I've been on a diet or have thought about being on a diet since my mother put me on one at the age of 7. I didn't understand then. I was just a kid and I ate the way my parents allowed me to eat, the way that they ate. I liked potato chips and ice cream and donuts.
But I quickly came to realize that food is tied up in so much more than simply physical nourishment. More times than I will ever care to realize, I have eaten and eaten and eaten as a way to shut out feelings of self-doubt, anxiety, anger, boredom, loneliness, and so on. Food silenced and nourished me on a deeper level. Food was my first, and most major, love-hate relationship. It's always been there for me and yet has caused me so much grief. After I'd binge, I'd vow that the next day would be different. That I could no longer eat in this catastrophic, mindless way.
Certainly the next day I always started off with fresh intentions. I'd eat healthy, stop bingeing, stick to a diet, lose weight, find long-lasting peace within myself. But it never lasted. Food was too stable for me. It was too comforting. Intentions or not, I always faltered.
Until now. I'm tired of hating my body, I'm tired of feeling out of control. I'm tired of being overweight and allowing myself to define myself as that and only that. I feel that my ideas about myself as an overweight person are coloring my relationship with my partner and has affected so many decisions I've made throughout my life. Reforming lifelong habits seems near impossible and sometimes the challenge seems too much to surmount. I know that I want to be healthy, I want to be thinner and more toned, I want to feel more confident and at peace, but it's hard. I really want to enter the IIN program at the end of February and know without question that I am meant to be there and that I will do good work. And I don't think I can do that when I walk into a room and feel people instinctively assess me as an overweight person, before anything else.
So I start every day now by reading an intention that I wrote for myself. I started to really focus my efforts on health and weight loss at the beginning of September and I lost 7 lbs. in one month. I was so excited and inspired and for the first time really seeing promise in myself. But the last month I've found myself stuck. I feel that I'm eating pretty healthy almost all of the time and getting exercise several times a week, but I have been stuck at 173 lbs. for weeks now and I'm not sure what to do. The written intention reminds me everyday that I'm aware that this will be a constant struggle but not an insurmountable one. Whatever your intention is, make it strong, make it powerful. There are millions of people in this world, I would guess, that want to lose weight, but wanting it and doing it are not the same thing.
So, what is your intention? As you wake up every morning, as you eat your meals, as you go to work, as you interact with your family or friends or roommates or co-workers, are you mindful of what it is that you're doing, eating, saying, etc. or are you just putting one foot in front of the other? I've been doing the latter for 26 years. That's a long time but I would like to think that I have a long life ahead of me. I don't want to react blindly for another 26, 36, 46 years.
My intention is to live out loud without being afraid of who I am or the choices I make. I want to be a positive, proud, honest example of a healthy, energetic person for my friends, family and future clients. I don’t want to make the choices, anymore, of the person I’m not. Overeating and eating junk, processed foods and making excuses to not move intentionally on a daily basis are not who I am and I intend to be who I am fully from now on.