I need a name.
It's not a diet.
Dr. Phil, Beck, Weight Watchers, American Diabetic Association, Food Pyramid.gov, My Fitness Pal, Spark People...It's a long list of dieting advice that I have tried, sometimes achieving intermittent success, and set aside.
All of these methods have one thing in common for me: I cannot trick myself into pretending that it is natural, good, desirable, or helpful to count and plan calories for any longer than a couple of weeks as a baseline. This causes me to think, THINK, constantly THINK THINK THINK about food all day, every minute and moment of the day.
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Noise, Noise, Noise, Noise, Noise!!
(from How the Grinch Stole Christmas, animated version) |
It turns me into the Grinch, hating food, avoiding it, disliking myself, resenting the process. Deep down I feel that food is a beautiful and inspiring gift of God, meant to be (respectfully) loved and enjoyed and shared, and I just cannot bring myself to treat it as the enemy for very long. I do freely admit that these are my own hang-ups, not necessarily caused by the advice givers of various diets and programs. And if those programs work, are working, or have worked for you, and you are able to be happy -- truly content and satisfied -- then awesome! But for me, these food focused programs do not stick. In the past I was so focused on a need for steady progress that I was at the point where losing a pound was like being done. Oh I made progress! That's great! I have succeeded! And....I'm done.
Indeed the reason why I am following this higgledy-piggledy health plan approach is because I have found that, for me, the other things out there simply do not work.
Do you know what works for me? Deciding to change my outlook and then focusing on one or two things at a time, shifting in an evolutionary spiral, until I have slowly transformed my habits, my mental, attitude, and my life focus. When I work on the joy, on what I think and how I feel, on how I want to think and feel, on what I can do and what I want to be able to do, the weight pretty much melts away.
I have had two times in my life where this happened. But wait, you might say, what happened. If it worked so well, why are you in the pickle you are in now?
Well, I discovered these two times in my life and named them as lifestyle reform and weight loss periods through careful reflection. At the time, they were just periods in my life where I was extremely unhappy, and I worked through it using some tried and true techniques of re-focusing, activities, meditation, and prayer.
I have finally come to a place in my heart that I am ready. I am ready to change. I am not on a diet, I am changing. I am not sure that it will be a "plan" that other people could follow. And, I am just at the beginning of my journey, with many miles left to go, and no clear must-meet goal to signal to others when it's over.
IT WILL NEVER BE OVER.
So perhaps I will name it the "Peace and Joys Forever" plan. PJs Forever! LOVE IT! Let's get our Jammies on -- Jam to the music while you get things done.
So let's Make our Peace and Share our Joys by being the best we can be, following the will of God in our lives.
Peace and Joys, y'all.
