  Maybe your overeating is trying to teach you something.  Maybe it's a deeper issue than just wanting to eat chocolate chip cookies.  Maybe, just maybe, it's how you deal with LIFE.  Maybe you're 'stuffing down' your feelings, and HIDING from life, behind a veil of goodies. 

In which case, your overeating...and your handling of said overeating....is VERY important.  It's more than just a few extra pounds.  It's how you live your LIFE.  And getting angry at other people because they can eat what you can't, is just wasted energy. 

It is what it IS, right?  If you've got a problem with emotional eating or compulsive eating or bingeing or just eating too much....then YOU'VE got the problem;  not the rest of the world!  Trying to attach 'blame'....maybe even going back to your childhood, and saying "If only...my parents hadn't given me a cookie when I was good", etc....that's instructive, of course, in terms of your background, but it doesn't help if you're allowing it to make you feel angry or helpless. 

4.  Despair

If you've been here, you know how bad it can get.  How many diets must you go on?  Why do the pounds keep coming back?  WHY, oh WHY, can't you control your eating?

Maybe you've even succumbed to binge eating, just like I did.  There's nothing worse than that feeling AFTER a binge.  When you did it AGAIN.  When all your promises were for naught, and you started with just 'one extra', and somehow that turned into a full-on BINGE.

And now you're mad at yourself.  You wonder what the heck is WRONG with you.  Why do you keep doing this?  You HATE yourself.  Your stomach is swollen, you look in the mirror and SWEAR you've gained 5 lbs from this eating binge ALONE (and believe me, I know, I've been there), and you make a zillion promises to go 'back' on your healthy eating plan 'tomorrow'.  Maybe you even get into bulima or fasting or over-exercising to try and 'undo' the damage you did. 

"Punishing yourself" for eating too much is NOT the way to go. What's done is done.  Yes, it happened, but it's behind you now.  There's no sense trying to 'make up' for it, because in the long run not only does that result in a "feast or famine" mentality (which is bad for your health AND your psyche) but it also results in WORSENING your self-esteem!  And if you have an eating problem, you need all the self-esteem you can GET.  Because we identify so much with your bodies, and we feel like such failures if we gain a few pounds.  And one of the KEYS to helping your compulsive/emotional eating is gaining more self-confidence!

Please please don't fall into despair.  It's never as bad as you think it is.  It's CORRECTABLE.  Think about it.  Our bodies 'empty out' every night.  Even if you binged like there was no tomorrow, there WILL come a point when your stomach will be empty again and you'll need to eat again.  And that means, you get ANOTHER CHANGE to get it 'right'.  Another LESSON that you were taught.  The hard way, yes....but that's how we all learn, isn't it?  It's NOT the end of the world....it's just your compulsive overeating trying to get better.  It's YOU trying to HEAL yourself.  So learn from it....and move ON. 

5.  Acceptance

Finally, we come to acceptance.  When you get here, you know it....because suddenly you're realizing that it's OK to have to watch everything you eat.  It's OK to even have to plan and/or measure your foods!  Yes, it's true, lots of other people don't have to.  But YOU do.  It becomes a fact of life.  Something that is a part of you.  It's just one of the things about you that need care...just like a diabetic needs their medication or a person allergic to strawberries has to make sure they don't eat them.  For us, trigger foods, maybe sugary foods, eating too much food, etc., are signs of OUR 'illness' (or addiction, however you wish to look at it...there are arguments on both sides of that particular equation and I won't get into them here).  It's OUR "cross to bear".

...and so WHAT?  Right?  I mean, we have two choices when we have a chronic health  situation (because don't kid yourself, being overweight IS a "chronic health condition"!):
1. Continue to make excuses for it (denial), fight it, (anger), debate it (bargaining), get depressed over it (despair)....OR
2.  ACCEPT IT and WORK with it! 

Today, make an effort to WORK with it.  ACCEPT that this is something you'll have to deal with, not just today, but (especially if you're an emotional and/or compulsive eater and/or a binge eater) the REST OF YOUR LIFE. 

I wish I could tell you I had the 'magic cure'.  If I did, though, I wouldn't be blogging here....I'd be writing a book, going on TV, and making a billion dollars LOL.

The 'answer' isn't in the latest diet program or pill or exercise. 

The ANSWER is in your HEAD. 

Once you RECONCILE yourself that this is what it's got to be like....you cannot, absolutely CANNOT, have your trigger foods around (more on that in another blog), and your cannot, absolutely CANNOT, 'have your cake and eat it too'....that you ARE susceptible to overdoing and thus gaining weight....then the next step becomes, what are you going to DO about it?  Over the LONG haul?  Not just to get the weight off....but to KEEP IT OFF?

And again, the answer to that question is in your head.  It's how you APPROACH food.  For the rest of your life.  It's eating to keep your body healthy, versus eating for a myriad of 'other' reasons.  When you can STOP 'using' food to solve your problems or make you feel better, and you only eat for nutritional purposes (not to say you can't enjoy it, as well, by the way...I enjoy EVERY LAST BITE of my healthy meals), then you can start enjoying a long, healthier life...AND a body that's as good as it can be!

Keep on keepin' on!....

Linda
angiecat6@comcast.net