One Bite At A Time…Losing weight is the same. You lose weight one pound at a time and you replace old patterns one day at a time.
It’s a common notion that it takes at least 3 weeks to develop a new habit (the actual process can take much longer: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-long-does-it-really-take-to-form-a-habit/). As I marched forward on my journey (the elephant), after the newness had worn off I needed to keep recommitting to my efforts. If you read yesterday’s post I talked about keeping things simple. Within that simple plan was realizing I needed to keep my goals small (the bites). Each week weight in was a form of validation that I was doing something right. My clothes began to fit differently and I moved down notches in my belt. Even though nobody outside of my immediate family knew what I was doing (so no external validation yet) I was still seeing some progress.
Daily AI Image Note: As always I ‘love’ AI image generation. When I asked ChatGPT to create an image of someone eating an elephant, and so it didn’t end up too disturbing, I asked for it to be cartoonish. Here’s what I got…Did it make the elephant look like food? Yep! Did it add a knife standing on end for no reason, render a table with the weirdest legs and tablecloth ever and create something as part of the elephant that looks like ‘breadfish?” Also yep! Not sure if the little dude sitting at the end of the table is going to eat the elephant or is sharing a drink (two straws) while somehow offering him the fork as some kind of offering.
Also, it goes without saying that you should not try to eat an elephant. No matter how many calories per day you are used to consuming you simply can’t do it. Not to mention it’s probably against the law and really just not nice for the elephant.
By re-committing in small ‘bites’ each day I kept my expectations closely aligned with my progress. This helped me avoid frustration and gave time for new habits to take hold.
Some key takeaways:
- Track each meal as soon as you eat it.
- Have a game plan. Plot out what you’re going to eat for each meal if possible. This is especially true if I am traveling or eating out.
- Have a go-to meal for each point in the day. I have a standard set of meals I eat almost every day for breakfast and lunch. I know the WeightWatchers points of these meals and can make them quickly. Not to mention I don’t mind eating them every day. I know this sounds a bit monotonous but taking the guesswork out of eating has helped me ensure consistency.
- No is ok. I’ll have a lot more to say on this in a future post but I had to learn to say no to food offers. When you’re overweight everyone assumes you want whatever is being served. It’s not anyone’s fault, at least for me, it is just what everyone came to expect from me. Learning to stick to my boundaries with a polite ‘no’ has been critical to helping those around me to begin to understand something has changed. At first I didn’t tell people I was on a diet, I just said no or chose better food options–if available.
- At the end of each day I take a few minutes to do a small self-assessment. No day is perfect so I remind myself what I did well and where I could have done better.
For everyone who has been following along the past few days–thank you! If I can help even one person by sharing my story this is all worthwhile. If anyone reading this has questions or needs help please just reach out. I am always happy to talk about this stuff. I am not a professional and I certainly don’t have all the answers but when it comes to losing weight and sustaining that loss I have probably faced almost all of the challenges that can get thrown at you.