Maintaining Healthy Behaviors

For those who have recently started their weight loss journey, don’t be disheartened if you aren’t able to jump right into a Whole30 goal (or something similar). I’ve been on my journey for 7 years, and I’ve just reached the point I needed to be in to be successful. Now, that’s not to say it will take you 7 years, but there are steps that need to be taken to prepare your mind for such a goal. 

Rid Your Life of Negative Self-Talk & Mindless Eating

Over the course of this seven years, I have battled negative self-talk (which took a long time to make part of my regular behavior) and worked on ridding my home of processed foods. When I started my journey, my time was invested in research. I have learned A LOT about the body, nutrition, exercise, and how hormones can make or break a goal. Of course, this seven years hasn’t been a non-stop journey. I had a major problem with mindless eating. I read the book French Women Don’t Get Fat, and it really helped me look at my mindless eating. I also started looking at food as “is this worth it,” which helped me just completely cut some things out.

Research and Implement

I have read a number of books on eating plans, and have identified that low carb eating is most effective since the body burns carbs before fat (I want it burning fat!). When I started this journey, I had a major carb dependency. Heller/Heller helped me a lot. I read two of their books, the one I remember the title to is The Carbohydrate Addict’s Diet – The Lifelong Solution to Yo-Yo Dieting. I read Rick Gallop’s book on The Low G. I. Diet. This helped me lose enough weight the right way to get my hormones working correctly, and I was able to get pregnant. My journey got REALLY serious after that. I realized my eating DID have a lot to do with how my body worked or didn’t work. I had always blamed PCOS on my weight gain (and it does contribute but only as part of a cycle), instead of blaming my weight for my PCOS diagnosis. My ability to have a baby totally showed me that what I put in my body was what was MOST important! It could change the diagnosis in a lot of cases.

I have consumed almost everything Lyle McDonald has written on the subject of Training the Obese Beginner. He is totally incredible! I learned more through his blog posts than throughout my entire journey! My most recent change of course was the Whole30 (which totally changed my life) and then continuing with mostly a Paleo way of eating (with some deviation, but not sizable nor consistent). I am reading It Starts With Food by Melissa and Dallas Hartwig (creators of Whole30), which has caused repeated outbursts of “ohhhhhhhhhhhh” and “wooooow I didn’t know that.” Totally awesome book! 

Fitness & Accountability

I started keeping a video blog on YouTube (which has been deleted in the midst of a relapse, but I’m going to start another one) of short videos on how I felt after working out with Tony Horton’s Power90 (I really like him) and Chalene Johnson’s Turbo Jam, what I was and wasn’t able to do, which was helpful in keeping me accountable and was encouraging to others. Now, my fitness program is all conclusive. I am a member at Curves where I get cardio, strength training and the accountability of an awesome coach–along with an awesome support group of other ladies pursuing the same goal of great health.

Turning Meltdowns into Behavior Modification Plans

This is just an abbreviated version of my journey. There’s been a lot of crying, screaming, cussing, throwing brushes at mirrors in self-hate (I’m just being honest), binging because of clothes not fitting (as if that was going to help at all), did I say crying??? Yeah, it’s not been a fun road, but with each of these meltdowns, I have been able to use my psychology and behavior analysis education/background to talk myself through it. Cool down. Realize that I made choices to get here, which means that I can make choices to get back to where I want to be, and develop a plan for getting there. I realize not everyone has this education and background, which is one reason I’m writing this blog. I’d be happy to help you with a plan if you find you need help. Just comment, and we’ll exchange email addresses.

Plans are just plans, though. They aren’t to be rigid. They should be living, which means that they should change with you as your life changes. As my behavior modification plans for myself began to change to meet the new challenges in my life and as I implemented the new knowledge I had acquired, I started seeing success. I’ve reached goals and blown right past them. I have started making what I have learned a part of my everyday living instead of doing it for only a time and going back to the way I once lived. 

Make a Permanent Place for Success

Making a home for success in my life is what I have done. I have always treated it like a visitor in the past. It came and then it would go. I don’t want success to be a visitor. I want to maintain the healthy behaviors that I have learned and implemented. They are here to stay, and now, are also a part of the way I run my home kitchen for my family.  Success is a permanent part of my family now!

Have you been able to maintain the healthy behaviors you’ve been trying to add to your life? What has worked for you?

How to Accept the Need for Change : Enlist Family Support

This is the last post on how to accept the need for change. In this post, we will cover the importance of enlisting family support. It is so important to have a strong support system when you are attempting to make such a huge change in your life.

Think about it. If you are morbidly obese, most likely, you have been overweight a great portion of your life. You became morbidly obese by not accepting the need for change, and NOW you have accepted that need for change, and your life will look much different than it does now.

Whenever a morbidly obese person begins to make changes in order to shed the years of unwanted weight that has been dragging them down, it isn’t something that is planned for 90 days. Power 90, while an awesome program and great if you’re going to use it back to back for multiple sets of 90 days, won’t help you reach your goal in 90 days (unless of course your goal was to workout 90 days in a row and to that I quote Tony Horton the creator of Power 90, “Press Play Every Day.”)

If you aren’t morbidly obese, perhaps you are the friend or family member of someone who is. Let me tell you that the measures you take to lose weight that work for you each time you need to shed the weight you’ve added on, won’t work (at least as fast) for your loved one. If I could say something to those family members who wish their loved one would lose weight, I would say, “Put on a fat suit for a month and live. See if you feel like changing anything except shedding the suit which you can do in a flash. Your loved one has to live in that suit.”

This IS NOT going to be an easy process. Your loved one is going to come face to face with so many realities about him/herself during this journey, and they are going to need you. There will be times they will want to hide under a rock, and there will be times they will want to dress up and be seen. YOU NEED TO BE THERE FOR BOTH! They need you!

They DO NOT need you to be judgmental. They DO NOT need you to tell them what they should or shouldn’t do. If you’ve never been there with the same set of issues, you don’t truly have a clue what they need to do anyway. You need to just be there to say, TOMORROW IS A NEW DAY. YOU GET TO START ALL OVER AGAIN!! DON’T LOOK BACK. ONLY LOOK FORWARD BECAUSE THE FUTURE IS ALL THAT MATTERS.

Be ready to help pick them up when they have worked out 6 days a week with Tony Horton doing Power 90, making HUGE changes in their food choices and don’t lose a significant amount of weight. They need to be reminded that there are changes being made inside the body that can’t be seen yet, but their hard work IS paying off. It takes a while to get over being abused.

I didn’t really intend to speak directly to the loved ones, but hey, if you don’t know how to address them about your need for their help, then give them the link to this article and let them read it. The work isn’t all for them though. You have to be strong enough to step up and say, “I need your support.”

On my birthday this year, I sat with my family and had a serious heart to heart. I told them, starting today, I will only drink water (excluding milk and occasional 100% juice). No sweet tea. No Diet Dr. Pepper. Not even Crystal Light additives to my water. They could have said, “ok here we go again,” but they didn’t. I was determined to succeed. I looked to my husband and said, “if I text you saying to bring me a drink home, you better bring home a large cup of ice and a bottle of water.” I went on to tell each of them, “I will likely contact you and BEG for you to bring me a Diet Dr. Pepper, but if I do, please bring me crushed ice.” (It’s what I have learned helps me get past the need for a soda. That and a really strong breath spray, which will kill your craving very fast.) I succeeded. He brings home large cups of crushed ice when he wants to be sweet and surprise me. I haven’t had anything except water since. It was a small battle toward winning a HUGE WAR. Drinking water makes me want to eat healthier. I’m sure there’s some physiological reason for that.

So, today’s homework. Who is your support system? Make your calls or better yet, call a meeting and talk to them all at once. Let them know that you may likely fall on your face several times throughout this process, after all it will likely take a long time to get to the point you want to be (that’s ok–the time is going to pass anyway, so why not be working toward what you want to be.) Be sure you let them know your weaknesses, and how they can help you. Remind them that you don’t need them to make healthy choices for you by changing everything around you, BUT they don’t need to sabotage you with making things they know are triggers for you (so be sure to discuss your triggers–we will be covering Triggers next week).

I know you can do it. We can make this journey a successful one. Just remember, it’s only the future that matters. Who cares what you DID? Look at what you are yet to do. THAT is what is of importance. I, too, am here as support for you. Comment and share with me what your plan is. I look forward to being a part of your journey and having you be a part of mine.

This is the end of “How to Survive Morbid Obesity: Accept the Need for Change” the 1st portion of the series “How to Survive Morbid Obesity.” Next in the series, “How to Survive Morbid Obesity: Identify Triggers.”