Real-time Failure: Taking Action to Move Back into Success
Speaking about my hunger drive is a new world to me, and so is blogging. I am learning about both as I do these simultaneously.
I have learned that I should never title my blog posts in multiple parts.
Last week, I thought there would be nothing that I would like more than to write Part 2 about discovering my trigger foods. This week, the moment is all wrong.
Writing about my trigger foods from a place of understanding and confidence is not currently where my mind lives right now.
What I need to do today, at this moment, is refocus myself. To that end, I center one of my favorite truths.
There are no magic answers, but the answers feel like magic.
Take One Small, Short Step at a Time
I have been thinking about the purpose of Transform Shadows and where to go with it now that I have this endeavor up and running.
When I first made my story and website public, I had decided on two seemingly contradictory timelines to guide myself through breaking my silence.
These timelines show my ongoing learning around making changes in small, short steps.
I can shut this down at any time.
Even though I no longer see my weight as a character flaw, I worried about how social stigmas around weight, obesity, and disordered eating patterns would impact me.
Giving myself a way out helps me push publish – every single time I share something.
So far, so good. My world has not collapsed. And, there are people who have shared that my words and story are resonating with them.
Thank you to those who have liked or commented publicly or privately on any of the ideas. Your support takes me to my second timeline.
I will try this for a year.
Treat Myself like a Food Addict Every Day
I love my smile in this video clip. More specifically, I love the fact that I can say “I treat myself as a food addict every day” with a matter-of-fact, pleasant smile on face.
Being a food addict is who I am and how I live my life. I can deny that truth, but I live with food addiction at this weight, at twice my size, or at any other weight.
My addiction will be in the center of my life one way or another. I will be in control of my addiction, or my addiction will control me.
There is no middle ground for me. I wish there was. But, goodness and hope in my life have emerged from knowing this about myself, and I feel incredible — better than ever.
To name myself as a food addict conveys a newfound self-acceptance around my lifelong shadows of weight. This self-acceptance started with silently speaking and believing that reality.
At first, the admission was harder than it needed to be. I gave too much importance to addiction as a personal shortcoming of willpower and mind and not enough to my genetic realities.
Most importantly, I did not understand my hunger drive. I would lose half my weight before I felt my hunger drive. It took even longer to understand.
Admit hard Truths
“I will start tomorrow” has been a complex idea in my life. At its best, the idea of starting tomorrow held optimism and hope; at its worst, the idea worked as a self-delusion, enabling moments in time to swallow me whole.
Most often, starting tomorrow worked as a self-defeating form of failure, a feeling of brokenness around my weight, a reminder of what I could not get right in this aspect of my life.
Untangling the maze of meanings of “starting tomorrow” provides a complex mental challenge. The truth is that I started on so many tomorrows that the phrase was almost rendered meaningless.
Often, I felt the emptiness of starting tomorrow even as I committed to it. Many of my tomorrows ended almost as soon as they started. The pattern was predictable, whether it lasted one day, one week, one month.
My resolve started strong. Soon, fatigue around tempting foods overpowered my resolve. I careened off course, defeated and overwhelmed by what I could not get right.
I stared at the same problem over and over again. I tried the same solutions and always got the same results. Starting tomorrow happened so many times in my life that I nearly gave up hope. But never entirely.
To succeed, there has to be a starting point – there has to be a tomorrow where that day becomes the day. Past successes provided tantalizing glimpses of what could be, optimistic peaks at a healthier future. Hope.
Begin with the End in Mind
Three years ago, Thanksgiving weekend marks the time when I started thinking about making transformative change in deep, substantive ways.
I enjoyed the family holiday gatherings, but I felt terrible from the food. Food and leftovers tormented me for days before and after the holiday. This happened every year.
I was fed up – literally and figuratively. And, being fed up went far beyond the food.
All the lifestyle diseases that stem from obesity were becoming inevitable realities in my life. I felt heavy, achy, tired, and older than my years. This was not how I wanted to live.
To live, I needed new solutions to the lifelong struggles that plagued me around weight, health, and wellness. I had to face my shadows in new ways if I wanted to transform them.
The food turbulence of that holiday season made getting successful traction less likely for myself. I gave myself a few weeks to reflect, plan, and learn before starting.
I knew I had to begin with the end in mind. I started asking myself: Why do I want to change? How do I want to live? What do I want to do?
Start Where I Am Now
Starting new things can be challenging. Starting this public writing has been more challenging than I thought it would be. Sharing this video is more challenging than sharing my writing.
None of these challenges come anywhere close to the challenge of making the decision to transform myself, to start a new way of life, to forge a new way of living, to dare to hope.
Still, speaking and writing about my personal shadows around weight and weight loss challenge me — even though I see my story as one of hope, optimism, and possibilities. Several thoughts help me.
When I started preparing to make changes, I included the self-directive: Start where I am now. I continually use this line to focus on the present, to avoid traps of inaction that dwell on the past or future. Start where I am helps me now.
So does knowing that food addiction is more common than I first thought. Many people fight battles with addictive foods, no matter what their weights. The strength of food addiction is not directly proportional to size.
Genetics shape our weights differently — how we store weight, how our bodies handle processed foods, what our set-points are for how much food we eat regularly. Change around individual genetics is difficult but possible.