Is that what you really want to do?
I was out of town this last week focused on an unpleasant but necessary task — helping to clear out my mother’s house. I managed to get some walking in, but ate out several times. In short — I was off my regular schedule.
When I came home, I found that I had LOST two pounds, and was actually at a new low weight.
Now, what shocked me was that instead of hearing the little voice inside respond (as I have worked so hard to train it to respond in situations like this), ”GOOD!!!! You can now lower that line in the sand another couple of pounds!!” I instead heard, “OK.. great.. you can relax a bit because you have a little ‘cushion’ weight now that you can gain.”
Holy Cow!!! I thought I had totally banished that voice forever. And yet, at the first sign of an opportunity, there it is back again, trying to get another foothold.
Do I WANT to regain those two pounds, or do I instead want to move my line in the sand down two pounds? It is a choice.
You can never stop listening to the voices in your head. You must constantly monitor them to make sure they are leading you where YOU want to go.
Aron Ralston
By now, you’ve probably either seen the movie 127 Hours, seen the trailer for the movie, or at least heard the “buzz” about it. You know that the movie is about the 127 hours that Aron Ralston spent at the bottom of a deep crevice in Utah – quite literally between a rock and a hard place — with his arm pinned by a large rock that he could not budge. He hadn’t told anyone where he was going, or when he’d be back, and realized that no one was going to come looking for him.
Aron’s options were to cut off his arm, or stay there pinned by the rock and die a slow, agonizing death from starvation and thirst. He chose to cut his arm off with the only instrument he had available to him — a dull pen knife.
This story illustrates the fact that although we cannot always control what happens to us, we almost always have options as far as how we react to the situation at hand. The options may be extremely limited, as were Aron’s, and we may not like any of them, as I’m sure Aron didn’t — but we generally do always have options.
Each and every day, you have the option to stay within your current lifestyle, or change it in any one of a thousand different ways. For example, when you find yourself experiencing a craving – let say for a bowl of ice cream — you may think you only have two options:
Go ahead and eat a large bowl of ice cream — or two — or three — or (what the heck) finish the whole pint
or
Continue to obsess about ice cream until you can’t stand it any more and … Go ahead and eat a large bowl of ice cream — or two — or three — or (what the heck) finish the whole pint
But think for a moment about all the other possibilities:
- Eat just a very small amount of ice cream — very slowly, savoring every single bite — and then go on with your day
- Think about something else
- Eat an apple instead (if you truly are hungry)
- Call a friend
- Read a book
- Go for a walk
- Clean out under the sink in the bathroom
- Start some laundry
- Write a letter
- Work on that knitting project
…and on and on…
If you are faced with the option of remaining at whatever weight you are, or doing what is necessary in order to lose weight… you may not like either of those options. But those ARE your options.
You get to pick! It’s YOUR choice.
It's easy to forget.
In the back room, there are jars full of mini candybars, nuts, chocolate covered almonds… anything you’d want for a little snack. The refrigerator is full of free soda. (Thank God there is also a water cooler.)
They call Tuesdays, “Fat Tuesday” because someone brings in donuts.
On Friday, the company buys lunch. One Friday, it was Red Robin. The next it was pizza. And there was the birthday celebration one afternoon – cheesecake from The Cheesecake Factory.
If I am not carefuly, this could quickly become a very toxic environment for me, because it would be so easy to just let down my guard and eat unconsciously.
But I am determined not to go down that path. What is required is that I simply.. pay attention to what I am doing and behave with intention. I’ll deal with the Friday lunches as best I can by ordering the least objectionable item I can find, and leaving some behind… because it does seem to be a social time, but I don’t have to eat any donuts, or take handfuls of mini-candy bars every time I walk by, or drink sodas from the fridge. I may have gone back to the land of the cubbies, but I’m not going back to the land of the chubbies.
In case you’re wondering about the little quote that is pasted over this photo:
Are you paralyzed?
Didn’t see that one coming, did you?
Draw a Line in the Sand
Even before I began calling it a Line in the Sand, I had one. For about ten years, I refused to weigh more than 200 pounds. I thought that 200 pounds was too much for me to weigh and I just refused to weigh that much. Without specifically thinking about it, I modified my lifestyle ENOUGH so that I never went over 200 pounds. Since I wasn’t actively weighing myself at the time, I did it by not allowing myself to outgrow my clothes anymore. Not gonna buy a bigger size pants. Just not gonna do it!
I’m guessing you have a Line in the Sand as well. Do you know where it is? Maybe you haven’t ever really thought about that, and you’re not sure. Fair enough. Let’s see if we can figure it out. The way you put a number to your own personal Line in the Sand is to answer this question:
How much more are you willing to weigh?
I specifically added the word “more” to that question because you are obviously willing to weigh what you currently weigh. If you weren’t, you wouldn’t be doing it, right? So we have to start there.
Now, are you willing to weigh 200 pounds more than your current weight? I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess that the answer to that question is “no.”
You probably didn’t even need to think about the answer to that question — you just know that “you’d never let yourself gain 200 pounds.” (At least I hope so.)
But, at what point — before you had gained those 200 pounds — would you slam on the brakes and say “WHOA!!” ? Would you let yourself gain 195? 150? 100? 25?
How about just five pounds? Would that be OK?
The point at which you would absolutely slam on the brakes could be your Line in the Sand.
I’m convinced that in order to successfully manage your (non-pregnant) weight, you absolutely must have a Line in the Sand, and that these are the rules regarding its use:
Rule Number One: The Line in the Sand should be no more than 3 pounds more than your current weight.
If your Line in the Sand is, say, 25 pounds more than your current weight, you will have a lot of latitude in which to get comfortable, and chances are, sooner or later, you’ll bump smack dab into it. And what will you do then? Will you slam on the brakes and take immediate action? Might be difficult, given that comfortable latitude (no pun intended, of course). Or will you simply bump it out another 25 pounds?
Which brings us to:
Rule Number Two: The Line in the Sand can NEVER, EVER be moved higher — only lowered.
I’ve often wondered how someone comes to weigh 400 pounds or more. The only answer I can come up with is — by passing 150, 175, 200, 225, 250, 275…
You see where I’m going?
Rule Number Three: If you should find yourself at or slightly over your Line in the Sand you take immediate action to move back “behind” it.
You cannot gain twenty pounds without first gaining a pound. And it’s much easier to lose a pound than it is to lose twenty. As my old friend Barney Fife used to say, “Nip it in the Bud!”
Rule Number Four: As you lose weight, you must lower your Line in the Sand accordingly.
Remember, you must always keep it no more than 3 pounds more than your current weight. If you keep your same old Line in the Sand as you lose weight, eventually, when you have lost ten or twenty pounds, you’ll find yourself once again in “dangerous latitudes.”
That’s pretty much it.
Set your initial Line in the Sand just one little pound less than your current weight, and then take action to step behind it.
Repeat as needed.
NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The deeper the tantrum got, the more he dug his heels in and resisted my efforts to calm him down.
“Do you want to come out of Time Out?” I would ask.
“NO!!!!!!!!!!!” he would scream at me.
“OK.. your choice.” I would reply.
He’d inch his way out of the corner, and I would move to plant his butt back where it needed to be.
He’d put his hands up to push me away and scream “Don’t put me back there!!!!!”
I’d put him back there. He’d scream some more.
“If you don’t want to be in Time Out anymore, you need to calm down, take a breath, and apologize. Then it’s over and you can come out of the corner.” I would explain calmly.
“NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” he would scream.
“OK.. your choice.”
Reflecting on the whole struggle, I could see that he absolutely wanted control over his situation, but he absolutely did not understand that…
HE HAD TOTAL CONTROL OVER IT ALL ALONG.
The reality was in order to get out of Time Out, he had to calm down and apologize, and he could do that at any time he chose.
Instead, he spent his time fighting AGAINST that reality.
If you can learn to imagine that “the struggles in your head” are very similar to whiney 3-year-olds having a temper tantrum, you can straighten your back, take a deep breath, and BE THE ADULT IN CHARGE AND MAKE THE RULES.
A 3-year-old who is exposed to consistent rules and discipline (meaning boundaries and teaching, not punishment) learns self-control.
The key is consistency. If sometimes the tantrum is effective and sometimes it isn’t, that is confusing for the child, and the tantrums just get worse because he thinks “may this time if I just yell a little longer and a little louder…..”
It’s hard being a parent. But you have to step up to the plate and do what must be done to TEACH the child.
The payoff, however, is that in the long run, you raise a happy child with self-control who knows where the boundaries are, and feels comfortable staying within them.
And the trantrums cease — making life SO much more pleasant.
Does this mean you can’t ever have a piece of chocolate? No. It means YOU (as the parent in charge) decide when it is appropriate.
You do not allow the whiney three-year-old to control that.
Choose your friends wisely
BUT… the woman also said that she “swore by Weight Watchers” because there was a period of 3 months where she didn’t go to the meetings and… she gained 12 pounds.
As if merely going to the meetings was the thing that had been responsible for her losing weight, and missing the meetings was the thing that had been responsible for her gaining weight. Did she realize at all that she had gained weight because her BEHAVIOR during that time had also changed? Why did she believe so adamently that she was unable to maintain a consistent behavior without attending the meetings?I got to thinking about the old adage “Birds of a feather flock together.”
Full disclosure — I’ve never been to a Weight Watcher’s meeting — but it occurred to me that Weight Watchers has a vested interest in promoting the idea that you NEED TO KEEP COMING TO THE MEETINGS in order to lose weight or maintain your weight loss. (That’s how they make their money, after all.)
Did this woman WANT to keep going to Weight Watchers meeting for the rest of her life? (They have “Lifetime Memberships” after all..)..
Seems to me a better association to make would be to find a group of active people (like a tennis club, walking group, dance class, running club, bicycling club, hiking group, etc.).. rather than to forever and always be a part of a group that “struggles with their weight.”
Would you BUY clothes that were two sizes too big?
“Holy Cow,” I thought, “I can’t give them away! I’d better keep them in case the weight comes back.”
“…in case the weight comes back.”
Let’s think about that for a moment.
Is “the weight” some external entity that is going to break into my house and attach itself to me some night while I sleep?
Of course not!
If I accept the reality (and I absolutely do) that I control my weight, then I control whether or not I allow myself to regain weight. If I do not allow myself to regain weight, then I won’t regain weight, and I won’t ever need clothes that are larger than the size I am currently wearing.
Very simple.
Taking it a bit further, do you ever go to the store and purchase brand new clothes that are two sizes too big for you because you might need them at some time in the future? How about four sizes too big? Better be prepared, right?
Wait… no? You wouldn’t do that?
What’s the difference?
The answer is… there essentially is no difference.
You carry an umbrella “in case” it rains (because you have NO control over that).
You have 100% control over whether or not you gain weight.
You don’t need an escape hatch! Call the charity of your choice and schedule a pick-up.
I control where I go
Let’s face the reality that we are all human, thus we are prone to making the occasional mistake. We don’t want it to happen to [sic] often when we are on a weight loss plan that we are paying for, right? However, if it does happen it is absolutely essential to remember that when we do make a tiny slip up, our true success is not always measured by how well we are doing at the moment, but rather, how well we recover from our slip up.
How about facing the reality that:
it wasn’t a mistake?
A mistake is putting in a tablespoon of cumin into the chili instead of a half teaspoon. A mistake is not carrying the 1 when you’re adding a column of figures. A mistake is grabbing the bottle of shampoo instead of the body wash.
The choices you make each and every day about what (and how much) you eat and how much (or how little) you move your butt aren’t accidents or mistakes.
They are purposeful decisions that you are responsible for.
I’m sorry if that sounds harsh, but it’s the truth and I can’t change it (and neither can you). But, trust me that when you actually accept that particular reality, it becomes much easier to navigate your day-to-day life.
You can’t change any decisions you made yesterday — that train has left the station. But what you can do is live in the present moment with the constant question “is this what I want?”
Take a step back and think about it for a while.
You control where you go. You can STEER.
water... water... water....
The mechanics of keeping your blood pressure on an even keel when you go from lying down to standing up (do that too quickly and you realize there IS a period of adjustment). Need to run to a few seconds to catch the elevator or the subway? Thank you adrenal gland for getting the heart to pump a bit faster and the lungs to take in a bit more oxygen. What about remembering to do all the little things like blinking and breathing and keeping that heart beating. The digestive system never knows where or when its next meal is going to come from, but it has to figure out what nutrients it can use from what comes down the pike.
Unless you’ve experienced vertigo, you probably don’t fully appreciate what your inner ear does for you.
And this heat! How’d you like to be tasked with keeping an even body temperature when the body is going in an out of air conditioning and oppressive heat all day long? Could we have a little water down here, please?
I met a woman for lunch this week to discuss a business proposition. We had only just arrived at the restaurant and she asked immediately for a glass of water and drank about half of it eagerly. A few minutes later she said she wasn’t feeling well at all, and it all went down hill from there. About half an hour later, I was accompanying her by ambulance to the Emergency Room where she was treated for heat exhaustion. It was pretty scary there for a while. After days and days of high heat and humidity, that morning had just been a bridge too far and her body could no longer regulate her body temperature.
Our bodies are incredibly adaptive and resilient, and most of the time, we just take it for granted that they will work properly.
Until they don’t.
You try to maintain your car according to the manufacturer’s recommendations, don’t you? Change the oil regularly? Rotate the tires? Check the fluid levels? Get new brakes when needed?
Your body is a vehicle, too. Doesn’t it deserve to be maintained with at least the same care?
For heavens sake.. stop fussing about how much you dislike your thighs, and say a big THANK YOU to your body… for keeping you alive.
Drink some water. Eat a few vegetables. Take a walk.
Show a little love.
Back to Basics
Whenever you hear “Eat Less/Move More” you’re all ready with your YEAHBUTS that explain why it isn’t that simple. At least not for you. You’ve got cravings. There’s food all around. Exercise is hard. You don’t have any willpower. You’ve got a bad knee/hip/foot/back. Your schedule is crazy. There’s just too much going on at work right now. You’re an emotional eater.
If you can just take a minute to quiet your thoughts and push the emotion completely out. Step away and just look at the mechanics of it all.
Your body is basically a machine that needs nourishment and energy for daily activities. That nourishment and energy is provided by the food you eat. If your daily activities require more energy than is provided by the food you eat, your body will have to tap into the stored fat and use that. And when that consistently happens over time, you will lose weight.
That’s really pretty much it.
The choice you can make is to accept that reality and work with it (and start or continue losing weight), or continue to complain about it and fight against it (and stay frustrated that you aren’t losing any weight).
Practice pushing away the YEAHBUTS and just look at the realities. You’ll find it’s so much easier that way.