By Lena Mattice
A few years ago, I set a goal to do a side plank on the beaches of Hawaii when I reached my goal weight of 140#. I was so excited about that goal, and I was so excited to go to Hawaii. Well, here I am in this picture doing a side plank on the north beaches of Hawaii with my grandson.
I was not 140# but I was living a dream of doing a side plank in Hawaii with all my kids and my grandson. We had a great time but there was one thing that kept me stuck in losing weight. My thoughts about not doing something until I reached a goal. In the past I would always set a goal to get a new outfit or do something fun if I lost so many pounds. Those goals were never met, and I still got my reward. So, what was the point of setting the goal? Do I need to get a reward when I set a goal? What if I set the goal just to make myself better? What if that was the reward? What was keeping me stuck and how do I get out of that problem? These are just some of my thoughts around reaching my goal weight.
Being a big person, you have lots of self-conscious thoughts. Have you ever walked into a room and thought “Oh man where am I going to sit. I need to find the closest chair to the door and one that has a lot of room around it.” Have you ever thought, “what am I doing in the gym when I look the way I do.” Have you ever thought, “I hope people don’t see all the things I put in my cart that is junk food and think no wonder she looks the way she looks.” Have you ever just wanted to eat what you wanted to eat all the time and not have to worry about how terrible it was going to make you feel and know you are going to regret eating it but don’t know how to stop.
This is my life daily. My whole life food has been an issue for me, I love to eat! It does not matter what it is. I love fruits and veggies, I love cakes, ice cream, and cookies. I love main dishes, I love salads. I love the taste of food. One thing I don’t like is how I feel for days after eating certain foods. So WHY? WHY do I eat those yummy foods even though, as I put the food in my mouth, I know how I am going to feel in a couple of hours after I eat it?
My whole life I have not felt like I had the prettiest body in the world. My mother had weight issues and most of my sisters and brothers had weight issues. Some of my siblings had the lap band done or the gastric by-pass done. It worked for some of them and some of them gained their weight back. I did not want to do that; I wanted to fix how I think about food and figure out how to help my brain get to the weight I wanted to be. I wanted to be the CEO of my own health. Google says, A CEO is the Chief Executive Officer, a person at the top position that is responsible for implementing existing plans and policies, A person that is responsible for improving the company. I want to be a person that manages improving my own health.
I want to use my prefrontal cortex to decide the foods I should eat for my body. I don’t want to eat just to get a dopamine hit. I want to be the one in charge of what goes into my body. I want to respect and honor myself by having self-discipline. Self-discipline is changing my heart and my mind about how I think about food. To do this, I wake up at 4am every morning and plan my day of food and exercise. I make a plan because it is easier to stick to the plan then to just eat what I want when I want to eat it. When a CEO runs a company, they have a plan. They don’t just walk in that morning and say I think I’ll have a meeting today. I think we need to find some clients. The CEO has a plan and now so do I. I write down my goal and my plan and I refer back to it during the day, so I remember what it is I want. It is easier to turn down foods that are not good for my body, when I know it is not on my plan for the day. Does this mean I never eat something not on my plan, NO! Does this mean I follow my plan everyday perfectly, NO! It means I make a plan and I do the best I can to stick to that plan. I do know that on the days I stick to my plan I feel much better about myself, and I start trusting myself to make the best plan for me that day. In Christy Lee’s class Live Life Lean she talks about writing about “How I choose to nourish my body…. How I choose to strengthen my body.” These are all choices that we make every day for our body. Not one person in this world can make you eat something; you choose to put it in your mouth.
A few weeks ago, we had teacher appreciation week at school. People brought in food every day that week and I had to choose what I was going to eat and what I was not going to eat. There were moments that I would want to throw in the towel and just eat whatever I wanted. But I had a plan and most days I stuck to my plan, some days I did not stick to my plan. In reality I knew I was the one choosing to put the food in my mouth. The thoughts – That was so nice of them to bring us food, I must eat something. That thought did not serve me at all. There is no excuse for eating things that can harm my body. That was just a thought and I had to choose to eat it. I am the CEO, and I oversee what I put into my body. It has been a very long process, but I am learning day by day to manage my eating and to think before I eat.
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